Arc Day 7 - Dorado
Tucanon
Dick and Irene Craig
Sat 28 Nov 2009 22:16
morning and evening with the wind mainly 15 -20knots on a broad reach.
As the temperature rises, the layers that we are wearing during our
night-watch, are decreasing. Soon it will be T-shirts and shorts during the
night watch as well as during the day.
At 7am, after sailing in sight of each other for the last 48+ hours,
Robinson was still there striving to overtake us. Have to say that she is
doing very well but still behind us despite her crew purportedly
hand-steering from around 3am, in an attempt to give them an edge over us.
We offered to deploy our sea anchor but they gallantly declined.
Our two boats came very close during the night, quite deliberately but after
our chat on the VHF at 7am, they moved further south and out of sight,
though they are still in evidence on the radar.
We had a couple of flying fish land on the deck during the night. One was
thrown back into the water, still alive, the other was already dead.
During the morning a third flying fish was found on deck. It was dead so
Austin used it as bait to try to catch a bigger fish.
The guys all did their noon-day sights at 10am. That was because we are now
two hours ahead of GMT having moved our clock back by another hour today.
Lunch today is corned-beef salad and supper will be gammon, cooked in the
slow cooker in a honey-orange sauce and served with roast potatoes. This is
the speciality dish of the passage.
Austin caught a dorado just as lunch was ready, see photo below. A brilliant
feat on his part. It was a beautiful fish, around 2.5kilos, green and
yellow. A tragedy to kill it really. This is a perfect example of Job's law.
Any other day we could have postponed the planned meal by 24 hours but
today, with the gammon already par-boiled, ready for the pot, it has to be
cooked today. The cook offered to serve the gammon cold tomorrow but it
really is at its best, served freshly cooked.
Austin gutted and prepared the fish and it was put in a zip topped bag, in
the fridge. We will barbecue it for lunch tomorrow.
We tend to have a pudding most nights. Often they are already prepared when
bought but from time to time we do get home-made desserts and tonight we
will have home-made apple pie and custard. There is always a selection of
cheese available, which can be eaten instead of a pud or as well as a pud.
When we are not on watch, or busy doing maintenance or some other chore, we
try to rest. Occasionally someone will have a nap during the afternoon, if
time permits. Mainly, if we are not on watch, we tend to go to bed soon
after supper. Chris hasn't been able to do this because he has an
appointment with the SSB around 9pm each evening.
Austin spent ages making a repair to the sail-bag so that the rod, on the
port side, will cease trying to escape. It was a labour of love as he had to
stand in a very uncomfortable position for simply ages to effect the repair.
Apparently, the collective name for flying fish is a glide. The information
was provided via an e-postcard from Roger and Maureen in the UK, along with
the collective name of any fish that you can name. We are happy to pass this
information on to anybody, should it be requested.
Seperate additional photos:
- Another set of Rock Cakes are baked,
- The Parasailor in front of a setting sun, note the brillaint repair from
the winter of 2007 in Turkey.
Irene
