Beltana II - Day 11 - Another fish caught by JR esquire

Yes the resident Dish Mole has had a corker of a day.......
First he cooked up a beauty of a breakfast of fresh fish – complete with Citric Acid salt and pepper and had the crew guessing “what did you marinade the fish in Jono??”
Next he volunteered to do a late lunch, and called on Anna’s peperoni and garlic pasta sauce with a hint of chilli too, over delicious spaghetti – another hit with the crew!
Then after transferring some of our diesel from the reserve tanks into the starboard tanks, and then scrubbing himself raw to get rid of a bit of spilt diesel, he had just finished cleaning up and his fishing rod went off! I caught another Mahi Mahi fish.
The official fishing score is now Jono – 2; Paul - 1.5; Johnny- 2.5; so it remains a close race with Jono’s old rig and old pole and old lures closely on the heals of the shinning new rig, poles, lures, traces, gaffs and clubs of the super fisherman Johnny Boy. Let the best man win!!!

Well it quite time that we highlight the life and times of Graham Kemp Esquire of Elizabeth Bay none the less! He overlooks the CYC Yacht Club and in fact used to me a member there too when he owned shares in a half tonne racing boat, (You see spending many lonely hours on deck with each of the crew in turn, life stories unfold and you get to know these folk pretty well). The yacht was called Panda (not sure about the derivation of the name, might need another midnight session (was not there a pop song about that? Clapton maybe??? Music was never my strong point) “shine a light on me” etc). Well now the plot thickens and the six degrees of separation comes in play. Paul O’Grady always told me about his golden rule – never buy a boat, always sail someone else’s boat – yes he is doing it again this month..........was looking for a ride and he ended up crewing on Panda with Graham, Bruce and Tony..... and a 25 year friendship was born. So, like me, Graham this year officially retired and the time of his choosing, and is keen to do some long distance sailing again, while his devoted wife continues to earn the monthly salary to keep Graham in the way is is accustomed (I made that bit up), so when Paul suggested he knew someone who might like to join, Paul made up a wonderful CV describing Graham’s many long distance sailing trips from Aussie to Indonesia and Malaysia, and Sydney to Neumea – so I jumped at the chance to recruit him. Of course now I find that Graham was only 23 on that trip to Indonesia, which was a year or two or three or four.........ago! But I must say the sailmaking/repairing skills he learnt on that trip are still just as current, and have used assiduously well on Beltana this week – Thanks Graham for being a great crew member! His travelling bug never left him and he is this week with us. I had actually met Graham before at Paul’s wedding and again at Paul’s 50th at his home in Mackay, but Graham and I had both forgotten the latter crossing of paths, and again relied on Paul to remind us. (What Paul 50?? he still acts like the the junior mining engineer I recruited for Clarence Colliery all those years ago – sometimes – other times he is quite responsible....)

Chicken Caccitore again tonight thank you Paul! last night I introduced Johnny and Graham to a little Turkish Raki, which they said they enjoyed, but they didn’t ask for seconds.....not sure I believe them.....placating the skipper maybe!
We still cant get John Casson to try the Vegimite.
The following we are running short of (or more like it all over rover)
Maybe tea bags
fresh salads
garlic, onions, flour, yeast, bicarb (Johnny’s baking prowess challenged)
Soft drink (Johnny reminds me that we stocked 10 cartons of beer but only one carton lolly water)
Bread
Maybe Gin!!! You should see how Paul pours a Gin!
Eggs
Muesli
Maybe tap water ( but I have lots of drinking water) – we are now washing in salt water

Aaron – if you get this message load up that refueling tanker of yours and plot a drop for 17 deg 14.44’N ; 31 deg 45.657’W as of now but factor our path on 251 Degrees Mag at 5.2 knots as from now 1809 UTC time.

Sailing is now going “very well indeed” a favorite saying of my old boss. We expect to have fair winds from now on, so if you are watching the estimated finish date on the YB tracker, it should update its calcs on more recent data over the next day or two. Paula and Graham’s estimate is the 12th December, but they are incentivised by flights booked on the 15th!!!!

Bye for now
Jono (I am trying to get a few others on board to add to the blog, but it is hard going)

By the way Mr ARC – we have a great film clip for you to show at the closing ceremony if that is the sort of thing you do –”How Beltana II deals with the doldrums”