Dahl and Roti Day

Even after making the adjustment yesterday to our time schedule for all the Easting we have

been doing, Lisa and Malo didn't crawl out of bed until 1000 local Astoria time. Not that we

are in Astoria yet but I am trying to get them on the PNW time clocks. Mosese and I had

pancakes for breakfast about 0800L and then I made a batch for Malo. Lisa was on her

normal no breakfast day. After breakfast I started soaking a bag of dahl chips and pieces,

then I told Mosese he was going to have to show us how to make Rotis. What is a roti you

ask?? It is very much like a tortilla but a little thicker, not much but a little. So while the dahl

was soaking, Mosese and I made up some roti dough. Nothing fancy, flour, water and salt.

Mix the salt and flour (Lisa and I added about 2 table spoons of powdered garlic) then add

boiling water. Hard on the hands. Mix until it is a very heavy dough and make it into little

balls, roll them out and fry them in a dry skillet. So Mosese mixed up the dough and while

he was making the dahl soup, Lisa and I fried the roti. Now of course Lisa is paying close

attention to how to make the dahl soup and also of course Mosese is being a little coy about

his recipe (he is pulling it from somewhere). He decides to toss in a can of tuna and lets it

thicken.

So the rotis are done the the dahl is getting close, it is time to re-hang the spinnaker. At

0600, Malo came to me and said that there was't enough wind to keep the spinnaker full. I

had just woke and told him I would look at it and at that moment it was full. Less than an

hour, Mosese wakes and we both decide to douse the spinnaker. So we did, uneventfull as

there was absolutely no wind. Now it was time to re-deploy. All hands to the task as this

spinnaker is a "Parasail", meaning it is a symetrical sail that would normally be flown with a

spinnaker pole of which ORCINIUS does not have one to its repertoir of equipment so there

are two sheets for each tack and clew which are interchangeable depending on which way

the wind is blowing. Tack would be on the windward while clew is leward or the sheet. Why

two I don't really know but two do come in usefull. The Parasail part is what helps the sail

spread full across the midsection. It is like a mini parasail cut into the midsection. It flies

and holds the midsection apart as well as the lower half being pulled up and the upper half full

to the wind. So the sheets are used through blocks at various parts of the boat. On ours it is

on the two tips of each bow and then at the new chain plates I had installed for other uses

and then on this trip I added a couple blocks using some dynema line at the upper part of the

shroud chain plate. It is kind of a trial and error. But when we put it up today it was sheeted

through each of the blocks on the bows because we were running ddw (dead down wind) and

it was doing a fair job. We only had 10 knots of wind but forcast for 12-14. Early this

morning the wind had died and was at about 6 knots. We were motoring that fast. So as the

next hour goes by, the wind starts to shift a little more out of the WNW and of course we

don't want to go any further south so we adjust the spinnaker by taking the second sheet and

running it through the furthers aft block and the second tack line and connecting that to the

bow sprit pole and let the spinniker shift over to the starboard bow aft to the sheet. Now we

are still heading towards our Astoria CR bouy and makeing some decent time. As I write this

the wind is steady at 14 knots, we are motor sailing at 2100 rpm doing 7.3 knots VMG.

The dahl soup lunch was great. The rotis were a little chewey but Mosese said it was

because I rolled them a little too thick. I have told the boys that we each need to learn one

new thing each day. I always ask them if they leaned anything new today. I did. Roll the roti

dough out alot thinner. Pulled pork with what is left of the roti.