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Starblazer - 19/03/2014 – Still slow



Now I understand why this ocean was named Pacific, compared with the
Atlantic it lives up to its name. I know we had some very calm days on our
Atlantic crossing, however once we found the Trades the winds continued to
build, the swell quickly grew, sailing became far less comfortable but it
was quicker! We have suffered another 24 hours of light winds, mainly in
the 8 – 12 knot range rather than the forecast 13 – 20, and there haven’t
been any squalls to shoot us forward, albeit briefly. Our day’s run to noon
yesterday was 135 nM, an average of just over 5.5 knots but our three hourly
figures since then suggest an average much nearer 5 for today.

Q is behaving admirably, managing to steer us directly towards the waypoint.
If the wind were to get a lot stronger we might have a problem because we
would need to angle the wind vane down more and it would collide with the
backstay. Yes, we’re never satisfied, too much wind is a problem just as
much as too little wind. What we want is 16 - 18 knots and we would be very
happy.

Yesterday was yet another ‘nothing’ day, no excitement, we saw nothing other
than ocean and sky, the fishing line attracted nothing, the sails needed
nothing doing to them. I got creative in the galley! John suggested
opening a tin of something interesting for lunch so I found a tin of mussels
in escabeche and decided to make mussel salad wraps. First task, though,
was to make mayonnaise as I had used it all up in the hummus and tuna tacos.
The only recipe I could find used 50% olive oil, 50% corn oil. In
retrospect we needed a lighter olive oil or just 100% sunflower oil (no corn
oil on board). John wielded the Braun whisking stick while I drizzled the
oil in slowly, it worked a treat. Salad veg are rather thin on the ground
here, almost non-existent, however we have red cabbage, white cabbage and
cucumber and I managed to salvage half a tomato. Lunch was delicious.

The eggs I bought in Galapagos were obviously not very fresh because in two
weeks they are ‘old’ with watery whites and fragile yolks. The first two
eggs I cracked for the mayo broke the yolks so I said I’d break the last one
in the box and we would have a frittata instead. The third yolk remained
whole! I put the other two eggs in the fridge for use later on, hence the
cooking frenzy. Many of the vegetables I had carefully chosen at the market
have not lasted and the ones sold in prepacked poly bags there have been
very varied, O.K. to total rubbish. On the positive side, the French beans
which I subdivided into meal size portions and kept in the fridge have
lasted extremely well, as have the cabbages though I had to remove quite a
lot of leaves from the white cabbage to find the minute slug chomping his
way through!

Dinner was rolled chicken breast stuffed with cream cheese, spinach,
sun-dried tomato, onion and a slice of cheese wrapped in very thin bacon
slices and braised in white wine. The cooking juices were thickened with a
little milk and cornflour as I didn’t have any cream handy. This was served
with new potatoes and the rest of the tin of spinach. For dessert I had
another attempt at pressure cooking a syrup sponge, this one was better as I
remembered to steam it for a while before cooking it under pressure but I
still haven’t got the timings right. I must find a recipe for pressure
cooking. This was served with custard, of course. The other half of the left
over egg I used to make some spiced cupcakes. These were not brilliant but
quite edible. I need to test the quality of the baking powder, I’m
beginning to think it’s lost its get up and rise ability. We shall see.

John phoned New Zealand just as I was going off watch at 200 ship’s local
time to confirm our order for a new engine for the generator and pay for it,
with shipping the total came to about NZ$6,000 but we need a generator and
we couldn’t buy a suitable replacement for anything like that. With luck it
could arrive in Tahiti in 15 days but we shall wait and see.

Joyce

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