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Starblazer - 31/01/2016 – Frustrating progress



During Saturday morning we were sailing well and our ETA in Brazil was early
evening Monday, still daylight. During the afternoon the wind died a bit,
the boat slowed and our ETA went out to late Monday evening, after dark. In
fact the day’s run averaged 6.0 knots, we’d usually be happy with that but
on this leg from Cape Town via St Helena we have been treated to higher
average speeds!

There was also frustration on the fishing front. ‘So what’s new?’ I hear
you ask yourself. The first nibble didn’t take off, just a quick tug and
the fish realised its stupidity and spat the lure out. The second fish did
take the lure and started to rapidly swim away with its prize, John
tightened up the drag one notch then the leader snapped. He had rigged two
lures in series so he still had one, the line went back in the water but no
more fish swam by.

In St Helena John had bought 4 loaves of bread which we were told would last
for two to three weeks. It was a fairly dry loaf when fresh and appeared to
be doing well until day 10 (Friday) when I discovered mould starting on the
crust. I trimmed off the dodgy bits and John was quite happy to eat what
was left. At lunchtime I collected the last loaf from the forward cabin,
took one look inside the paper bag and passed it to John in the cockpit to
give the bread a burial at sea! Fortunately we had a packet of multi-grain
wraps so I had to be a little creative. I used the last of the lettuce, the
last good tomato, a grated carrot, mayonnaise and a tin of chicken in a
creamy mustard sauce. The wraps were very tasty.

For dinner I stuffed two chicken breasts with sun-dried tomato slices and
soft goat’s cheese, wrapped them in Serrano ham and baked them in the oven
with the roast potatoes. They were served with carrots and the last of the
courgettes. I should probably mention that the vegetables were bought in
Cape Town on the 4th January so they have lasted well, mainly because I put
most of them into paper bags and stored them in the portable electric
coldbox we bought for camping in New Zealand.

Joyce



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