12:02N 43:33W

 

You knew this movie title had to come up.  I’m sure many of you reading this blog think that every day on Bandit during this Atlantic crossing must be Groundhog Day.  To be truthful....only some aspects of it become repetitive but somehow never monotonous.  For me the Groundhog element kicks in when I go up on deck first thing in the morning and an identical scene greets me......a moody grey Atlantic Ocean with a few white caps, the puffy clouds silhouetted against a lightening morning sky and the hint of a sunrise in the next few hours.  The skipper’s Groundhog moment is when I poke my head into our “cave” (the twin cabin) with a red light on my head to wake him up for his 4am watch!  I swear he tells me to go away!  I jotted down a few statistics for fun and when I saw we’d done 16 night watches each, I’d prepared 24 meals and we’d had eight daytime naps I realised life on Bandit does have a bit of a Groundhog Day ring about it! 

 

On our radio sked yesterday, friends on Balvenie, which is a few days behind us, said they’d caught a big mahimahi so, determined to equal them, our line stayed out all day and just on sunset away it went......with a massive mahimahi leaping out of the water.  We really don’t enjoy seeing such a beautiful fish caught but they do taste absolutely divine and we eat every spare morsel.  As I was thinking that the next three days of meals were taken care of, and the skipper was about to gaff the unfortunate creature....you guessed it...it made a final successful break for freedom.  It was about then we discussed calling today’s blog The One That Got Away, but couldn’t decide whether that was a movie or not.  Of course there is The Great Escape but regular readers will know we’ve used that.  It was about then the cook came to the rescue.  On dawn watch the line screeched again and, while the skipper was in a deep sleep, the cook not only managed to land the fish (a trevally we think) but kill it! (Skipper’s note; did not believe cook when she told me she had landed a fish but when I looked, sure enough ,there was a tail sticking out of the bucket!!! What a woman...think we’ll keep her on).  So that little episode meant we had to rethink movie titles and Groundhog Day it became.

 

Night watches last night were a bit testing as we sailed in some fairly torrid conditions.  We’re in the tropics now and the expected night squalls hit – one after the other.  We reefed the main at change of watch at midnight and only had a small amount of genoa out and Bandit behaved well, but the increased wind made for some choppy swells which made us rock and roll all night.  I was therefore surprised to wake to the smell of baking bread.  Skipper had kneaded, in very trying conditions, some tension out on a loaf!  Thank goodness he takes care of that as it’s a skill I sadly lack....along with scone making I am often teased about.  My efforts to make date scones resulted in hard lumps useful only for bookends.  It made me recall a tale about a sophisticated, immaculately dressed and well maintained Marlborough blonde who was welcoming a newcomer to the district.  The farmer’s wife just happened to be short, dumpy, plainly dressed and with not a scrape of make up.  Greeting her with an outstretched hand the blonde smiled warmly and said “I bet you make a jolly good scone”.  There are exceptions though.  Our good friend Del Bissell – always immaculately made up and dressed – makes the best date scones in Marlborough.  Well worth a trip up the valley!