Saturday 10th April (Lini's Journal)
Brindabella's Web Diary
Simon Williams
Thu 22 Apr 2010 20:00
received an invitation to a barbecue tonight on ‘Teepee’ with
‘Papillon’. What a shame we will miss what is bound to be another
great evening. With Brindabella all packed up went ashore to check out
of immigration for tomorrow. While Si went from one office to another
I waited outside and chatted to an English couple who had just arrived
from the Cape Verde Islands. They had that same sleep deprived; dazed
and confused expression I remember from back in December and the lady
said she would not be doing any more ocean crossings. All of a sudden
I realised how very quickly our big ocean legs home are approaching
and how little we have practiced sail changes and emergency drills. I
fear time will run away as it did before our last transatlantic
crossing.
It was a short but blowy sail round to Deep Bay and too blowy to
snorkel on the wreck of the Andes in the centre of the bay. She was an
iron barque which caught fire from her pitch cargo and sunk in 1905.
Now she provides a great snorkelling site as she sits just below the
surface with just a little of one of her masts breaking through. I
feared I’d be swept out to sea with such a strong surface current
blowing, so she is added to the ever increasing reasons to return one
day and we made do with a session of hull scrubbing instead. Si can
hold his breath a very long time and is able to clear much of the
horrendous growth from right under the boat. My efforts are nearer the
surface but there is always a most unattractive green beard building
on beautiful Brindabella’s waterline. My achy back felt so much easier
after some exercise confirming my thoughts that it is lack of it that
is causing so many problems.
Refreshed and exercised we thought about filling our bellies again!
Lunch was very early; bed time will be very early, so it made sense
for dinner to be very early. While throwing together a pasta bake I
rustled up a ‘sweetie treat’ from fatfree.com – oat and raisin
cookies. The result was edible but I felt needed a better name in line
with Lynda’s hot cross bullets and my hot cross bricks. We thought of
what reminded us something flat and hard, deciding the island of Marie
Galante fitted the bill. So, Galantes is the rather lovely name fat
free pebbles are now known by!
It will be a very long day sail to St. Bartholemy tomorrow, so to
arrive in daylight we must leave before daylight. We made final
preparations and set the alarm for 2.30am before bed at 7.30pm!