Noah's Ark
SY Cookielicious
Private
Fri 3 May 2013 17:48
75:21.25W
One cannot freeze sushi. Tried it, really looked forward to an easy meal, but the rice seemed to have uncooked itself, it tasted almost raw. Weird, as we are normally very successful with freezing cooked rice. Barry da Cuda did not seem to mind, he particularly seemed to like the wasabi. Had some freshly made eggplant chile sin carne instead, much better.
We had planned to leave the anchorage at 4 a.m. Still dark, but an easy exit, even in the dark. Geoff woke up 5 minutes to go so we got up. When about ready to haul the anchor he realises it was an hour earlier. But as we were up we still left. At least one of us managed to go back to bed after departure! The morning brought confused light winds, heavy rain, distant thunder and squalls. Guess we must be in the forecasted trough. Miserable and wet. That's not what the Bahamas are supposed to be like! We had several whiteouts, but what else can you do than use the radar and motor through. In one of the whiteouts the autopilot/GPS/navigation systems acted up and Cookie did a complete circle. Had to reboot. Statics from the (we thought faraway) thunder?
Around the boat we spotted some BIG but lethargic dolphins. They did not even want to swim at our bow for a bit as dolphins normally like to do. During one of the squalls this morning we got boarded by a little swallow with dark blue wings and Cookie-coloured chin, cheeks and spot above its little black beak. The little thing was drenched and exhausted, so tried to land on the boat. Under the sprayhood was too scary, too close to us, so he moved to the steering wheel. He sat there for 5 minutes being jerked to left and right by the autopilot. Not a good place to catch your breath either. Then the port side deck, that was better, although exposed to rain. Unfortunately we had to put the mainsail up to stop us from rolling, which then caused some flapping noises from the sail. Must have resembled the thunder that made the swallow leave it's island in the first place, scared the wits out of it! We tried to work out where it had landed this time when Geoff nearly stepped on the poor thing. So off it went again. We thought we had lost it but then heard a little tweet. As we looked up it took off again, in search of a better resting spot on Cookie. It took half an hour to locate the little stowaway on the starboard lifelines, fast asleep, head tucked in between its wings. Then a yellow canary like bird joined Cookie as well for a brief spell, so we felt like we were on Noah's Ark. Well the heavens were certainly opening up like a deluge! Helped washing off the bird poo.
In the afternoon we broke through the trough, sunny skies again. Instantly 3 dolphins swimming at the bow. Shame that the wind is slowly backing into more and more towards the nose which means head on soon.
Cookie-bird stayed with us, getting to know every nook & cranny on the boat, even down below at the nav station and in the galley. Never had such a determined stowaway before. Kind of nice to have a little pet! That was until we almost got to the top of Long Island. Geoff had moved it outside again and it had found itself a nice protected spot on a seat behind a towel. After a while it took off, flew behind the boat towards us, tried to land under the dinghy, miscalculated and fell in the water. As we do not do bird overboard manoeuvres we both cried out: "Oh no!!" We saw it sit helplessly on the water as we were rapidly pulling away and then lost sight of it. It was so close to life on a new island. We hope it had a nice last day, on board Cookie.
On a more positive note: we are making good use of the leftover V8 we provisioned for Elske, we now have discovered the easiest remedy for scurvy-prevention. More than two servings of vegetables in juice form in one handy can! If only the early discoverers would have had that on board their vessels they would have been a lot more successful with a higher survival rate. We will never do another passage without it! Even the recommended "shake well before opening" is automatically taken care of by Cookie.
Anchored just before dusk in Calabash Bay, Northern tip of Long Island, Exumas. Could have been called swimming pool bay. 117Nm done today, total so far 678Nm. The question is: are we totally running out of wind now?
Cheers,
Geoff & Merel