Special mention today has to go to Lush Crew Member, Martin Mc Carthy! AKA “Marty”

Marty has sailed the whole trip like the true gent he is and has always dressed to impress even in storm force conditions!

In fact I can remember the time he arrived on deck in 35 kts of wind in a crisp blue shirt, chinos, national yacht club belt and dubarry deck shoes!

A wave rolled down Lush’s deck and soaked him through and through….not a bother to him, he just whipped his brow and carried on sailing!

Tonight he topped off his evening attire with full National Yacht Club Tie, Belt, Cap & Gilet!

As you can see he puts all us dirty, smelly & unshaven fellas to shame!

He is a very proud National Yacht Club member and promotes, “The Nash” where possible and will have anyone joined up if they express the slightest bit of interest!

So Marty it’s a total pleasure to sail with you and get to know you, your one in 3 trillion! :0)

Ladies and Gentleman I give you Mr Martin Mc Carthy! :0)

One Life….make sure you living it…by dressing for the occasion! :0) x

Well just as I was disappearing to my bunk this morning after handing over the watch to Marty, Audds & Dave the wind had dropped and come round to just aft of our beam….the word…KITE just popped into my head and I mentioned to Audds that if it stays the same we would launch the kite at midday when the whole crew were up to help….

Audds face lit up as any SB3 sailor knows the chance to play with a asymmetric spinnaker is a treat especially on a yacht like LUSH!!!

I heard her mention it to the guys and heard their SB3 enthusiasm kick in to!

So as I lay down in my bunk and I looked up through the hatch at the jib and just thought, “Sod it….lets get it up!!”

So I launched back out on deck and said to the guys, ” C’mon lets get the kite up!”

I have never seen a watch jump to attention so quickly!

Now when I say kite, on Lush her kite is 3000 square meters of sail!!! It’s quite simply MASSIVE!!

So after a while to set her up ready to hoist we finally listened to the halyard winch turn on high speed as the 110 foot long sock lifted off the deck en-route for the masthead!

I looked back at the cockpit and said, “ready???” “Yep!” comes back the reply and I said, “Okay guys, unleash her!”

Up went the sock and the kite fills and dazzles us!

LUSH responded by climbing from 8 knots to 12.5 Knots…she shot off a shovel like…..well you know!

We then all settled in to picture taking and admiring the big yellow kite with a cuppa and a bit of nosh!

Special mention has to go to Wallis our Yogi…….who whilst LUSH was flying along was doing all her yoga moves on the aft deck!!!

The wind steadily built as the morning went on until that point you say in your mind….”its time to take it down now….”

Normally you wait until it’s too late and the wind is blowing hard and you end up with the yacht flying downwind on the edge of control and then it’s a question of safety!

“Not this time!” I thought to myself and gave to order to take it down…..

Then….Whirrrrrrrr…….the reel is running on the back…holy crap another fish!!

Dave Strikes the line and starts reeling him like a speedy Gonzales!!!!

Then…SPLASH

A good sized wahoo jumps out of the water towards the back of Lush…..the team is drilled on how to land fish , so Joe, Marty and Woody start wetting the deck to get ready for Alan to do the deed and send the fish to heaven whilst Audds prepares to chop him up!!!

The Wahoo lands on the aft deck and we are all leaping for joy!!

Now the wind has risen even more and the kite still up!!! So Conor, Dave, Woody & Wallis run up to the bow of Lush ready for the take down!

Conor then became the total hero by pulling down the sock like he was ringing the bells in the church on his wedding day!

Kite down and put to bed, Fish in the fridge on ice and that’s all in a mornings work on LUSH!!!

All great fun!! We can’t believe we are only 555 miles from Antigua!!!

I wonder what the next 555 miles will bring!!! :0)

One Life…make sure your living it! Paulo & Team LUSH! :0) xxx

Great news to report today!

Alan finally caught us all a dorado with a little help from the, “Mayo Girl”!!!

Myself and Al was totally convinced that we were completely “dun over” in Las Palmas by the guy in the fishing shop……we have had a couple of bites and runs but no fish landed on the deck to enjoy that taste of fresh fish!

Eventually Audrey told us that we had better stick to the sailing as for being fishermen we were completely, well, “useless!!”

She also told us that what fish was ever going to catch the squids skimming across the water??? We replied defensively, “Audds we can’t help the fact that Lush sails so quick that we can’t keep the lure in the drink???”

Audds comes straight back at us with sharp wit like only a mayo girl can….”Would you not try weight the line lads??”

“Okay we will see what we can do…..” Alan disappeared into his engine room and arrived back out on deck with 10 M12 nyloc nuts, we reeled in the line and attached the nuts to the line and let out the line…..

Well probably only 2 minutes later the reel ran and Alan hauled in the nice dorado you see in the picture!

Audrey then put her Rick Stein fish filleting skills into practice and filleted our lad…..and fair play to her as Alan and Wallis cooked him up for the lads in butter with just a squeeze of lemon and black pepper….and there was not one bone in any fillet we ate!

Wow it tasted absolutely fantastic! 20 mins…now that’s fresh!

So what did we learn from today….if you want to catch a fish, “Use Alan’s M12 Nyloc Nuts!!!!” :0)

Hope ya enjoying our little updates!! One Life…Live it! Paul & Team Lush! :0) xxx

NewsFlash!

At 1800 yesterday LUSH was boarded by a crew pirates who drank a glass of Moet and ate a load of food!

The swashbuckling blighters arrived on deck to wish LUSH a safe onward passage as she sailed across the halfway mark of her first Ocean!

The sounds of, “arrraahhhhhhh, pieces of eight & nice bounty!” in pirate talk was awash over the deck whilst some heavy pirate rock was played to set the scene!

Jim (Woody) won the best dreadlocked hair do award whilst the skipper (Paulo) won the quickest shave to a dirk diggler mo award!

Conor chopped off his leg used the gaff that has had no fish award!!!

Audrey & Wallis turned themselves into pirate wenches and rustled up a storm of treats from fresh banana bread to fresh humous and dips!

Dave, Marty & Joe showed us how ingenious you can be at sea to flick from being the perfect gentlemen to the perfect pirate in the matter of 20 mins!

Special mention has to go to Lush’s chief engineer, “Alabama” who was the best dressed of the lot of us – using tape to make missing teeth and audrey’s eyeliner to tattoo himself Alabama won the best dressed pirate award and won himself an extra helping to the Lasagne which was served up to round off the evening!

The pirates then waved us goodbye and a save onward passage as the sun fell to the horizon and watches resumed as normal onboard.

Halfway parties are always a laugh and this one will be forever etched into our minds!!! Ohhh arrhhhhhh!!!

So we are over half way and making great speed towards Antigua!

The wind has dropped to around 15 kts true and LUSH is sailing at 10.5 kts parting the blue ocean bound for the start of her world tour from Antigua!

Sunrise this morning was simply stunning! :0) Enjoy the snaps!

One Life….Live it – Paulo & Team Lush xxx

Thought we would just upload some pics for you to check out…..the first 2 is of the weather we went through yesterday and the last you can see is today…..beautiful blue skys, wind dropped, reefs being shaken out and the crew of LUSH on GREAT FORM!!!!

There is flying fish all around us so we figure that the bigger fish eat he flying fish so fingers crossed for a fish today! :0)

We are half way……the halfway party begins at Happy Hour which is from 1300 – 1500 UTC for us and a load of pirates are planning to capture and take over LUSH!!!

So keep checking back in to our blog to see pictures of the party and the whole team onboard!!!

Enjoy your day wherever you are!

Paul & Team Lush :0) xxx

Well what a 48 hours we’ve had!!!

In the first 24 we had sailed bang on 260 NM which means we averaged 10.9 knots for the 24!!!

We have had consistently 30 – 35 knots of wind behind us or as I say, “up the chuff!”

The record of 20.9 stood , until yesterday when, moi, Paulo Speedy Gonzales Adamson was steering Lush when the perfect wave arrived with the perfect gust of wind…LUSH listened to her skipper and dropped into that wave and launched herself like a base jumper off a mountain down the face of what was a good proper ocean roller! We all jumped for joy when the log topped out at 21.2 knots!!!

Dave (Previous record holder), Marty & Audrey could only watch as they saw their previous record tumble and now Conor and James the other members of the newly named watch, “Team 21.2” are now taking lessons in being, well smug, in our new name!!! That is until they come back at us!

21.2 knots…we reckon that could be a new Oyster World Record……we will just need to check with the team back at Guinness to check the validity of that!!!

The rest of yesterday was just stunning, decent breeze, hot sun and the Atlantic was a deep blue!

Speaking of deep…the crew looked a bit perturbed when they asked how close was the nearest land…I started off by saying, “well around 1000 miles but of course the nearest land is 6km….DOWN!!!!!”

Anyhow…..onto the past 24 hours…..well I feel like Noah with the Ark!

There is rain and then there is RAIN!!!!! Even Joe (Aurdey’s Dad) who comes from the west of Ireland said, “I’ve never seen rain like it…now Paul…don’t you be complaining next time you’re in the West and giving out about the rain!!!”

Last night saw us challenged with Squall after squall after squall!

In the Atlantic during the day all that lovely hot sun builds rain squalls which we have to dodge at night, handy as rain reflects RADAR and one of the night watch instructions is keep an eye on the RADAR and prepare for any big splodges coming at us!

To put this into perspective – in these squalls the wind can change from 15kts to 50 kts in the space of a minute with a massive wind shift and its normally consists of a load of rain to!!! Makes night watches go quickly but you have to be prepared to act quick and anticipate the squalls course, speed and handy move!!!

So there I was lying in my bunk when the familiar sound of chief engineer, Alan Canavan (allabama) came on the intercom – “Paulo, its looking real nasty in front of us, real dark and lightening!!!I think you come and have a look at this…..”

So I arrive onto deck to find Al, Joe & Wallis looking up to weather looking at a dark cloud….I felt like a doctor asking for exact symptoms to make a decision of what we should do….”okay guys so can we see it on the RADAR?” “No” Al replied, “Can we see fork lightening striking the sea?” “No” “Have we heard thunder at all?” “No”

I pondered for a moment to make an informed decision…”Okay guys, so what we are seeing is upper level lightening which is between the clouds so we just need to be prepared for the wind……don’t worry about the lightening!”

So we cracked on and shortened sail and I am glad we did cos by the time we arrived into that dark mass which was 3 hours later the wind was up to 45 kts and the rain was horizontal – complete white out!!!

Just before it hit we got a warning when the wind shifted by 60 degrees to the west and we had to spin LUSH onto a new course of due North to keep her sails full……..we had to act quickly as I knew if we could bring her back round to a course of 260 we would get through it quicker and the wind would come back to SE and we could settle in for the night…

So Dave clipped onto the outer jackstay from the inner one and made his way up to the mast to ease the preventer so we could sheet in the main to alter course – once he was back we started our engine, furled our jib and headed back to 260……Lush was now punching into the weather….35 knots of wind, 20 foot seas and so much rain that we couldn’t even see the back of the yacht!!! After an hour and a half of feeling like we were being lashed from the heavens, Lush’s big grey hull popped out the other side of the squall and the wind eased and backed round to the SE!

We reset our sails and cracked on towards Antigua! Since then its has lashed and lashed with a constant breeze from the SE of around 25 – 35 kts…no bother to the mighty yacht LUSH!

What is amazing out here is you realise how insignificant we really are compared to the elements and the big picture…….

I’m a big believer in, “Don’t sweat the small stuff!”

In fact all we can ever do is focus on the things we can control in our lives and change them…..for me right now that’s the trim of our sails, the course of our yacht and keeping the team happy and strong! I can’t control the weather around us right now so it would be pointless getting hung up on it!!! A great life lesson I think…we our dealt our cards but we can choose how to play them! Once we get to that point in our heads we then realise what we really can achieve in life…which in my book is
anything…absolutely anything!

So I will leave you now as the smell of chicken curry and food is passing the chart table……and I need to eat!!!

So god bless, live with passion and remember…..one life…make sure your living it!!!

Loads of Love Paul & Team Lush :0) xxxx