The best things in life are free

After the turtle encounter, we surely hoped for some better conditions.
We having been moving down south looking for better current and wind and
have at last reached an area outside the doldrums. The wind is in the
right direction for us as predicted, but not enough to get us sailing at
all. Now and then we get a bit of sailable wind and we set our sails,
sail for a few hours and then the wind just fades on us again. The last
three days we only averaged about 100nm a day, only 60% of what we were
hoping for at the very least. By all accounts it looks like we will at
last get some real sailing weather on the 25/26th and will have to see
how far that will get us. It is trying times for us. No wind, no tobacco
but no ways we will allow this to get us down.

Everyday we seem to have a mix of rain, of sun, of wind, of calm. When
it rains, we catch the rainwater to fill our tanks, when the sun shines
some of us stay out of the sun and some of us catch a tan, when the wind
blows we fill our sails and make good progress and when it is calm
we motor, not to fast as we are also conserving our diesel. We turned
our clocks back another hour yesterday and are now 9 hrs behind SA.
T'was my turn to cook and at 4pm we already finished supper,a huge curry
pot with rice, and we all had second and third helpings. For dessert
Eduan and Steven baked a yummy chocolate cake and Nick made some
custard, so yeh, all that also just vanished into thin air.

Night before last Nick baked the last of the fish we had and we enjoyed
that hugely as well. Must say, we are making the most of the little we
have on board. Our 2minute noodles are finished and for snacks now we
have soup of which we have plenty. We also have plenty of rice left,
pasta, maize meal, flour and so on, but our soya beans etc is starting
to run out. Can you believe it, we might even miss having soya beans on
board. We have lots of pasta sauces etc so we will be ok, we won't
starve. And should we be blessed with a fish again,we will be
laughing our heads off from pure happiness. Yes, we have been at sea now
for nearly a quarter of a year, and we are all looking forward to taking
a break again. Can you imagine how much we will appreciate the small
things that people on land take for granted. Trees and flowers and bees
and things like that. The hustle and bustle of everyday life.

Our position is 07*36'S/103*03'W. We are about 2100nm from Fatu Hiva
where we plan to stop for a few hours and another 800nm from Tahiti,
which at this stage we should reach by 12/04/12.

Hope you had a good Heritage Day and enjoy the rest of the week as well.
Yay, tomorrow is Friday.

Captain Paul