Commodore
January 24, 2022

Duvets off, fridges emptying, and book recommendations

January 24 Day 15

Much like yesterday the wind hovered between 5 and 12 knots and blew from all sorts of directions. Engines on and off, different sails up and down, I’ve now lost track of it all.

At one stage the Ginger Gennaker got tangled up and looked like a bikini top for a while, it took a lot of untwisting and manhandling to get sorted out, that certainly helped to chew away at the hours and produced some very red faces! We had some very pleasant smooth sailing with the huge Scary WingAker up. Sadly because the Trade winds are not behaving we haven’t been able to use it as much as we would like. The hours we have had it up and the main sail down, Rowan has been chuffed to see our solar panels finally pumping out a good charge. Enough charge to run the entire boat, which is great news.

We are all getting through a lot of books. I’ve just read a fascinating book on the mysterious death of Robert Holmes a Court’s (famous for being Australia’s first billionaire) younger brother who disappeared from Botswana while in the middle of an affair with the woman who took us on our mobile safari in Botswana last November. His body was found 4 months after he disappeared in a remote spot in the Tsitsikama forest in South Africa with our guide Daphne’s gun in his hands! This all happened in the late 1970’s, and transpires he was employed by the apartheid government as a Spy. This was to pay off debts from his disastrous novice sailing escapade from Mozambique, when he was lost at sea off the S African coast for 3 weeks and was finally picked up by a tanker and towed back to Durban. He had to pay the shipping company a huge rescue fee. The SA government gets him professionally taught how to sail and he lands up cruising the Mozambican coast looking out for communists! He does this for two years and once his debts are settled he sails around the world, which is fascinating reading, taking the route we are on now. He sets sail from England and on day one hits the Bay of Biscay having one of its notorious monster storms that nearly scuppers the boat. Hannah can’t wait to read it as she recognises so many names, her boss is the nephew of Daphne our safari guide, and is the one who told us about the book. If only we had known all this scandal while we were with her, it would have been fascinating hearing her side of the story.

We had a lovely half hour with another big pod of dolphins. We could see them splashing in the distance as they roared towards us to catch the bow wave, we feel like we are their mobile fair ground ride, they seem to love it so much. As quickly as they arrive they disappear, I wonder how often they are up there playing and we are blissfully unaware.

Phoebs has had a happy, very hard working time with her boyfriend Daniel, in St Lucia, he left yesterday to head back to New York. He was on a full remote McKinsey work schedule and Phoebs got stuck into developing the next stage of her business which is very exciting. She is desperately urging us on to get there for my birthday, fingers crossed we do, it’s not looking that certain in these low winds.

Everyone is doing really well, Luke, Hannah and Tom are keeping up a very healthy fitness regime on the yoga mats on the front of the boat. Rowan joined Han yesterday, I’m psyching myself up to join today!

Hannah cooked us a delicious lentil dish for supper, lots of good spices, which luckily we have loads of, thanks to the space we now have with my conversion of the TV cupboard into a spice and booze cupboard. We have had the last of our lettuce and satsumas, the fridges are certainly looking a lot emptier. We have loads of tomatoes, avocados, passion fruit and apples left, a few mangoes and plenty of onions, carrots and cabbage. Coleslaw and bean salads from now on! Phoeb’s catering spreadsheets have worked a treat, we are definitely not going to starve, even if we are out here for longer! Our great supply of biscotti and rusks from my sister Widge in S Africa is keeping us all well topped up. We still have chocolates and mini magnum ice creams left too!

It’s definitely getting warmer, time to get rid of the summer duvets. Han is pleased to have discovered the fan in her room!