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Starblazer - 12/03/2014 – Nothing broke today!



Today was a relatively good day. John spent the afternoon mending the shelf
mounting in his tools and spares cupboard which had collapsed on Sunday. At
the same time he also remounted the battery charger which had started to
fall off its bulkhead. As you can see, it wasn’t just the generator which
broke on Sunday!

Q continued to helm us on an almost direct course to Hiva Oa, our
destination in the Marquesas. The wind wasn’t as strong as we would have
liked and progress has slowed a little, in part because we let out the main
to balance the boat for Q and in part because the wind is from a little
further aft. Almost all the other boats are reporting SE winds, surely we’ll
get them soon. Overnight the winds were lighter still, once or twice
dropping to only 8 knots from 13. Ideally, we’d like 16 – 20 on this point
of sail.

The night was beautiful with a 68% waxing moon and millions of stars. Now I’ve
found the Southern Cross I see it clearly most nights. Venus rose directly
behind us a couple of minutes after the moon sets and shines very brightly.
One thing has surprised us, it becomes surprisingly chilly overnight and
John has put on a fleece while I usually just put on my very light weight
rain jacket. This morning I even put on the overtrousers!

On the fishing front there is nothing good to report, in fact the score
stands at Fish 5 – John -3, I’ll explain. John had a strong bite two
evenings ago but the fish got away, together with a lure and a second hook
baited with a strip of squid, by the simple expedient of putting enough
force on the line to straighten a snap hook. On his next attempt the flying
fish was taken but the two hook set up was left untouched. He heard the
‘nibbles’ but waited for the fish to run which it never did. Yesterday
evening the reel started to run, stopped, started, stopped again. In the
end he pulled it in for the night only to discover the hook had been pulled
off the wire trace. I’m still waiting for a fish supper on this leg!

I cooked a chicken stir-fry for dinner including home grown mung beans and
we had a caramel cream dessert.

Joyce


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