Day 8: Sun 13/5/12 – Fruit and N utcases – 36:41.3N 48:02.7W

Watergaw
Alan Hannah/ Alison Taylor
Sun 13 May 2012 22:48

Unfortunately, the wind slackened shortly after last night’s post, and our boat speed dropped by a third or more for the dark hours. We had a nasty dark cloud and a little rain at about 2100, but it came to nought. We meandered on through the night, and at 0900 we had a phantom wind – out came the gennaker (not to everyone’s pleasure), up it went and then the wind blew a raspberry at us and died.

 

Since then we have been motoring, doing the laundry, stitching the bimini (we may reprise entering the Strictly Come Sewing qualifiers), sleeping and generally sorting things out. The pressure comes off when the sails come down, except in the calculation of diesel consumption! We filled both tanks and another 10 cans before we left Bermuda, following advice to be able to motor 1000 miles. Plenty left yet, but you often have to motor the last 200 odd miles to the Azores because the wind eases and/or is in the wrong direction.

 

What we need is some more wind. Chris promises us some tomorrow, but we may well have to put extra miles in to sail it, since it is going to be North Easterly (probably).

Whistling tunelessly….

 

 

 

Fruit Flies….

 

We knew it was going to be like this, but it still hurts to be flinging fruit over the side. When we left the Canaries, we had a tonne of fruit and vegetables, and they lasted surprisingly well, some (citrus, cabbage) even surviving the three weeks till we reached St Lucia.

 

In Bermuda the shops keep it all in the chilled cabinets, which means that it does not last well at all. Worse than this is that you have to check whether they have “waxed” the fruit, or more precisely, covered it in shellac made (Ali tells me) from insect wings.

 

Thus we have the regular fruit and veg sort, to avoid one bad apple spoiling the barrel. This is followed by the bowling practice, aiming through the hatch and under the bimini poles, behind the spray hood and over the side, hopefully clearing the side decks. This is not always successful. It can be downright dangerous if you happen to be the vigilant watch keeper, and the bowler fails to spot that you have inadvertently moved into the line of fire. Splat, as they say in the comics!

 

Then we have the eat-all-you-can-quickly session, to devour the stuff that is on the point of disintegrating: brown bananas are not Ali’s favourite food, and Lorraine is not a melon fan, so Jim and I are taking up the slack! Today, however, was near mouldy pineapple day, and nobody refused to partake – we may all regret this tomorrow!

 

 

Be happy…

 

Watergaw