Berrimilla Down Under Mars Status Report 4 May 2008
SUNDAY, 4 MAY 2008
McQ: Burds and, if there is space, theirpocket warmers…
I saw a bird this afternoon. Now I am not especially good with birds but this was definitely a new one, and it was black. Except that might just have been the colour it looked as it was silhouetted in front of the sun! It had a pointy tail and looked like a smaller version of the bigger one with a pointy tail that we saw the other day. Pretty average bird really I am afraid and can’t give you any more distinguishing features. I think the only three birds that I could positievly identify are a Pelican (big, black and white, biiiig beak, my favourite bird too)albatross, huge wings and super graceful and the blue footed booby, (blue feet, doh!!), oh and maybe a dodo too, but since they don’t fly and are extinct then I think its highly unlikely that we’ll see one of those out here in mid ocean, unless of course the foredeck witch brings one in a tux next time she comes for a dance.
This afternoon Alex hardboiled all the remaining pocket-warmers, though, that said, I suppose they don’t really become pocket warmers until after they are hardboiled. Anyway, this was cause there are more than we can get through before they start smelling like rotten pocket warmers since we never got round to vaselining them at the beginning. So we now have lots of hardboiled pocket warmers to get through, we left them to cool too and vaselined them, and since theres no pockets on my shorts and its way too hot to need to warm our fingers and they are now cold the EU certainly wouldn’t let them be called pocket warmers, so maybe we should give them a new name: I know, we shall call them eggs, yes, eggs, from now on pocket warmers shall be known as ‘eggs’
Maybe I’ll write something sensible tomorrow…
lots of love to all
McQ
xxx
ps DB: I haven’t uttered a word to Walter Walruski 3rd (for that is his full name) yet. Don’t worry.
GM&L: What a remarkable book, incredible, a fantastic read, thank you- if ever I think wee Berri feels small I shall be grateful I am not chained to a sack of coconuts instead!! Also I am blaming you entirely as have done nothing but read in my off watches for two days when I should be sleeping and am now exhausted!!!
CB: Have lots of thoughts on plans, can’t wait to discuss, whats happening at your end in the village???
JS: I love my pink watch with blue flashing lights- thank you!!
FF: Is it Neist Lighthouse at the top of Skye??
POSTED BY BERRIMILLA DOWNUNDERMARS AT 12:35
1400 pos 0536.35 16401.25 – headed and being taken a bit east again.
DTD 3282 dmg 110 from half way in 324 miles, there should be open water – no islands – between us and dutch.
There seems to be a lot less time on this one for idle musing. It’s all work or sleep, unlike in the southern ocean, where we set a sail, trimmed it and left it for days at a time.
And no sooner do we put our little pug nose out past the squally bit but the Examiner turns up again and decrees that the stitching along the leech line of our small furling headsail should die. It’s a pre loved sail, came with the furler and looked fine before we left, but the U.V. might have got to it – or some other rats in the boot room. Anyway, not a catastrophe and potentially fixable, over time, with the sailmaker’s needle and palm. Tedious though. We’re bobbing along under engine, storm jib and 2 reefs just watching the wx for 3 hours, then I think it’s back to the big sail and fingers crossed it will last the distance – furlers seem to flog their leeches something awful and no amount of tweaking seems to fix the problem, consequently high stress area.
Well done Barrett. Obvious really, I guess!
Anyway, we are certainly in, or in striking distance of the trades. I’ve no real feel for what to expect when we do get there in terms of the combination of wind and sea state. I just hope we are not headed too much and can sail reasonably free so as not to overstress the headsail any more than necessary. And soon it will be out with the needle and palm.
Big sail back up – hooning more or less north at 5+ kts. Passed an island 60 miles to the east – 10 miles across, has an airfield but no name on my digital chart. Anyone?
Today’s boat job – just hardboiled 34 eggs – we didn’t vaseline them before we left and I don’t see why we should throw them away. When they cool, I’ll vas them just in case. Egg salads for the future.
Just had a full can of wd 40 discharge into the bilge and all over the floor, lethally slippery and not pleasant. Poo!
POSTED BY BERRIMILLA DOWNUNDERMARS AT 08:43
