Lanzarote to Grenada, day 16

Stravaig'n the Blue
Mon 25 Jan 2021 22:49
End of day 16 position: 15:06.8 N 049:30.1 W
Position timestamp: Monday 25 Jan 2021 12:00 UTC-3
Distance travelled last 24 hours: 137 NM
Reduction in distance to destination last 24 hours: 130 NM
Distance travelled total: 2400 NM
Average speed since departure: 6.2 knots
Shortest distance to destination: 749 NM
ETA based on shortest distance and average speed so far: noon, Saturday 30 January (21 days in total)

Sailing into our third week, and surprisingly we still have quite a lot of fresh food left. Along with the brilliant green keep fresh bags, we should give credit to our fridge for doing a good job. Until now, I hadn't really appreciated how much more efficient this fridge is than the far less sophisticated type we had on our previous boat.  That one, a dual-opening chest fridge, lost much of it's chill every time the side door was opened and the drop-in access on top meant it had to be half emptied to retrieve anything down in the depths.

This new model has two not-too-deep drawers that are divided into variously sized sections the height of litre bottles. It can be packed quite tightly,  with bags all upright so everything is easily accessible. The deep, solid drawer sides hold the cold air, and provide the now obvious benefit of making food last longer. And, as space has become available, and the temperature outside heats up, I've been able to move vegetables and fruits that were stored in the cabins into its protective custody.

So, the happy result is that here we are on day 16, when I thought we'd be getting down to using frozen and jarred vegetables, and we still have lettuce! A heart of a little gem, a few leaves of escarole and a chicory, to be exact. Also there are two cucumbers (those small, firm dark green ones), six big tomatoes (bought green) and a punnet of the mini black-skinned kumato variety, which have kept especially well. There are still two quite perky red peppers, three just-about-ripe avocados, some fresh parsley, a little bit of broccoli, almost half a large cauliflower, several light-skinned courgettes, two heads of fennel, a dozen carrots, a white turnip, lots of cabbage and three beetroots. Outside the fridge, in the bed drawer, we still have quite a few red onions and that mega butternut squash!

The fruit is steadily being eaten. We're down to six oranges in their hanging net, eight apples, a hopefully delicious, big yellow-skinned melon hiding in the bed drawer that I'm reserving for the end of the voyage, and one precious pomegranate (now in the fridge). Also in the fridge, amazingly, (having eaten one every day with our muesli) we still have 12 just-ripe bananas. Mid week, I transferred the half a dozen green bananas I'd kept on a shelf - which predictably all turned yellow on the same day - to the safety of the yellow bag in the fridge!

I'm not worrying too much about the meat - there are 18 packs of various meats and poultry left in the freezer, as well as four or five bags of frozen vegetables and three bags of prawns. We have though eaten almost all of the fish - there are only two small fillets of salmon left. This means there's room for more and Allan is always ready for a spot of fishing. He frustratingly caught lots of seaweed when fishing resumed, then last night as the sun went down, the tell tale sound of the fishing line reeling out meant a fish had been caught! Turned out to be a not-too-big mahi mahi. It was a little late for fish gutting, but once I'd lopped off the tail it was small enough to fit in the fridge. I filleted it this morning, put four decent sized fillets in the freezer and have two more in the fridge for supper tonight.



So, unless our speed drops off dramatically, it looks like we'll have plenty fresh food to last the rest of the voyage and keep us going in quarantine, too. 

All is well.

Linda