Day 21
12 April 2010
Alison
Monday, April 12, 2010
Today was a big, big day on this boat, a happy day. Today we threw out the cabbage! It was freeing, maybe not like a 60's undergarment burning party, but a great satisfaction. It was still edible, barely, but had no redeeming value. Nothing left nutritionally, very little flavor. To our credit we did have a few cabbage- containing meals in the last few days, so we tried, but we were ready to cast off the bonds of cabbage and we are better for it.
We're inside the 200 mile marker, and still moving a bit too fast for a daylight arrival. The irony of trying to eke out a knot or two here and there along an almost 3000 mile route and then arriving too soon and having to slow down!
The French lessons continue, Allan spent quite a bit of time today with the French for Cruisers book and I'm discovering he's fun to learn a new language with, because he looks for rules and patterns. And he says "Oh I get it!" a lot. Me, I just try to memorize and get the pronunciation right. We did more research on the islands as well. Did you know that the Marquesas are UTC + 9.5 hours? It's the 5 part that's funny, I've never been anywhere where the time zone was half an hour different from the next one over.
So we just woggled along some more today, with the sea coming from two different directions and forming little spouts where they crashed together. Sometimes these little spouts jump right into the cockpit or through a small window, just a quick spritz. It's actually hilarious, like the sea is playing a little squirt gun game, like a child. We ignored it all for the most part and got things done, like valiant soldiers. Tiff had the sewing machine out today, she's working on a backpack. It's tough to sew when the boat keeps lurching, and the machine keeps launching, but we set the machine on the salon floor in the center of the boat, the most stable place, albeit a bit of an inconvenient sewing position. Helps to be flexible.
So. Tomorrow is our last full day. We are READY!