The last few days have given us much lighter winds and we’re taking
advantage of the calm conditions to get some jobs done, catch up on sleep and
cook up some delicious meals.
We’ve tried a variety of sail configurations over the past few days to try
and keep us heading in the general direction of Saint Lucia. Our Parasailor has
been up a couple of times when the winds get above 10 knots or so, and in
lighter winds we’ve had the code zero out, which served us fairly well. However,
we’ve not been able to avoid turning the engine on a few times.
We’ve been heading further south over the past few days to take advantage
of the wind angle- what little wind there is- and because our GRIB files show
that there should be a return of the trade winds infilling from the south on
Tuesday. We live in hope!
One of the jobs that needed doing was re-wiring the hydrogenerator.
Yesterday was the calmest day yet, so a few happy hours were spent swearing and
sweating and yelling to each other from different parts of the boat. Long story
short, it’s done and we’re hoping that it’s now generating more like 10 amps,
rather than the 4 amps we were getting. As soon as we get confirmation of this,
I shall resume my baking duties and we can look forward to freshly baked bread
and banana cake!
We’ve been making our way through the fresh veggies like there’s no
tomorrow- which, for the veggies, there probably isn’t; many of them have
literally been on their deathbeds- and, out of desperation, I even froze some
capsicum, eggplant and zucchini. That’s pepper, aubergine and courgette to you
Brits! I have no idea how they’ll fare upon defrosting. I usually rely on Google
to inform me of these kind of domestic mysteries, but alas, I’m forced to find
out through old fashioned trial and error. I also made up a massive vat of
ratatouille, which I may have to force feed John, but hey, this voyage is all
about pushing ourselves and challenging boundaries!
We’ve not been too successful on the fishing front, something I’m hoping
changes in the very near future (ie, today). We caught one small dorado (sp?!),
which died a fairly brutal death when John, deciding that Nick hadn’t stunned
the fish quite forcefully enough, picked up the hammer and brought it down with
all his might onto the fish’s head. There was a stunned silence, then:
Nick: “What the hell!?”
John: “It was still wrigging.”
Nick: “It was stunned! I was just waiting for the knife to chop it’s head
off!”
John: “It wasn’t stunned enough. I was helping!”
Nick: “It looks like a scene out of Texas Chainsaw Massacre over
here...”
John: “Oh, stop being so squeamish.”
Me: “Uh... Nick? You’ve got fish... something... on your face. And your
neck. And, uh, your t-shirt.”
Anyway, it tasted delicious.
We also got a bite from something significantly bigger, which Nick
literally could not even reel in, but it bit through the line. Nick was rather
relieved to be spared the job of bringing in this monster, but I was
disappointed we missed out on what would have been an awesome photo op. Still,
we still have 2000 miles to go. Maybe it will come back!
Speaking of, yesterday was a day of milestones. We reached 1000 miles just
after dinnertime, which we celebrated with some chocolate. And 1pm yesterday
marked a week we’ve been at sea. Over the past few days, we’ve been saying,
“We’re a third of the way there! We’re approximately a third of the way there!
We might be a third of the way there!” But, after 1000 miles and one week, we
can definitely say that we’re over a third of the way there!
Among the culinary delights so far has been aubergines stuffed with spicy
mince and rice, ‘deconstructed’ cottage pie, ‘deconstructed’ chicken pie,
teriyaki pork and vegetables, and a Sunday roast dinner. You know, for those of
you who need to know these things. o
We’ve also seen dolphins a few times, but whereas the dolphins in the Bay
of Biscay and off the Morrocan coasts were like, “OH MY GOD, HUUUUUMANS!!!”
these dolphins are more like, “Oh, look, a boat. We’d better go and say a quick
hello, but honestly, I don’t know what these humans expect from us anymore...”
Apart from all that excitement there’s been a hell of a lot of reading,
sunbathing and general faffing around. We’re all sleeping well at night since we
do 2 hours on, 6 hours off, and so the days are ours to do what we like with.
Although over the first week I, personally, was getting a bit antsy and feeling
fairly daunted at the thought of 3 weeks at sea, we’re all settled in now and
the weather is so wonderfully warm and pleasant that we’re all perfectly content
with life at sea and I think the boys would be more than happy spending several
more weeks out here.
Might need to catch a few more fish though.