Monday 8th December 2014
How
Samuel Pepys did this for all those years I don’t know! One thing is for sure,
even though he was pre the internet, more happened in London then, than happens
in the middle of the Atlantic now! No dolphins, no whales: just flying fish and
a new one; sea weed. Actually we saw that for the first time a few days ago, but
I was holding back on it in case we needed a lead story! We’d (no pun intended)
like to know where it comes from? Experts as we are in sea weed, our first guess
was the Sargasso Sea, however, the currents we are experiencing are from the
south and the Sargasso Sea lies to the north, hmmm.
There are no fish in this sea or else I’d have caught
them on a daily basis, right? We’re using squid type lures on the surface and 3’
down but still no joy. Are the fish around here more intelligent than the usual
varieties at home? The guys and the fish are laughing at me – anyone any
pointers? We’ve tried fishing at all sorts of speeds, but generally 5 – 7 knots
boat speed. HOLD THE PRESS: REAL TIME NEWS: we’ve obviously just gone through a
shoal of some type of fish (see picture below) as we’ve simultaneously caught
one on each line. We really need another two between four of us so will keep
trying until dinner. Looks like a relative of the tuna looking at its tail fin.
It’s most distinctive marking which you can’t see in the photo is a dark stripe
from the eye back to the dorsal fin. In case anyone recognises this as a deadly
poisonous variety, we will be sitting down to eat it at about 19:00 hrs
your time and I’ll do a send/receive before then – just in
case!
This morning we celebrated a sub 500nm distance to travel with Galette type pancakes
made by Alastair. They were heartily appreciated and they gave us an opportunity
to get rid of a lemon or two. We’re now at that stage in the proceedings where
we’re trying to match fresh food to conventional recipes and sometimes coming up
with interesting alternative uses. That said, the only fruit left are apples,
oranges and lemons and the only vegetables left are potatoes and onions. We
continue to dine like kings and had pork casserole and melon for desert. Tonight
is another chicken Provencal (or maybe the fish), as we still have the luxury of
frozen mince, pork, chicken and burgers left. Am I obsessing about food! Maybe,
but there’s little else to occupy us at the moment!
Last night was highly entertaining: it started raining; really raining. We all had
one thing in mind and leapt on deck in our swimming trunks and started lathering
up. Health and safety would have had a field day. There we were slipping around
on the coach roof trying to catch the water collected by the mainsail, coming
out of holes in the boom without lifejackets. Needless to say we were all fine
and a hell of a lot fresher afterwards.
Lighter winds and sunshine today have seen us playing
with various sail combinations and trying to dry everything that was soaked by
rain yesterday.
I have been working
particularly hard at getting the large gennaker to
fly!