Day 30 - Passage to the Caribbean
Misterx
Thu 1 May 2025 02:00
30/04/25
8:30 pm
Day 30
North Atlantic Ocean
DTD to Trinidad: 646 NM (124NM)
Think this must be our best day as far as distance covered, and funnily enough, probably one of our best day since the ITCZ. The wind has been constant, 10 to 14 knots, in the right direction and the swell is much reduced, no rogue waves, making it a really pleasant ride. There's been a lot of sunshine, not too much weed. And we've been able to put the main up without too much trouble, so we've ad really good boat speed too, with up to 6 knots but averaging above 5.5 consistently. Makes a very nice change. So those miles are now going down... watch them go!
To celebrate the fact that we are not being thrown about down below, I've made a cake today! Well, when I say I made a cake, maybe I should qualify this statement. What I mean is, I opened a pack or ready made lemon cake mixture, poured it into a mould and put it in the oven for the required 30mn. Et voila, a cake for afternoon tea! And very nice it was too! Couldn't have made the cake from scratch anyway, even if I had the inclination, given that our last eggs exploded a couple of days ago, literally, exploded. Fortunately, I do keep an eye on my eggs, turning them regularly and I noticed straight away, saving us from the awful smell that would have ensued if we'd not noticed immediately. They were in a safe place, not being jilted, not sure what make 2 of our 6 left explode, although these little time bombs came from St Helena, so 30 days at sea, this is not bad, it may actually be one of our records. Of course these 2 compromised eggs spoiled the rest, the whole lot had to go overboard.
So latest tally for fresh stuff, as of today, we have 1 grapefruit, one of the huge one, the one I always associate with the Pacific, 2 lemons, 3 butternut squashes, a few sweet potatoes, starting to sprout, and my carrots, those I pickled in vinegar a couple of weeks ago, 3 jars left. These are still very good, crunchy and tasting of carrot! We are impressed with this! We still manage to have decent meals, but it is too hot for full blown cooked stuff, so we have a lot of salad variations, the basis will be pasta, rice, couscous, quinoa, and then adding olives, sun dry tomatoes, sweetcorns, beetroot, peas, artichoke hearts, asparagus, green beans, mixed vegs, palm hearts, mushrooms, chickpeas, and 4 beans etc, from jars or tins. We also have a variety of tins, already cooked stuff like ravioli, cassoulet, sausages & lentils, duck legs, choucroute... (we'll keep that for the colder leg of our trip, along with our soups in pouches) the French are really good a this tin thing, so we stocked up on this in Mauritius. Then we still have our pates, chorizo, dry ham, loads of cheese, hummus, tuna with or without flavours, salsa, guacamole... tortillas chips, crackers, wraps... and for dessert, loads of tin fruits, compotes, flans of various flavours (boil milk add sachet and let set!). Loads of dry fruits and nuts, porridge for Ian, muesli, loads of biscuits, even 2 panettone, goes really well with custard etc...
So we're not about to go hungry yet... I think we'll only need some fresh stuff in Trinidad, but most of our tins and jars will last us till we get home.
All the same, we'll be glad to get in for a nice steak.... missing bread too... never been very successful at making it... and all this flour flying around... a bit too messy for me!
Chocolate is running low though... this could be catastrophic!
M