Early this morning the wind returned, the boat speed skipped from 3,5knots to 6,5knots as the sun came up on a new day. By mid afternoon we were buzzing along at 7.5knots and even contemplating reducing sail. Our projected ‘time to go’ went from 120hours last night and by mid afternoon was down to 74 hours. If this wind holds, which it is forecast to do, then with luck we’ll be safely anchored in the Marquesas on Thursday.
But there are still 500 miles to go, so lets not get ahead of ourselves.
Our weekly Saturday quiz happened today, rather than yesterday, and as usual it was excellently prepared and hosted by Quizmaster Tina. Teo as usual has no problems with the Harry Potter round, only needing help from his teammate Jon on the make and model of the Weasly’s Flying Car. All were foxed by the question, ‘What percentage of the population of the world lives below the equator?” being significantly lower than expected.
As usual it finished with a poetry round, however this time the theme for the round came in the form of a pictorial puzzle. Teo helped his parents solve it and we discovered the theme was ‘Itchy Foot is a spaceship in disguise’ – clearly Tina knows her audience. In the end the final quiz of the passage was declared a draw and everyone a winner.
For the last week or two, Tina has been baking bread every night on her watch. In the morning it fills the boat with such comforting and delicious smells. For lunch today we raided the freezer and found homemade carrot soup to go with the bread. Yum! The irony is that on passage we actually eat better than when we’re on anchor, with lunch often relegated behind projects, chores or day trips and adventure.
Teo was officially stir crazy today, it had to happen eventually. After boat school, he and Mia spent the day making and flying paper aeroplanes down below, but really needed to run around and climb things. His iPad has been put away in the chart table for the last couple of days as he was getting a little lost in it. So between loud complaints of being ‘boooooorrreeed’ he has also been happily playing with toys, drawing and making aeroplanes. Mia started a really nice project with him a few days ago, making a comic book style journal for the passage – thirty little pictures to tell the story of our crossing. In a few days we’ll hopefully be surrounded by crystal clear waters, full of inquisitive fish, colourful coral and graceful rays to entertain us all. Not to mention mountains to climb and waterfalls to swim in. Hold on!
Jon spent a couple of hours pouring over guidebooks, cruising guides and blogs from those who have gone before us. It is clear you could spend months happily exploring the bays and beaches of the marquesas and we only have weeks. It will be hard to prioritise as so much looks tempting, but if that is the worst of our problems then we’ll be OK!
