Well, upon my sole!

Serendipity
David Caukill
Thu 28 Jul 2011 10:29

Thursday 28th July:  Today's Blog by David. 36:40.2N 07: 33.6W

 

Yesterday was a good day. The sun shone, the sea was blue (did I ever tell you how blue the sea is?) and the wind was from behind. We worked our way back eastward across the 'shipping lanes', running the trade wind rig for most of the afternoon and evening until the wind began to die as we approached Cape Trafalgar. The box of tricks allowed us to identify and talk to any passing merchantmen who seemed bent on our destruction and Bob chatted away happily in Spanish to the chap that got closest to us. I assume he tore a strip off him but it didn’t sound like it!

 

I attach a photo of Bob in his element.  Pay particular attention to the watch keeper’s  Badge of Office.

 

You can be forgiven if you are looking at the Speckled Hen, an easy mistake to make,  but I refer but the bug eyed frog on the end a length of green ribbon which Charlotte and the grandchildren (Phoebe and Tom) gave us as a good luck charm.   We use it to designate who is on watch at any point in time.  

 

Dinner was a fine fish pie prepared by my good self - or more accurately by Her Good Self and which  I extracted expertly from the freezer - new potatoes and beans (eeerrr ....SOYA beans (?!)  - don’t bother) .  What was not so expert was the extraction of the fish pie from the oven. This process was timed to perfection to coincide with the boat rolling towards me. I did anticipate it- and securely held the tray the pie was sitting on... but not the pie itself which promptly slid off the tray,  fell  out of the eye level oven and largely onto the work surface except for that portion  - a large portion - that went on to my foot, my shoe and the floor (where it picked up that extra ingredient that makes my cooking so memorable).  

 

We allocate the tasks on board according to who is on what watch. He who cooks does not get to wash up and last night that honour fell to Bob who had the job of washing the normal plates cutlery etc, the floor (including lifting each sole board in order to extract the fish pie from between – and, in fact, underneath -  them). He also had the pleasure of washing my shoes - including the soles  - but drew the line at bathing my scalded foot!

 

We rounded the point, made telephone calls home (the first signal since Monday)  and headed East towards the Mediterranean, the forecast leading us to expect us to motor South Eastward all the way to Gib for an arrival late tonight.  So you can imagine that morale is not now high given that the BLOODY WIND is blowing force 4/5 from the South East  (eerrr.. Which way do we want to go?) with a very short choppy sea and it is overcast - making our progress to Gib slow and uncomfortable. At least the wind coming off the Moroccan coast is warm and smells of Morrocco.

 

We hope to rendezvous with Susie and John tomorrow. We dont really know when we will arrive in Gib, certainly not now until tomorrow and quite possibly not until midday tomorrow unless the wind veers so we can sail straight at it.   

 

Ho hum.

 

PS           At least the heads are  working

PPS        We keep finding fish pie in the most extraordinary places.