Starblazer - 15/01/2016 – Weather - A mixed bag

The warmth of Tuesday gave way to a chill Wednesday morning; the sunny skies
became grey, cloudy and damp. The fickle wind continued to tease, varying
from 9 to 29 knots. If only the wind would make up its mind we might be
better able to plan our arrival in St Helena during the hours of daylight.
During the morning radio net the 14 knots of wind recorded at 1000 suddenly
shot up to 29, with an accompanying increase in boat speed offering us the
faint possibility of a Saturday evening arrival.

During the afternoon the wind settled back down most of the time, indicating
most probably a night time arrival, which is not recommended. It is too
early to start slowing the boat down, difficult with a following wind
anyway! The sun put in an appearance during the afternoon and, for the
first time since leaving Cape Town, the moon illuminated the night sky.

You can tell two things from this blog: nothing much happened yesterday and
we are British. I suspect only the British boats would devote the whole log
to discussing the weather!

John did manage to run the water maker yesterday for the first time since
arriving in Cape Town in early December, he started putting the water into
the tanks but, after about an hour, the pump stopped working, yet another
job for St Helena.

Our thanks to my brother Phil for providing lunch, a tin of Cullen Skink
(cream of smoked haddock soup) with sandwiches. This was one of the welcome
items from home in our 2015 Christmas parcel, thanks again Phil and Jane.
Dinner was lamb sausage with mashed potato, courgettes (zucchini) and
carrots. The sausage came as a folded continual length so I wound it up
like a Catherine Wheel, secured it with wooden kebab skewers like they do in
South Africa and cooked it slowly in a frying pan (skillet). I kept some
behind to use for lunch today.

Joyce