Today was a day of celebration! With Karen turning 35 years young Sandie managed to pre-empt this in Cairns by getting some festive birthday supplies so we could decorate the boat, and the cake with a ridiculous amount of candles. We had another lovely day of sailing and motoring ahead of us with the same calm conditions, sunny skies and a bit of breeze filling in in the afternoon.

I’ve yet to see any loud fishing shirts yet with my new crew but I am hoping that David and Shaz pull out some more matching outfits during the trip. I’ll be sure to document it in the upcoming blogs!

The caramel mudcake for the obligatory birthday song was ready to go. Was I going to tell anyone that it had made it’s way from Cairns and probably been frozen and defrosted about 4 times? No. It’s mainly made of sugar right? I’m sure that kinda stuff never goes off.

As I hastily covered the cake in candles I’d quickly realised I’d bitten off more than I could chew. The candles were starting to melt quicker than I could light them! I was determined though and managed to get most of the candles lit so by the time we started to sing it looked like I was holding a flaming ball of fire for a cake. Launching into the birthday song with a little bit more urgency than usual I could see the sheer look of terror on Karen’s face as I approached with this ball of fire cake that could potentially burn the boat down.

I can thankfully say Karen blew the candles out quick enough to not light the boat on fire and the evening ended with everyone picking wax out of their icing and cheerfully eating cake.

Success!!

Til next time,

Jess :)