Day 8

Distance run over the last 24 hours: 155 nautical miles

Distance to destination: 1624 nautical miles

Sailing can be maddening at times.  On Alcedo we are enjoying very benign conditions, and we should be happy.  We are in the Tropics now, the weather is warm and sunny, the sea state is almost flat, and the wind direction continues to allow us to point directly at our destination.  All that is missing is the crucial ingredient - enough wind to drive us quickly towards St Lucia.  For most of last night and this morning the wind has hovered between 4 and 7 knots, while we really need something over 10 knots to make a fast passage.  We are not becalmed and we are making the best we can of the conditions, but progress is slower than we would like.  The consolation is that most of the ARC fleet must be facing similarly fickle winds (indeed we slowly gained on another yacht during the night and then passed him this morning). Not that we are in the least competitive, of course.
As for the trade winds, we are coming to the conclusion that these are merely nautical mythology....