Degree of Latitude - Day 7 - Bread and Fishes

Hello All,

Well Sunday (day 7) has now passed and although the wind has now dropped slightly, it does mean we have been able to re-ring the twin headsails and the sea state has eased, which has finally, largely stopped the dreadful rolling of the last few days. The tropical weather continues (as one might perhasps expect in the tropics!) and temperature is also steadily increasing, and we have now reached the stage where its still shorts and t-shirts through the night watches, which is very pleasant indeed.

Overall, we are progressing well, we have covered well over 1000NM in our first week and the forecast continues to look good for the comming days.

Day 7 also heralded the opening of the DoL bakery, with us attempting to bake our first loaf - despite carefully following instructions and the high hopes of our chief baker,the bread failed to rise to the occasion and the final result had a consitency vaguely similar to playdough rather than sourdough as planned (No handshake from Paul for this attempt). Further attempts to follow in the coming days, however I think we may need step back and perhaps try a slightly less ambitious wholemeal next time, or perhaps even flatbreads....

Following a number of lost lures and also line (partly due to us running over our own line), we also used to Sunday to repair our fishing gear and resume the hunt! After only a couple of hours, Mark managed to hook a 5-6Kg Mahi-Mahi and after somewhat of a battle, we were able to successfully land the fish onboard.

The arrival of 5Kg of fresh Mahi-Mahi filets rather changed the menu plans for yesterday evening, so instead of Moroccan Lamb, we were forced to enjoy freshly made Ceviche followed by a Thai Fish Curry and we still have another 2Kg of filets in the fridge.

Fishy pictures to follow once we work out how to get them off Katys, iPhone!

Tony has continued the daily sextant sights and position fixes, which are improving - yesterdays noon sight generated a position report accurate to about 1NM when compared to GPS, so its good to know the traditional methods still work and skills are still alive.

As I read this, it does rather sound like this is less a sailing trip, more a gastronomical one, however they do say an army marches on it stomach and I guess you can apply that to all of us on DoL as well!

And finally, love and best wishes to all back home!

Tony, Katy, John, Mark.







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