11 March 2010
Twenty four hours of fast sailing Voyageur is gobbling up the miles. We managed 500nm in three days. At this rate we may achieve our estimated 18day crossing. This would be wonderful for last time it took us 22days. We have not had to touch the engine since our second day out so long may it last. The grib files certainly show the wind staying with us. David is gobbling up the paperbacks. He is well and truly settled into cruising mode. We must have in the region of 100 in our onboard library partly thanks to Pat and Tony Pellegrini, Voyageur's previous owners who left us so many, so plenty to keep him going. He devours on average one book per day. We are gobbling up the fresh provisions. I always say to people buy what you think you need, double it, treble it. I should follow my own advice. I am cursing myself for not having bought more peppers and tomatoes and pineapple. In our opinion Galapagos pineapples are quite the best we have ever tasted. With a white flesh compared to the usual yellow they are exceptionally soft and succulent, melt in the mouth stuff. Peppers and tomatoes I use in almost every meal and will run out in a week's time. My lovely vacuum packs of Kalamata olives are all gone along with the chorizo sausage I bought in Gran Canaria. Too many drink's parties are to blame. But they were fun.....
The daily radio net continues to be a source of frustration for us. Practically everybody is reporting in now but nobody waits for the net to be declared open for chat. The call up channel is frequently blocked as they are not switching to a chat frequency. This means that we have been unable to speak to anyone ourselves. Grrrrr!
Susan Mackay