Arc Day 16 - Defrost the fridge

Tucanon
Dick and Irene Craig
Mon 7 Dec 2009 22:45
I have to admit that I am beginning to get a bit fed up with the night watches and will be pleased to arrive in Rodney bay. The 1800 to 2400 and the 0600 to 0900 watches are OK but I find that the others are draining once we had been at sea for about 10days.

Thanks for the e-postcard Michael. Love your smutty sense of humour. Had you been on board, we would have let you use as many basil plants as necessary or, like Austin, you could have positioned yourself behind the chart plotter.

Thanks also to ARC control for your e-postcard. It is good to know that someone is reading the blog other than friends and family, who have to answer an in depth questionaire at the completion of our passage. It wasn't broccoli that was providing modesty for the calendar boys, just modest basil plants. Hopefully you will be able to meet them (the basil plants) when we arrive in St. Lucia. As far as their future after arrival (still talking about the basil plants), who knows? Perhaps we will auction them and donate the proceeds to the "Girlsforsail" charity, for cancer research.

We had to drop the parasailor about 10pm last night, as the wind became stronger but are pleased to say that it was flying again this morning, soon after 9am.

There are some strong winds forecast ahead, so don't know how long it will be prudent to leave the parasailor in place.

Mid morning the wind was blowing 15knots and gusting 20knots, the sky is blue, with a smattering of white clouds, many with pale grey centres. The sun is hot.

Yesterday, Dick and Austin inadvertently, spent too much time in the hot sunshine and consequently felt a little below par during the evening.

Now that the volume of fruit and vegetables on board have been reduced, it was possible to manage with just one fridge while the one in the cockpit was defrosted, with a little bit of help from a piece of string and a plastic box containing some flares. It had become very frosted as it is constantly being opened to access milk, juice, snacks, soft drinks etc.

The new fender covers have been taken out of store ready to be put on the fenders when they are inflated, just before landfall. They had been stored under Chris' bed so, coinciding it with the change of bed-linen day, to cause as little additional disrupttion as possible, we went mining. Believe me, that really is the operative word. We had known before we left Las Palmas, that we would need them before we reached St.Lucia but nonetheless they were still hidden below the femoral traction splint and four heavy bags containing charts for our circumnavigation.

Today we played trivial pursuits against the Raylah Raiders who gave us a good match though finally the game went to the Tucanon Tigers. Well done Raiders and thanks for that, which makes us game all.

Lunch today was a huge vegetable pie, almost all of which was consumed at lunchtime. There is just one piece left for savoury snacks, as and when.

Supper today is to be a form of Sail fish chowder but more a stew than a soup.

We were in VHF contact with Goldina II, who was also visible from our boat. She has problems with her rudder, autopilot and spinnaker pole. We offered to standby but the crew were quite happy to continue on their mission to reach Rodney bay unassisted.



Irene

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