The excitement is palpable, tomorrow we depart for our Atlantic crossing! For most of us onboard, the journey from Las Palmas to Mindelo was already the longest we have ever sailed continuously. It’s hard to conceive that the next leg will be more than double that. With that in mind, we spent the day chasing down those last few items that will make our passage as agreeable as possible. The list is quite odd:
- We found grapefruit for Captain Ulrik. Hooray!
- We successfully hunted down not one but two different kinds of orange jam. Should make for some sweet breakfasts for Major Gustaf.
- The hardest item to find was the Herbes de Provence mix, which we finally tracked down and made Chef Janne very happy.
- What made me happy was finding Parmesan cheese, of which supplies were running low.
- We found pistachios, all the way from Greece, which everyone will enjoy at sunset, but especially Bobo.
- And finally we chanced upon some extremely rare cashew nuts, CJ’s all time nut favorite. In the same place we found some walnuts, equally rare, and equally beloved onboard.
The only two items (excluding the French press) that we were unable to find anywhere were: A small whisk and alcohol free beer in cans. Janne wants a small whisk to make sauces, and I want alcohol free beer because this is a dry boat when at sea, but we can still enjoy something that tastes of malt and hops as a substitute.
The preparations on the actual boat moved forward more slowly, and as of the time of writing (23:15) the Captain is still waiting for someone to come onboard and on top of the mast to solve our blocks situation. I have a feeling they won’t come and the captain will go up himself at sunrise. I am told however that we have made some progress on the communications front. Ulrik was having some issues with one of his two satellite systems, so he decided to hire an IT consultant to see what could be fixed. Do you want to take a wild guess at who the IT consultant is? Yes indeed, it’s the other Wehtje onboard. Like father like son. Anyway CJ has been messing around with the 3 tablets and computers at the navigation table and conducted a site visit on another boat to meet with an external IT expert (on Hermia with Mattan). His conclusion is that we may be able to communicate with the outside world a bit more on this leg. I never trust consultants so we will have to see…and I am not so sure that we are necessarily craving much more connection with the outside world. I believe that part of what will make this experience special is being in our own bubble oblivious of what is happening in the rest of the world.
Anyway it’s time to tuck in! Today was a long and warm day, there was some kind of sand storm that made it foggy and humid and really warm all day. As a result, I can hear Bobo snoring sleeping on deck. He thought it was too warm to sleep in the master cabin. We also have Gustaf back on board sleeping in the saloon and it seems the captain is sleeping on the other sofa (maybe hoping they come for the mast in the middle of the night?). So the large cabin in the bow is empty, which doesn’t make much sense, unless we send CJ there before he starts a snoring competition with Bobo.
Over and out,
Mavi