Today: TGIF; Who forgot to make the sacrifice? Make mine a
triple; Ch, Ch, Changes...; What we like about Gingers; Encore, Encore,
Entre;
Greetings Dear Readers, we hope this finds you in fine fettle- not sure
what a fettle is, but, apparently being in one is a very good thing.
Statistically speaking, Friday is the most popular day of the week as rated by
57.38% of our blog readers. Ok, so we made up the stat, but, we think it is. So,
speaking of TGIF- as mentioned yesterday, this is our third Friday and so our
third TGIF- we have had the classic: Thank Goodness Its Friday; then last week
Thank Goodness Izzy is Flying and this week, wait for it, drum roll, a peel of
bells.., we’ll tell you later... cruel isn’t it! Kind of like those shows where
you are waiting to see which contestant is leaving and then they go to
commercial break. We would go to commercial break, but, we prefer not to
compromise our editorial freedom with crass commercialism.
We would like to say a hearty Kiora! to Thelma and Ali, both currently
shivering in the Christchurch summer! Mike would like to let you know that all
flights from St Lucia to Auckland have been cancelled indefinitely or at least
until the weather improves to above 27 C. Please send any gifts care of
Libeccio in Rodney Bay Marina.
Speaking of gifts, here’s a thought that rocked our boat today—less than
two weeks until Christmas! Nothing so far on this trip has shaken the happy crew
than realising that the number of shopping days left when we return to the UK or
US or NZ are distinctly not enough for the shopping that needs to be done. Sorry
family, be prepared for a REALLY nice bottle of rum- specially imported from,
you guessed it, St.Lucia.
Certainly got off to a fast start and we forgot to make sure that you were
comfy, that you had found all of other blogs that we had forgot to post on both
sites- -promise that you read them all in order? Not many to go before we
arrive. As this is being written, it is 18:00 on Friday, we are a mere 200 nm to
go until we get to St Lucia. Izzy is happily back up (we’ll explain that later)
and flying, and Mike is putting the finishing touches on tonight’s multiple
course culinary masterpiece. At our current pace of over 6 kn, we will arrive in
about 30 hours—or, stupid o’clock in the morning. We have scheduled an emergency
crew meeting tomorrow morning to discuss our strategy as to whether or not, or
by how much we slow down, so that we arrive at a more social time.
Anyways, we really need to get back to when you last left us- dodging
squalls, again! If this is getting boring for you, just think how we feel.
Given our deteriorating luck, the crew had decided that we needed to make a
small sacrifice to appease Neptune (it works when you cross the equator) so that
he would call off the weather dogs.. but, it appears that we forgot for just as
we were setting into our night watch pattern, a knock comes on the door- “you
may want to take a look at this...”. Dear reader, if someone said that to you—do
you really think you would want to take a look at it? It can’t be good news,
such as: “I thought you may want to look at this—its a clear blue sky, with
millions of twinkling stars and a full moon unobstructed by clouds shining down
on a mirror flat ocean”, they might even throw in “oh, and look at the pod of
whales that have formed a honour guard around Libeccio to make sure she is safe
through the night”. No, those are not the kind of “hey, you may want to look at
this” awakenings I get. It is more like, “we are surrounded by hostile looking
clouds that have not yet shown up on radar and so it is impossible to tell which
one will shortly morph into an Izzy killing frenzy of wind and rain all served
on top of an ocean that has 3 meter swells, confusing wind waves and petulant
ripples”, or something like that. Suffice it to say that it was a busy night and
we successfully managed to keep the boat intact by changing courses anc avoiding
the bigger ones. It wasn’t until Bill mentioned to Jane as he was handing over
watch duties at 01:00 that “it looked like the weather had passed us by” before
things REALLY got going. Within 30 mins of that hand over, another little knock
on the door “hey, can you come up and look at this”- note that there is no
optionality in this request. So, up we go—sure enough—surrounded, seas a bit
bouncy and the moon missing in action, lucky and chose a gap between two dark
clouds- we had considered taking Izzie down and in fact called everyone on deck
to help out. But after watching the clouds progress a few more minutes we kept
Izzie up—thinking the weather would clear up behind that specific bank of
clouds. No sooner had we gotten to the other side of this cloud bank when we
were confronted by another one, Round 2 (dong goes the bell)—except this one was
much taller, darker and closer to the surface of the see. These are the three
dead give aways of a cloud bank you don’t want to miss with. This time we did
want Izzy down and yesterday. By this time Mike and Bill had gone back to bed
and so not wanting to wake Bill again who had just come off watch, we woke Mike
and the three of us headed up to get Izzy to safety. By this time, it was
pouring down with “tropical sized drops” if you know what I mean and within 10
mins we had Izzy down, tucked away and began sorting out the lines.
Rather than giving up, Dear Reader, we then set up the main sail by
shortening it using the third reef (therefore, make mine a triple) and similarly
reefing the genoa. When this was all finished, it was time for Mike to start his
real watch (at 04:00) and after sending in our position report, I went back to
bed so I would be ready for my 07:00 watch. Good thing we don’t need a lot of
sleep and can nap during the day. Once we had our triple reefed set up, we could
sail through pretty much any of the weather on offer this morning and so Mike
did. When I showed up to start my watch, he had tired out even the most
enthusiastic weather god and we were starting to see a change. By mid day, the
skies were clearing and the wind moderating so we were able to put out more
sail. Over the afternoon the clouds slunk away and the sun took over- what a
difference that makes- and by mid afternoon, we were raising Izzy again for
another roll of the dice. The boat looked like a laundry as we hung out all of
the wet clothes from earlier in the morning.
Keep in mind, that these are a baby squalls with winds max’ing out around
25 – 30 knot and seas of 1 – 3 meters. We have been fortunate to avoid the
bigger squalls that carry 40 – 50 knot winds and 4 – 5 meter seas.
In a true sign that all was improving, we were entertained by a pod of
dolphins who joined Libeccio and played in front and in between her hulls. We
love to see dolphins and believe that they are good luck- not that we are
complaining, but, where were they last night? Anyways, we all scampered to the
front of the boat and on the trampoline to watch them duck and dive.
Ahhhhh
So that is how we got to our happy hour- with Libeccio cheerily riding the
rollers at speed of 6 – 8 knots and the sky almost devoid of any clouds at all.
This happy hour was a special one- cue, David Bowie : “Time to make a change,
ch, ch, changes...” go ahead, sing along. For we had today completed our
final time ch, ch, change to get the boat time to match St Lucia time. In events
as important as this, what does a captain do? Declare an truce in the battle of
the dry boat and allocate one dram (or can) of beer. So with a merry “Ch, ch,
cheers” we all savoured our tinny.
Speaking of “merry”, you would be forgiven if you thought you could hear
the sounds of Leona Lewis singing her new (from last year) christmas carols. It
seems that Jane, “lets get in the Christmas mood no matter where we are”, had
developed a plot whereby each of the crew would sketch out their favourite Xmas
items (Bell, Star, Tree, etc) on a piece of paper, cut it out and then Jane
would use it as a template to cut out a cookie pattern. She proceeded to make
ginger bread dough, use the patterns to cut out the cookies and bake them. Then
for dessert, she made icing which we used to individually decorate our shapes
along with a few different types of sprinkles—how can you tell she was a
teacher? Yumm-eee.
This brings us (cleverly, wouldn’t you agree) to tonight’s Culinary corner,
brought to you by Master Chef Mike- on tonight’s menu was—bow tie pasta and
homemade bacon sauce; pork chop and rice; chicken Devine; Australian Women’s
weekly special fried rice, to name a few. Yes, you guessed correctly—it is
“left overs” night. Luckily, we have a micro wave on board and so we were able
to chose our meals and presto- its hot and on the table.
With the seas relatively calm, we were able to eat in the front seating
area and enjoy the sounds of the ocean passing by the boat as we sailed along.
Once again, we are at the point where we are all ready for whatever the
night will present to us—although, we would prefer not to have that little knock
on the door.
Have a great day or evening, where ever you are..
The Crew of Libeccio
ok, ok, just testing to see if you were still paying attention.. this
week’s TGIF is, Together Go the Intrepid Foursome! No, we are not talking about
golf, Chris.