Sun, sun, glorious sun
Silver Fern’s days are starting to blend together a wee bit. Night watches especially, we start with the moon up and smiling then it disappears below the western horizon leaving us in darkness. As we track west, the sun rises later and sets later. It’s a lovely change to have extended evenings.
Last night’s dinner was cooked by Wilbur, a culinary machine who cooked two roast chooks in one boat oven. Served with roast potato and green beans with carrot, it was a solidly hearty meal. Yesterday was largely spent in high spirits as we sailed downwind with the candy cane gennaker up for the second day in a row. Calm seas are making life on board easy and the decks are staying mostly dry. There’s been some sunbathing on the bow and in the cockpit and those who don’t want melanoma are staying in the shade. Ross and Mo are enjoying reading off watch while Juliet prefers to catch up on sleep. Will and Scott are great at nattering away with each other while keeping an eye out for any fish hooked on their beloved fishing lines. And I haven’t seen Greg in 5 hours, I assume he’s in his bunk…? Yes he is.
Will in the galley preparing his chooks
Sharon is glued to the forecast models for our arrival time into Southport. The strong southerly is still our main concern, but now the wind has dropped off, our boat speed has dropped down and we’re wondering if we have enough diesel to make it all the way there before the storm hits. We topped up the fuel tank from the jerry cans yesterday and will do again today. As a result we have deployed the sails again and gained 0.6kts which keeps us above 7kts SOG for the meantime which is a good speed for our target. We have been getting some stunning sunsets with blood orange skies, and calm canary yellow sunrises behind us.
The SOUTHERLY!
Sunrise rays this morning
Greg and I putting fuel in the tank at sunset
Looks like a scene from The Lion King
There’s roast vege risotto with chicken for dinner tonight. The sun is lining up well for anther stunning sunset but for now it’s just beaming into the saloon and making Silver Fern very stuffy. The only respite is outside on the shady side of the deck, we even see birds occasionally but there’s more flying fish. We find evidence of these on deck - sometimes just scales, other times the whole fish stuck on board!
Hannah. Chief Mate. Silver Fern
