David’s mother’s sister Una in her later years stayed in the family home in Penzance, Cornwall. On of the comments she is well remembered for is “I have eaten up that xxxx in the fridge” with a tone like it was nearly going to waste so wasn’t I good. The reality was that the tasty morsel had been resisted by others ready for a treat very soon. We are making a virtue of eating up really lovely food at the moment. All the meat has gone but there is plenty of good fruit and vegetables. Roasted pumkin for lunch, pumkin curry, Pineapple, oranges, papya we have the full range of salads and we still have just enough Mangoes from our bonus day in Kouakoue to last to Whangarei. New Zealand quarantine take all our fruit and veg off us.
We had 5 squid on the deck yesterday morning. I believe they come up to the surface to feed at night. Shows why we caught the Mahi Mahi in the night as our lure looks exactly like one of these small squids. When they were thrown back, shearwater birds came from nowhere to gobble them up.
We have had the first go at slowing the boat down to avoid arriving too early on Sunday. Now have a pocket sized Jib but still 7 to 8 knots of boat speed. Need to try harder! Just finished writing this and was doing the deck check before transmission. We have common dolphins all around us and can just see New Zealand in the far distance.
Position: 34°00’S 173°19’E [-33.997,173.318] at 06:00 GMT+12 , GMT 18:00 4th November 24hr run: 148 miles by GPS. 149.2 miles by Log 129 miles to Whangarei, New Zealand. ETA at 5 knots: 10:24 Sun 6th November GMT+12 Time Wind: South West 17 knots Sea: SW and NE swells both 2m Sky: 50% cloud cover Air temp 17.8
We could see the larger SW swell coming before we left New Caledonia and having been pushing on to get behind North Cape to make the last bit of the voyage nice and comfortable. If you go onto link below today you should be able to observe we have got to New Zealand waters nicely on time.
http://www.passageweather.com/index.htm?http%3A//www.passageweather.com/maps/oceania/mappage.htm
3 responses so far ↓
1 Michael // Nov 17, 2011 at 10:18 am
Mary,
You really must ask me to show you how to do fried calamari A LA Greek!!!
….. what a waste!!!!!
2 David // Nov 17, 2011 at 6:41 pm
Honest we did discuss preparing them but they were small and they are quite fiddly to prepare on a rolling boat. Plus we would have had to hand over more goodies to Quarantine in NZ!
You get good squid in the market in Whangarei which we have enjoyed several times.
3 Gordon and Rita // Jan 2, 2012 at 7:31 pm
Just found your Christmas greetings under old e-mail address and though slightly belated Happy New Year and wishing you and yours a happy, healthy, calm one. We were with Stuart and his new family for Christmas and ten of us sat down to dinner so that made a change from the two of us but very enjoyable.