Mid-Atlantic Pirate Jenga, again.

Catmojo
Matt
Thu 3 Dec 2020 10:50
16:10N 47:02W at 0930UTC
Motoring in light winds at 7knots 263degrees towards Martinique waypoint 800nm west. Simon has brilliantly routed us south to avoid thunderstorms in the north. There are still some big black clouds around, although some of them might be our diesel fumes. Simon Says it'll be more settled from tomorrow although it's not too bad already - he must have very high standards of Nice Weather. The sky is at least three-quarters blue this morning, but I'm gunning it to dodge another bunch of clouds up ahead. The harmless ones are regular white fluffy. More threatening are the clouds with distinct horizontal black bases, the lower the harsher their delivery.

Beautiful calm evening yesterday, dramatic sunset and orangey moonrise an hour or so later. The sea was calm so a few of us played Jenga in the late evening. Yes, really. Some of the crew were amused that I even had the game on a boat. Whatever. Offshore rules allow a shorter stack, and variously prodding and holding the tower is fine, but it'll still fall. We might play again when the sea calms some more, but this morning there's light ripples with a long lazy swell from the NE - no good for Jenga in this.

We didn't quite have a halfway party as a few were feeling more queasy than party. I tried to kickstart celebrations early on Saturday by moving the waypoint a bit towards us, but I was found out, dang. So far alcohol consumption has been only a bit at the start in LP, and another bit on Ruth's birthday - almost a totally dry boat really, although I find that it's fairly self-policing depending upon sea conditions. Even the calm times are still slightly lurchy.

Chipi's creme caramel turned over and out perfectly. This is the yellow blancmange-like stuff with brown caramel on it if you aren't a foodie. Otherwise you'll know that the dish dates back a long way, especially popular when the only available ingredients for dessert-making were eggs, milk and sugar. I wouldn't normally choose creme caramel, but the taste of Chipi's creation took me back to childhood (yes, just like in the film Ratatouille) when my Mum made Creme Caramel from her time living in post-war France.

I've suggested that Ruth writes a blog sometime, although both she and Jess (and sometimes Aixa) are handwriting their own extensive journals along the way, sometimes hours a day, pages and pages. Writing a free blog here might scupper their chances of an upcoming Exclusive Book Deal? Not sure.