Commodore
March 6, 2023

Monday 6 March – sails up all day means we are creeping back up the leaderboard

I had the best night sleep since leaving, it was my night off shifts meaning no set alarm to wake up to, there were no engines running, and it was cool. I was asleep by 9.15pm and finally woke up at 8am! Pure bliss and very restorative.

With Stinky still working we are able to keep in touch with quite a few of the fleet, as so many have Stinky as well. Rowan in his morning shift came across a huge squall and turned to avoid it which proved a very good thing as there was a lot of lightening in it. Turns out some boats had a very scary time being caught in the middle of it. Monohulls are better off than Catamarans in lightening strikes, so we want to avoid them at all costs. A few boats have had some issues along the way, but all seem to be coping well. There is one boat that is lagging in the doldrums, 3 men, and we think they are Polish, they don’t speak much English so we haven’t seen them about much. They were the only boat that never passed their bottom inspection in the Galapagos, they had to employ a diver and go fifty miles off shore and get it cleaned before they were allowed back in. This is when it helps enormously being with the Arc Rally, as they really smooth out the wrinkles, as they have all their connections in every country and agents who they know are reliable. The Arc organised all our fuel deliveries in the Galapagos which was a huge mission as it has to be pre ordered and paid in cash before hand. We have been very impressed at how hard the Yellow Shirts work.

Otherwise it was a good day of sailing west with Scary up from morning until sunset. Once dark we have Sporty up and head south. The doldrums are really pushing the Trades down south.

We cant let Nevil fish everyday as we have no more room in the deep freeze. This means he is very keen to eat fish at every meal, so we get through it all, not easy when Han and Megan don’t eat fish! Fish bacon with our breakfast was a real treat, plus banana pancakes that Megan made. Fish tacos for supper while the girls had bean tacos, which were both really delicious, accompanied with home made tomato salsa, avocado in lime, grated cheddar and sour cream (cream cheese and yoghurt with lemon juice). Our huge stalk of green bananas came to a messy end, they had yellowed up very quickly and had managed to crash to the floor one night, bruising a lot of them. Thats why we had banana pancakes this morning and roasted bananas with pecan nuts for pudding tonight. I have landed up peeling a load and putting them in the freezer, everything is ripening so quickly, much quicker than on the Atlantic crossing. Nevil and Han don’t eat bananas so Rowan, Megan and I are doing our hardest to get through them. We also have a lot of pawpaws (papaya) that have all ripened at once, which are now in the fridges, now that we have a bit more space. At least we all eat pawpaw! But I reckon we will be out of fresh fruit half way through the crossing.

Nevil taught us a Swiss card game with our mocktails this evening, we were a bit alarmed when he called it Pants Down! A quaint German expression for show your cards!

It appears on the Fleet group chat that we may be heading for more areas without much wind. just not what we wanted to hear!