ARC blog birthday & advent

We have sailed about 700 distances and have 2100 to go.
The day has been almost perfect. Good sailing with genacker filled as well as possible since this morning and 5-7 knots in VMG. To fill years out at sea was a different event. In addition to the sailing, we had coffee with cake on the flybridge. There I was congratulated with song and laughter.
Then just 30 minutes later we see a whole bunch of dolphins playing in front of the boat. A few hours later, at 19;00 it was time for dinner. It was not some frozen package that was heated up, no it was freshly taken dinner from the sea. Mahi-Mahi. One of the best dinners I've had all year. I bow to my comrades who prepared this delicious dinner.

What a day I had on my 59th birthday

Mikael Tinglöf on Shama

Shama Shena hello

On the Atlantic Ocean, the first Advent was celebrated on Shama's flybridge with a mulled wine party and gingerbread, while since lunchtime we go straight to the goal in a good wind. Crunching gingerbread while we happily watch the log remain stable at 8.5 knots and more and hear the bow wave gossiping about the energy in the sails makes the joy barometer go through the roof. In honor of the day, we pull up an 8 kg tuna and look forward to a fantastic dinner.

Life rarely gets better.
Fredrik Mölzer

Cheers from Bianco!
Life on board is currently unashamedly good. The wind has finally started to come for real and looks to stay all the way to the finish. Halfway longitude is about 2 days away, fun we think! Since we are going relatively straight, it will also be halfway on the sail in distance, but in time we believe that the second half will go much faster as the speed is finally starting to increase. We have had incredibly nice fishing. Today, the first advent, we have caught 3 mahi mahi of between 2 and 3 kilos each, will be a festive meal for lunch. It has also been served gingerbread for the morning snack, yummy. Last night we had problems with the rudder kick, the bolt in the lower attachment had been unscrewed and bent, but a quick effort with equal parts violence will and gas stove we managed to bend it back straight and now sits in place with a clamp instead of a nut. Increased rigging control to once every half hour to make sure everything is as it should be.

The own reflection I make is that the first advent last year was celebrated on a fortissimo 33a named Agraff out at Skagen during a 12-hour sailing with SXK, where the entire crew got seasick and detached each other in lee. The skipper of that boat, Fritiof, is also out on the Atlantic through ARC+ on the boat song of the sea, think we both have made an upgrade regarding the first advent celebration even though it was an experience as well. The Christmas tree has arrived and is taped on the table in the salon, also some Christmas candy and Santa hats on the crew. Basically the whole boat took a morning shower in the cockpit with salt water, did good for morale and mood.

We have stopped fishing for the day due to too many fish, a not so common problem outside the Atlantic!
A nice first advent wishes Alex and Dan with crew on Bianco, and fair winds to all who are out and about on oceanera!

I wake up this Advent morning to Christmas music and the smell of rice pudding after 3.5 hours of sleep.

I pull out my Santa hat and get up. The gennaker is already up. Anna steers the boat, Lisa guards the sheet. It is overcast, but warm in the air. In the saloon, Patrik, with his hair upside down and a newly fixed musche, is gulping down porridge. This is the first time I see that Chef Fredrik has a tattoo on his thigh. I am the pursuit of happiness, it says. How appropriate for this whole situation, I think. The breakfast ends with Hans and I singing Feliz Navidad, eagerly encouraged by the cheerful Johanna. Rebecka is still sleeping and I wonder to myself how it is possible in this noise. Out on the foredeck, Captain-Fredrik is lying on his stomach and seems to be trying to pet the dolphins we have visiting. Yes, we have Advent dolphins. I feed them the remains of my porridge, then crawl back to bed. Must try to sleep a few more hours to cope with the day ahead. I had the 2-4am shift last night. After two days of calm - which, however, were lovely and we could swim with more than 4 km of sea under us! - we have now made it far enough south to find warm trade winds that we gennaker sailing in. Captain Fredrik and mate Sofi are patient educators. In a short time we have become an effective team at getting the uncontrolled and demanding balloon sail up and down - it is like a defiant young horse that pulls away in the wrong direction as soon as the rider loses concentration. We can't ride for more than an hour at a time each. But when we succeed, the boat flies forward. Last night I had my best sailing experience ever: in the moonlight reflected in the waters of the Atlantic, I surfed along at 9 knots, holding the course with the help of Cassiopeia. Happiness! Life is beautiful, the earth is wondrous and I am grateful.
Here on the boat, life is lived in shifts of 4 hours during the day and 2 hours at night. Still, I manage to maintain a sense of a fairly normal circadian rhythm, and it's not nearly as hard as I feared it would be. Of course, it helps that everyone here takes their responsibility and that the atmosphere is good. I think we are kind to each other. It's a pleasant, very small world we have created for ourselves out here in the big water, filled with conversations about life, nonsense and focused sailing. Home feels very far away. Or maybe that's where I wake up the next time I open my eyes.

Well, I'm going to get up and turn off the Christmas music so I can sleep.

With kind regards, Kiki