St. Helena to Grenada - Day 19
Harmonie
Don and Anne Myers
Thu 31 Jan 2013 15:15
08:31.416N 50:59.391W
January 31, 2013
Countdown.
Now that conditions have returned to pleasant
tradewind sailing (aside from the continuously gray sky above us), we can move
on to more important topics. Like counting things. We always start
calculating arrival time as the end of a passage nears, however, this
exceptionally long passage calls for a broader approach to the usual
countdown. What follows are some of the things we are keeping track of as
Grenada draws near.
Alcoholic beverage tally: Don - 3 beers, Anne - 0
Our successful passage prohibition program proves we can
exhibit extraordinary willpower when we choose to. It
also proves that a long sailing passage without alcohol could
easily be packaged and sold as an excellent weight loss
program.
Total dead flying fish - Hmmmm....not sure, but if you include
the two from last night, we must be well up over 100 by now.
Total fish caught - 1 35 pound king mackerel (thrown back) and
two grayish, smallish UFO's (Unidentified Fish Objects) also thrown back.
After that, fishing was suspended due to freezer malfunction.
Number of battery charging cycles left - 8 (2 per day).
The generator (knock on wood) continues to chug along and the two working
battery chargers are doing the job.
Liters of water in the tank - 600. Don suspects the
watermaker's high pressure pump is in need of some TLC, and this is
why the fresh water salinity content is up and the watermaker volume down.
No worries though, we've been mixing bottled water with tank water for drinking,
and 600 liters is enough to last us several weeks, let alone four
days.
Liters of diesel on board - tons. We still have a few
jerry cans full of fuel, and haven't checked the tank level lately because it's
not a concern. We've only run the engine 38 hours since leaving St.
Helena, and although the generator has gotten plenty of use, its fuel
consumption is minimal.
Card-playing champion - Unofficially, it's Don (but I don't
like to admit it). Tea time and card playing (when conditions allow) have
been our substitute for happy hour, and have worked out quite nicely (other than
the Don winning thing).
Books - Don is on book 9 or 10, I lag behind at book 4
(the change in boat motion north of the equator and the bad
weather are to blame).
Night watches left - Eight 3-hour watches for each of
us.
Remaining dinners to be prepared while simultaneously bouncing
and leaning to the left - four.
And the finale...
Vegetables remaining after 3 weeks at sea and 5 weeks since
our last visit to a 'real' grocery store in Namibia:
5 surly onions who continue to sneer up at us from
their basket on the galley counter.
1 bag of carrots sitting in the back corner of the
back-up fridge untouched and uncared-for. You could say the cook is afraid
to look in that particular bag - afraid of finding a remarkable collection of
orange mush threaded with black ooze and white stringy mold.
1 partial, continuously bending, cucumber.
10 very well looked after St. Helena green beans - like the
cucumber, extremely flexible; but unlike the tomatoes, have not succumbed to the
weeping black death.
1 extremely perky half cabbage.
2 pleasantly healthy oranges.
5 semi-bruised, but still edible, apples.
1 dozen age-spotted eggs.
With that vast collection of appetizing tidbits to keep us
going, we are sure to arrive in Grenada four days from now in tip-top shape and
vigorous health.
670 miles to go.
(Day 19 progress: 183 miles)
Anne
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