I usually cook dinner and Robin usually fixes breakfast and lunch; that's part of how we take care of each other at sea. Since this was the third night out, it was time to cook the no longer quite frozen half a chicken I picked up at a mini-Mercado Saturday morning. It came in a plain, unlabeled plastic bag, and from what I saw of the Santa Cruz coountyrside last week, probably lived a true “free range” life in the moist grassy highlands, Chicken with cous cous tonight! I call it chicken a la marok, after my great grandmother Alvina Marok, who may or may not have been Moroccan but lived in Germany. It is not a family recipe, but an imitation of s dish we were served when we sailed to Morocco in 2006.

I am on watch from six to eight pm, so cooking dinner usually means juggling watchstanding with galley work. I started before my five pm nap by putting the chicken in a pot with half a cup of seawater (for salt) and a cup and a half of freshwater and starting it to simmer.

At six thirty, I set the self steering, look around (not a ship or sail to be seen for days), then go below and roughly cut the thick carrots, onion, and potatoes and throw them in the pot. Then back on deck to steer through the shifty winds of a garua squall or two. At around seven, I go below again and cut up some green squash chunks to throw in, along with my secret spice.

As I get back on deck, something goes “bang” and the boat starts to luff into the wind. Aunt Mabel's steering control line has snapped, just as the wind increases to Force 5, making the beam reach a little squirrelly to steer. I briefly try to steer with one hand while cutting and disassembling the control lines and blocks with the other and quickly see the futility of that task.

So I wake Robin up and ask her to hand steer while I put together a new control line. Robin steers, I go below to get some cable ties. I see and smell the chicken stew and detour briefly to throw one cup of cous cous in so supper will be ready after the repair project. In five minutes, the new control line is installed, and Aunt Mabel is happily steering again, at least after I untwisted them control lines I had restrung wrong.

Supper in the cockpit at seven forty five under brilliant stars, down below for my nap at eight fifteen.

We are making good time, about a hundred and fifty miles a day, though the wind is still inconsistent, changing force and direction all day. We are a little north of the rhumb line, looking for a westward setting current around one degree south by ninety seven degrees west. Things have settled down on the night watch, with a steady twelve knot breeze on the beam at the moment. We have about a knot of fair current so we are making good about seven knots now, though the skies are mostly cloudy and the brilliant stars are gone.