Eating our way across the South Atlantic
A Lady
Stephen Hyde
Mon 31 Jan 2011 11:40
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SUNDAY 30th
JANUARY 2011
OO.oohrs Distance travelled
.......................................from St Helena 1,625 miles
.........................from Cape Town 3,545 miles.
Another beautifull night at sea, The waining moon
still casting its silvery shadow across an almost flat sea to the
boat
as we sailed along with the " Bag of
fear " flying nicely in the 14 / 16 knot breeze.. almost magic.
" Wild Tigress" once again has taken off under
engine, they will most likely motor all the way from here to Salvador,
05.00hrs The pale light of dawn on the
eastern horizon highlighted the dark scattered clouds with their moon struck
silver edges
floating across the sky. but the real sunrise will
not happen for another hour.
07.00hrs ( local time ) RADIO
CALL :- today , the net controller is " Lady Eve V1 " we held
our own against the other boats,
" A Lady" and its crew definatly are not used to,
or like these light conditions, and boy o boy , is it hot.. 30 degrees in
the saloon,
later, we turned on the generator and air
conditioning for some relief.
Skipper cooked the last 3 sausages, the last eggs,
and the second last tin of beans and served the lot on Aileens
brown bread toasted, ( Oh my Gawd, only one
tin of beans left, we will have to introduce critical rationing.)
However, we are only 2 days from port.
We only covered 150 miles in the last 24hrs,
thats slow for us.
Skipper put out the fishing line again, gosh! that
lure is the best ever, no self respecting fish would surely leave that pass him
bye
without having a go...... three " Hail Mary's " and an " Our Father " for
support and you would never know. !
Aileen worked hard down below, cleaning and
washing some essential clothes, One gets into a routine, all of us,
but doing different
things, made up of, sleeping, naps ( or as Fats
called them ziz's ) reading, washing and cleaning, preening ( for some )
playing games, and fixing or repairing bits and
bobs, ( not to mention sewing sail bags )
By midday, we were making good progress in the real
tropical conditions, the " BoF" still flying, but only just enough breeze to
keep it filled.
We were thinking, ................... Its usually
around midday we get a fish if they are around, why midday ? we have no answer
to that,
but that is usually the time, perhaps its their
lunch time too. ...................................
NEXT THING
BANG......... wrrrrrrrrrrrrr, wrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr, wrrrrrrr
Emily shouts " Oh my god " there is a fish, cancel the chicken for
tonight ,
we will have a fish dish.
Well, after an hour struggling with our dinner, and
we had him so close,( we could almost taste the Sushi ) with the gin
ready to knock him out,
when he did a nose dive and escaped, Skipper got a " Fail " and banished to
the back of the class for that blunder,
Around mid afternoon, the wind died off , way below
5 knots, so we took down the " BoF " and started mororing.
shortly after, skipper changed some light bulbs to
LED's and got the photo printer out and printed off some photo's for Emily
and
Sham to take home as a momento of the trip.
The total trip from Cape Town to Salvador is almost
3,700 nautical miles. Thats a long trip by any standards.
Well done to Emily, a first trip like this for her,
Emily cooked a Chicken Curry dish again tonight,
and it was excellent, this time , we gave the wine a good old fashioned lash.
21,00hrs, The wind increased to to 15 knots, so we
set up a goose wing and off we sailed into the night. no more motoring for
now...
Thats it for now,
Signed :- Stephen
Hyde ( Skipper, )
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