38:53S 100:31E
Tales of Amok's Adventures
Mike Jones
Wed 26 Jan 2011 12:11
Hope our Aussie friends have had an enjoyable Australia Day.
Our days are an interesting blend of a day when everything happens, then another day when nothing happens. When the wind is fresh, all of our energies are needed to remain upright and put food in our mouths. Everything we do seems to be laden with extra difficulty. Tempers run short and our sense of humour deserts us. When the wind is light, we seem to spend a lot of energy in getting every little wisp of wind into the sails to get us moving faster. On these days, the sun is often shining and we can see for miles. There are albatrosses everywhere; the adults are large gray intricate flying structures and the youngsters are much smaller and black. They keep their distance.
The cooker seems to be going through an unprecedented period of compliant functioning. When we get back, I was thinking of contacting our cooker manufacturer to offer my services, as I am sure that my skills are of benefit. Even though the manufacturer is based in Finland, I am sure I could work remotely from Perth; it's not that far really.
I thought I would start off by suggesting I could run some courses for them, with the following titles:
Your Cooker and You; Building the Relationship 101 (course 1 of 100)
Actions and Consequences; When Tempers Flare but the Cooker Does Not
Trying to Light Seawater; A Losing Battle
Your Diesel Cooker; Reading the Smoke Signals
For those who are more experienced in diesel cooker antics, I suggest something a little more advanced;
Kick the Cooker and Lose the Guilt
Feeding a Family of 4 on a Microwave and Kettle, with a diesel Cooker as a Voyeur.
Today was a day of poled out yankee and poled out reacher running dead downwind, very relaxing if a bit roly poly. We have done a fair bitty of evolving our rope arrangements, what seems good in the marina does not cut the mustard in 50 knts of wind and 5 meter seas. Having always been a fan of shackles and snap clips, I am now a big fan of the Bunt hitch and halyard knot, they don't break or bend or suddenly open when least expected.
We have developed a new philosophy in that if it isn't fit for purpose then it does the float test. The lovely looking stainless tea and coffee canisters that fitted the shelf perfectly had a distinct problem with lids that kept falling off, needless to say they all got launched through the hatch for the SO float test.
Mikey and Tmoby were in hysterics on the foredeck whilst trying to furl the 1200 sq ft reacher, seams they were pulling on opposite ends of the furling rope with no result !!
So from the Southern Ocean, love to all of our family and friends near and far, I could tell you that we are counting down the miles, but that would only amount to the world's biggest and wildest understatement...
Salty Sal and her buoyant crew :)
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