Saturday, 26th February 2011
Another beautiful morning, we still have an adverse current of 1.5 knots, and a tolerable sea.
08.00hrs Distance traveled 143miles in 22 hours, poor enough, but the wind is on the nose.
09.00hrs Joe from Brown-Eyed Girl did the radio call, there are seven fleet boats doing this trip with us, or us with them...
Gosh, the Galley still smells of last nights Bangers and Mash, despite all the scrubbing and cleaning. We spent the day looking at the fishing rod, taking naps, nibbling food and having cups of Twining's Tea and whats more it is just lovely tea, and can be purchased in most countries.
We were over 20 miles off the coast all day, so really never saw the coast line, but we passed plenty of oil rigs, and fishing boats. We motor sailed all day as the wind was around 12/15 knots fine on the starboard bow, so sailing would have been real slow in the wrong direction.
Skipper made a chicken dish from Aileen's book, consisting of flattened out chicken breasts, lined with parma ham and cheese, and the center stuffing was a mixture of whipped potatoes and soft cream cheese, with a sprig of asparagus through the center, they were then rolled like a swiss cake, coated with flour, and fried on pan (well on the boat today, we used a pot for that job, saves the splattering all over the place). The sauce was made with some of the juices from the cooking chicken and, plus chicken stock, plus chilly sauce and a little corn flour, white wine, and walla! Wonderful stuff, but slightly different to the menu, as we did not have all the ingredients. We also added to the plate, some white cabbage, well cooked and sweetened with butter and apple sauce (this took the place of dried tomatoes, spinach and watercress, none of which we had on board). Anyway, it all tasted great, and had enough left over for tomorrow's lunch.
At home in Ireland, we hear that "Fine Geal" will be the largest party in the next government, and "Fina Fail" have had a humiliating result. Also, Ireland were beaten by Scotland in the six nations cup and England beat France. Ohhhh, poor old Ireland, The whole country is really having a bad time at present. We got this news from Paul Tetlow at "Rally Control". [Editor's Note: We've since let Stephen know that the rugby score was incorrect (a previous year's) and the match was in fact a win for Ireland. We've apologised for adding to the up and downs of sailing, but sorry again!]
We settled into another long dark night, motor sailing with 2 reefs in the mainsail as the wind has increased to 25 knots.
That's all for now,
Signed :- Stephen Hyde ( Skipper )