Arc Day 15 - Sail fish

Tucanon
Dick and Irene Craig
Sun 6 Dec 2009 23:35
At 6am, the following sea was encroaching half way up the sugar scoops and
the door to the locker containing the bathing ladder had been forced open
again before closing, quite automatically within half an hour.

The last 24 hours we have been doing a good speed under the parasailor and
the ETA is now tantalizingly close to 8th December. Scarey, that is getting
real close!

At 10.42 and 32 seconds, UT, we have only 600 nautical miles to go to our
destination, so could, if necessary, do it using the iron sail.

The clouds in the sky are white and friendly but we now know that by late
afternoon, they will have banded together and taken on a most unfriendly,
dark grey, approaching black, complexion.

Last night was a good night. Nothing unexpected occurred and the crew not on
watch, were able to get full value from their slumber period.

Today is chill-out day and the mode of dress is casual. Nobody is permitted
to wear a business suit today, in fact not any sort of suit, which means
that bathing suits may also not be worn today.

The basil plants are all doing well despite their fright, having had to do a
photo shoot with the calendar boys.

Thank you to the ship captain who sent us, on an e-postcard, details of the
variety of birds we should be able to spot now that we are approaching land,
not least of all the red billed and white tailed birds, seen all over the
Caribbean. He advises that these beautiful white birds with a long tail, are
a spectacular sight and as they are seen far out to sea, we might get lucky
and have them fly close to our boat.

We haven't spotted any yet but we take turns to scan the horizon using
binoculars, on a 24/7 basis. It's only a matter of time.

We were going to play scrabble today rather than trivial pursuits but half
the crew don't speak English, not what as writ anyway.

Lunch today is Serrano ham salad and supper looks as if it is going to be
fish.

Austin has just caught a Sail fish weighing in at 9 kilos. Cook has been
checking out recipes and made a special marinade for the fish which will be
barbecued tonight. The remaining fish will be the basis of a chowder for
tomorrow night.

The chill out day almost wasn't when the skipper wanted to put the rest of
the fish, which was not used today, in the freezer. Cook had an apoplexy at
the sheer thought of the unfrozen fish raising the temperature in the
freezer which had been lovingly nurtured throughout the trip.

Another hole was spotted in the parasailor halfway through lunch and this
resulted in dropping the sail, unfurling the genoa, repairing the sail and
raising it again, all within about half an hour. Lunch was then resumed and
the coffee arrived a little later.

We played trivial pursuits against the Kittiwake Kittens and the Raylah
Raiders and the Kittens won yet again with a close second place by the
Raiders. Well done Kittens, bad luck Raiders!

Irene

JPEG image