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Starblazer - 20/03/2014 – Rubbish day



No, that isn’t a reference to our sailing performance though it could be, it is a reference to my major housekeeping task yesterday. Rubbish is a problem on boats as you have to carry it with you for as long as the voyage
takes. Every item which has contained food is thoroughly washed before being put in the bin to avoid smells and flies. Once a week, or whenever the bin is full, I carefully sort the rubbish and compact it as much as
possible. With care the contents of a full bin may be reduced to less than half in size, I then rebag it in a strong blue plastic rubble sack and put it in a bucket on the after deck. So far, two and a half weeks in, we have
two part full carrier bags in the blue bag, no smell and no flies. On the other hand, rinsing out the milk boxes is a waste of fresh water but you don’t want them hanging around until you have some dirty washing up water. We
need to get more organised and utilise sea water. On Fair Encounter we had a salt water tap in the galley which I miss.

In yesterday’s log I said that we ‘need’ a generator and John questioned my use of the word. I stick by my statement. On long ocean passages, and indeed cruising in far flung islands, you need to be self sufficient as far as water goes. Our watermaker will only run off the generator, no generator means no watermaker. Every night we are running the engine for 3 or 4 hours to charge the batteries, using 3 or 4 times as much valuable diesel as the generator would. At anchor this galley slave appreciates the occasional use of the microwave, the electric kettle, the breadmaker, the small washing machine and the sewing machine. The last three are all fairly low wattage
and would run off the inverter but that drains the batteries so we are back to running the engine for recharging the batteries. We do ‘need’ the generator!

About half the fleet have now arrived but our arrival is looking further away, the wind Gods just will not co-operate. All night we have been drifting at between 4 and 4.5 knots, peaceful for sleeping but boring and
frustrating from a sailing point of view. Yesterday’s noon run was an unimpressive 127 nM, today’s will be less.

Dinner was Beef Enchiladas with rice followed by the remains of the syrup pudding with custard. I’ve managed to find a pressure cooker recipe so I’ll have a third attempt at some point.

Happy Birthday to nephew David.

Joyce


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