Onboard update from Escapade delivery: 7/7/13 at 8.16am
No, we're not quite out of fresh food, $300 worth of fishing gear yields a result.
The cabonara a la boat will have to wait at least two more days. At 1530 yesterday afternoon the reel started buzzing and I grabbed up the rod and started to wind in. About 10 minutes later after a bit of playing to tire out the hapless victim (if your'e a fish you have to be s**t out of luck to be caught by me!) a yellow fin tuna of about 3kg arrives in the cockpit and gives a few exhausted flaps before expiring under my knife. 20 minutes later after cleaning and wrapping in alfoil with a few slices of fresh lime he's in the oven (had to remove the tail 'cause he was too long for the oven) and ready to be dinner for two. I talked Felicity out of doing more peas but she insisted on doing some mash. At 1800 we sat down in the cockpit with a baked tuna across both our laps and the computer playing reruns of star trek. The only down side was the fish juice leaked off the plate and onto my shirt and board shorts both of which have been banished to the back of the boat awaiting a wash. We got through about 2/3 and a token spoonful of mash before the rest went into the fridge - tuna patties tonight. Oh, the fridge has mad a come back that would make Lazarus proud; I suspect loose connections on the back probably knocked off by wrestling with the pots in the same cupboard. What this means is that we still have cold beer and elevenses this morning will involve cold coconut juice to go with the gin and limes.
Speaking of coconuts, I "husked" the last of our coconuts yesterday. The ones we have been given by the islanders come pre-husked to make them easier to stow and easier to get at, however we did have about a dozen that we had collected and my attempt to de-husk them had so far yielded one broken Japanese kitchen knife. Xavier on Lamotrek offered to sharpen the tomahawk I had purchased in Saipan using their angle grinder to get the right set on the blade. I then honed the blade using my sharpening stone and it made quite a good tool for de-husking coconuts. AFter watching the locals do it I have been honing my technique in the cockpit - until yesterday when, on the second last coconut, I missed - its only a flesh wound but as usual it was the left hand that coped it. Thumb will be redressed sometime today.
Otherwise, using the time honoured Captain Ron passage planning technique, we must nearly be there because we have run out of cereal, fruit, whisky, red wine, veggies, oh, and fuel.
After finally running off nearly 170miles on Friday the breeze returned to its fickle self yesterday and we only made 122, although at least we had breeze. Today looks like being much the same however at least we made a good distance east in the early hours this morning. At 0700 this morning we had made 28M although we are doing much better now the sun fish/dead body/chinese fishing net, or whatever it was that was caught around the keel, has finally dropped off. We are back to doing 6+ in 10kts when I was struggling to get to 4 in 12 kts earlier. (Un)fortunately whatever it was dropped off before the sun got up far enough for me to have a look underneath from the duckboard so we'll never know what it was. SOG has just climbed to 7 although not quite the right the direction so I'm hoping the wind will back 30 degrees as it is forecast to do. VMGC is still 6kt.
Second big news from yesterday was another ship and this one we could actually see. Around sundown we sighted a ship off to port and the AIS confirmed that it was a freighter bound for Honiara also, doing around 9kt and due in about a day ahead
