Wednesday, January 18, 2012

Baptism in ice

Yes, we are completely becalmed, and the weather report for the next few
days does not predict any change in the weather, until at least next
week Tuesday. Fortunately our iron sails keep us going and with the good
current we have we are doing ok at low refs, trying to conserve fuel but
also trying to keep to our schedule. It seems that we will arrive at
St.Helena Saturday night or early Sunday morning. Which means we will do
our tour of the island on Monday and depart Tuesday morning first light.
As stated in the previous posting, these things cannot be cast in stone.
There are elements which are beyond our control and we have to make the
most with what we get.

Last night we had a spectacular display of stars again and this time I
showed Nick and Eduan a cluster called Pleiades through the binocs. They
were astonished and were glued to the night skies for a long time. For
supper last night Nick treated us to Chicken ala Nick. Ingredients
consisted of chicken breast fillets cut into a small bitesize pieces,
fresh onion, garlic, green pepper, chilli, butternut, tomato and
complimented with a tin of mixed veggies and Nando's Mediterranean
Tomato Peri-peri sauce.Spices were freshly grinded premium Atlantic
Ocean Sea salt from Woolies,freshly grounded highest quality Malabar
pepper,also from Woolies,Robertson's Italian herb and Ina Paarman's
Masala Spice.All this he infused with a secret ingredient I thought was
saffron but it turned out to be something called a touch of Amber and
some of his own good energies.This masterpiece was mixed with Tastic
rice.Obviously mom's influence also shined through and with a 360 degree
seaview we had a feast.A colourful Itaian connection called Manuel also
had some influence in this inspiring creation. As you can see, food is
an important element in our day to day existence out here on the big
beautiful blue.

Our position is 20*17'S/000*49'E.Soon we will be crossing into the wild
wild west as you can see by the 000 degree 49 minutes South.At our
current heading we should cross into the western hemisphere at about
midnight. St.Helena is 430 nautical miles away.

Our nautical originated term today is Bamboozle The word first appears
in print in the early part of the 17th century where one authority
suggests it was the name of the Spanish custom of hoisting false flags
to deceive or bamboozle their enemies. Certainly that was the general
general understanding throughout the 18th and 19th centuries, although
the word also made it's appearance in fairgrounds where it was the name
of a betting game in which the showman placed a pea under one of three
jugs and players had to guess which.

Due to the calm conditions we stopped the boat for ten minutes and dived
into the ocean. Very refreshing, exhiliration cold and our endorphins
was pumping through our systems. We had so much fun that Eduan
pronounced that this has been his best watch since we started.Steven the
hooligan out here did a backflip for the camera. We have two underwater
cameras and one underwater video camera on board, so we are looking
forward to this little ritual often.Baptism in ice.

Take good care and we will also take good care.

Captain Paul

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