Wednesday 5th March
ON THE WAY TO SANTA FE
All 5 of us went on this excursion, which involved a coach ride to the other end of the Island, a slow boat ride, an average guide, a very average snorkel, a lot of iguanas and not an awful lot of interest. What a contrast to the previous day when the service on board and the wildlife was great!
Blue-footed Booby
In the evening Mandy had organised a dinner at the Red Mangrove Hotel, which like most dinners organised by ARC was a great success, although the hotel let her down on the reservation and there were not enough tables. Sue and I arrived by taxi and were squeezed onto to table with Andante and David, Nick and Rosie from Kealoha, but the others and James pinched a Blue Water Rally table and a woman from it was absolutely furious and sat down and was extremely rude till another table was conjured up! Sue and I met her the next day on a water taxi and she was very pleasant, but she didn't know were associated with the ruffians from Quasar and Cleone who nicked her table!
Wednesday 12th March
ANYONE FOR A TOMATO JUICE?
JB: One of my jobs this morning was to check the batteries some of which are under the bunks in the aft cabin, where the lovely Roberto resides 75% of his time. It seemed a straightforward enough job but as I entered his cabin a foul stench gripped me by the throat and held me captive, pressing me up against the wall - I was choking for breath. I was armed only with my latex gloves and goggles in readiness for the battery check but it appeared that I had overlooked an additional unknown bio-hazard and should have perhaps worn my snorkel mask, better still full diving gear.
The hazard soon revealed itself...20 tomatoes crushed up together in a tray of 50 tomatoes, with all sorts of weird furry things emanating from them, and rancid tomato juice dripping on to the bed sheet, through to the mattress, on to the lee cloth. How on earth Roberto managed to sleep peacefully with that smell looming in his cabin I shall never know. Perhaps he was too distracted thinking of his tactics as to how to ketchup with the other ARC boats given that we started 4 hours late!!! On that rather awful joke I shall leave you all be!
DOWN IN THE DOLDRUMS
Down, but not downhearted!
Not much happening today with a little wind under the rainsqualls we managed a little sailing, but not much! The rest of the day is spent under engine. After deciding not to cook last night's fish in case it was a barracuda, Barry served up a version of a Spanish omelette, only to find later in a conversation with James that the fish was in fact a Wahoo, so I will be cooking it on Thursday!
We have decided to dive a little further South on reports from the fleet that they are hitting light trade winds at about 6 degrees South rather than 5. As nothing much is happening we have changed the watch system to 2 hours on and 8 off for the last couple of nights with everyone doing 2 hours on their own, which gives an extra 2 hours in bed and continued the lunchtime wine box tradition started on Tuesday - purely to aid the afternoon snoozing!
Malcy has been fixing a broken batten this morning and ordered a new hot water cylinder, which he is wondering whether he can take on the plane as hand luggage when he returns after 2 weeks off the boat in April/May! Maybe he should bring along his own loo as well! His guts still haven't recovered from the excursion to Isabella, although it is relatively minor problem compared with his state on the way to Equador!
clip_image002