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Monomotapa - 8 december




Monomotapa 8 December

Monday morning and start of the working week, NOT! Progress during the last 24 hours has been painfully slow, even we had seen the forecast we were still hoping that some reasonable mileage would be attained.
It is in no doubt a question of so near yet so far.

Henrik our master fisherman ( he is the only person on the boat that knows anything about fishing) caught a fish yesterday. Fortunately Henrik also has some knowledge of the types of fish, as it turned out to a blue blowfish. Which as well as being a Japanese specialty is also highly poisonous. The Japanese apparently like the effect of the poison which affects the nervous system and causes some kind of temporary paralysis. Or is it just the danger of eating it that provides the attraction?
So we decided that fish and chips was off the menu and the fish was returned to the sea to live another day.

The spinnaker is up , the sun was disappearing beautifully over the horizon, there is talk of aperitifs. We need to keep our spirits up (or down), in more than one sense. We start counting on whether we will have to rebook flights again, everything depends on the winds.We will run the spinnaker during the night to see if we can gain some extra mileage.

Some supplies are running dangerously low (i.e Henrik's toothpaste) and some we are all out of ( i.e.23 year old rum). The hardship of the trip starts to show...
These items fade into a mere bagatelle compared with the completely utilized supplies of English Tea. Quantities were carefully calculated for the two English tea drinkers for 21 days (100 tea bags and powdered milk) but the popularity of tea on the boat has resulted in supplies being depleted sooner than expected.

As in the words of the song, "what a difference a day makes, 24 little hours...." Finally after more than 14 days the Trade Winds from the East have finally arrived. After weeks of varying wind directions and days of and nights of squally showers.

Henrik our expert fisherman has been upstaged! Last night Giuliano manged to catch a fish with his ear !! Or to be more precise the lovely iridescent blue flying fish jumped up onto the boat directly into his ear. It came as a bit of a shock as he was having a cat nap during his watch. We each take it in turn to helm with the spinnaker up and after 40 minutes or so we change, as it becomes tiring.

As many of you now probably have understood, this is a multinational vessel. Maybe Giuliano tried the babelfish trick? (If you don't get that reference, then you are not worthy. And for five extra points, from which film comes the comment "'I'm not worthy"?) As the babelfish trick didn't work, here comes a short parlour of useful words on the boat:

English Italian Spanish Swedish Welsh German
What? che? Que? Va? Beth? Was?
White wine Vino Blanco Vino Blanco Vitt vin Gwin Gwyn Weisswine
Red wine Vino Tinto Vino Tinto Vitt vin Gwin Coch Rotwine
Halyard drizza Driza Fall Codi'r hwyl
Sheet scotta Escota Skot Trimio'r hwyl
Captain Il Capitano Capitan Kapten Capten Kapitan
Shit merda Mierda Djavlar Cachu Verdamt
Pole tangone Tangon Spirbom
Pole Up amantiglio Amantillo Upphal
Pole Down basso Contra Nedhal

Distance from start is 2438 nm, distance to go 321 nm. We have now been on our way for two weeks.

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