Isabelle
13/04/2010

A few days before we left the Galapagos we had dinner with friends Vicky and Steve from True Companions. During dinner Vicky told us of a great recipe she had for coconut brownies. Â"IÂ'll print a copy of the recipe out if you likeÂ". My mouth was already watering as Steve began describing the large amounts of coconut and chocolate that was in them.

Passing our three quarters of the way mark to the Marquesas, Jamie and I decided, called for a little celebration, Â'What a great chance to make those browniesÂ' I thought.

Here is how I know IÂ'm living in a globalised world; first I got out the coconut cream powder which Nona bought for us in Australia but was made in china with coconuts from Costa Rica and mixed it up into a creamy milk. Next I melted the chocolate, which we bought in the Galapagos but was made in Ecuador by a Swiss company. I also beat some eggs, which had been made by chickens in the Galapagos (their feathers are probably a product of Japan). I went to the cupboard and picked out the bottle of rum, which we bought in Panama but was produced in the UK. Â'Why travelÂ' I thought, Â'when you could just eat a brownieÂ'.

IÂ'll tell you what, if ever I have experienced a moment of Zen, it would be when I began to mix the coconut cream into the chocolate. It oozed around my spoon and a sweet, rich, divine smell wafted up and into my nostrils. Come to think of it, it may have been more rapture than Zen. All of a sudden, a bigger than usual wave rocketed into the side of the boat. Everything crashed and flew. I was thrown against the sink behind me. Our toaster fell off the shelf and into my chocolate mixture leaving big lumps of carbonised toast sitting there on the surface of it. One of our white cups fell off the bench and broke for the third time. The remaining coconut milk spilled all over our bench and began to drip innocently into our dry food storage. The eggs followed the milk. I wonÂ't tell you what word I then muttered.

Jamie was down in a flash picking up the pieces and cleaning up the spilled milk and eggs. I was so frustrated. After only four hours sleep I was already on a short fuse. I felt like crying or screaming but serious matters urged; a brownie was at stake here. I began to spoon the carbon off the chocolate. Jamie assisted me for the rest of the brownie making and as the boat lurched and waves hammered, we finally got the brownie in the oven.

30 minutes later, Jamie and I stood staring down at our creation. Â"ItÂ's tinyÂ" I sighed. Jamie hugged me Â"WellÂ" he said, Â"ItÂ's our three quarter cakeÂ".

Comments [1]

Isabelle
12/04/2010

One of our favourite times of day is the radio sked where we share our positions and report any happenings during the day. Often times the signal is so poor that it can be a bit like trying to speak to your grandfather without his hearing aid, hereÂ's an example of one of the conversations weÂ've listened to (just going by memory here); Australia 31: Attitude Attitude, Australia 31. Attitude: Australia 31, Attitude. How are you Bernie, everything Good on board? Australia 31: Hi Neil, Everything good, Everything good, over. Attitude: What is your position? Australia 31: Latitude 02 degrees 34 minutes South, Longitude 94 degrees 49 minutes West Attitude: Ok, I got O3 34 South, 94 49 West Australia 31: Negative, 02 34, 02 34 Attitude: Ok, I copy, 04 34 Australia 31: Negative, negative, 02 34, 02 34. Attitude: 02 34? Australia 31: Roger, Roger. Attitude: Anything else to report? Australia 31: Watch out for the long line fishermen, last night their lines got caught in our propeller. No lights, no lights. Attitude: Yes, we have caught a few fish, a Yellow fin tuna and a Wahoo today. Australia 31: Negative negative, long-line fishermen, long-line fishermen. We cut the lines, cut the lines. Attitude: You cut your fishing lines? Must have been a big one! Australia 31: Negative, negative, long-line fishermen, long-line fishermen! Attitude: Long-line fishermen, you cut the lines? Australia 31: Roger, Roger! Emily Grace: Australia 31 , Emily Grace. Are the fishing boats lit? (pause) Australia 31: (very muffled) No lights, No lights. Emily Grace: I do not copy, are the fishing boats lit? Otherwise how we can locate them? Onda: Emily Grace, Onda. Yes, donÂ't worry, they would be lit, they would be lit.

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James
11/04/2010

Still sailing under clear skies. Making good time with our spinnaker up. Only 800 or so miles to go so should be at Hiva Oa in around six days. Barnacles starting to grow on the boat where the bow wave washes the sides.

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James
09/04/2010

All going well. Brilliant days and nights of sailing in 12-15 knots, clear skies. Winds perhaps are going to drop in strength and go more easterly so have been maintaining a more northerly course. Our Boobie is still with us. Had flying fish for breakfast the last two mornings but only one an inch long today.

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James
07/04/2010

We passed the half way mark of 1500 miles this morning. Celebrating by opening one of our two packets of Tim Tams! Sailing now in true trade wind conditions: blue skies with light cumulus clouds, deep blue ocean (about 5000m deep here) and about 12 knots of wind from the south-east. We had to put our clocks back another hour today as we tick off the degrees of longitude as we head further west. We've been making good progress of around 160-170 miles a day since we've had the strong breezes lately. About a knot of current helping us too. The boat has been performing well. We don't need much sail to keep us going and have even had two reefs in the mainsail all yesterday, even though it was probably no stronger than about 20 knots. We generally reduce sail as darkness approaches, just to make it a bit more sedate for sleeping, plus we can't really see if any strong squalls are heading for us. We have been taking just two night watches. Isabelle takes the first, after we've had dinner and listened in to the evening radio net, until 1am. Then i take the rest until dawn. We both are about during the day to see to the running of the boat. The radio net is a small community get-together on the air waves of a few boats that are heading roughly in the same direction at the same time. We all give our positions, so that if anything happens to anyone, their last position would be known to start looking from. Sometimes we can hear and be heard quite well, other times hardly or not at all. The boats are now spread from the Marquesas to the Galapagos, over 3000 miles.

Our passenger, the Nazca, or white faced Boobie, is still with us. Such a lovely creature, and we spend hours observing it. I'm concerned it has lost it's way as we don't see any other Boobies out here and as far as we know they are unique to the Galapagos. It seems to be content enough, endlessly preening itself between occasional fishing forays. Today, I gave it the end of a piece of line that I'd been tying the solar panel on with. It had been watching me closely. It made quite a raucous about the short piece of rope, playing with it for quite a while. Maybe it intends making a nest and moving in?

Isabelle was reeling in our fishing line last night after dark, since I had forgotten to get it in earlier, when she got stung by a jellyfish that was caught in the line. It looked like a little blue-bottle, the ones with a small float and one long tentacle. She was in quite a bit of agony where she'd grabbed it with her right hand. We got some vinegar on it but she said the pain was like someone was sticking needles into her. Fortunately it passed after about an hour.

Comments [3]

James
04/04/2010

This is such a long passage that we have been breaking it down in to chunks, so it seems like we are getting somewhere. Otherwise, when we plot the day's run on the chart and it moves us only a couple of centimetres it can look pretty insignificant, especially as we have most of the width of the chart to cover.

Fisrt milestone was a tenth of the way, then a fifth, a quarter, and finally a whole third of the way this morning. Isabelle has made some chocolate chip cookies to celebrate.

We've been making pretty good progress now that we have steady wind. Last few days have been around 170 miles each.

Had lots of wind last night and dropped the mainsail altogether and just ran under the genoa. Had to even reef that in a bit too. It was a bit wild when we were dropping the mainsail. Pitch black night, wind rising, but all this brilliant phosphorecence from the wake of the boat lighting up what otherwise would have been a very dark job. Again we were able to just lash the helm and the boat would steer itself. A good thing as the autopilot is quite strained with some sharp cross seas knocking us around every now and then.

We have a passenger on board at the moment. A beautiful, white faced Nazca Booby.

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