Zulu Day!

Day 25 of the Return trip

 

So as you all know, yesterday was Zulu Day, which we celebrated as we crossed into the Eastern hemisphere yesterday. The celebrations entailed dressing up in one's most appropriately themed outfit, followed by tea with Amarula chocolates (yay for Goldy!). The music was cut from the festivities because of our electronics nightmares.

 

Shortly after everyone calmed down, so did the wind. It got to the point where we could hoist Tallulah, our big zebra spinnaker. That was somewhat shortlived, because shortly before sundown, the breeze dropped, and we had to react by dropping the kite. While we had the spinnaker up, we discovered a sizeable tear on the leech of our trusty #1 genoa. Because of the prevailing moist conditions (to put it lightly) it was impossible to do a repair at the time , as nothing would stick to the sail.

 

After a half an hour of motoring under the mainsail in a very sloppy sea, the South-Easterly wind began to fill in. This put a bit of pressure on to get the #1 up again and start making some good headway again. The only possible way to get the sail dry was to hold it over the gas stove, and doing the same with the sail repair tape. After that we had to do the same with a rag to get it dry enough to clean the sail with acetone. Another drying spell of the sail over the stove and that tape stuck like a wet sleeping bag.

 

Voila! We have a useable #1 again.

 

Either out of boredom or intolerance of the conditions that we've descended to living under, Raf decided to do a big clean-up of the galley.

He unpacked all the cupboards, wiping and drying and uncovering all kinds of interesting treasures. Like the oranges that had rolled to the back of the cupboard under the sink. One of these things was so furry that we weren't sure whether to chuck it or send it to Chuck Testa the taxidermist.

 

The new day held a lot of promise for us yesterday, but after a night of rainy watches, our hopes of a 'drying-out' day were dwindling. It's okay though! This will only spur us on in pursuit of our new goal, namely "Royal Cape Yacht Club for Sunday Lunch."

 

Optimism prevails again!

 

We are going to have to find a new name for the sunrise watch, seen as none of us have actually seen the sun rise in at least a week. When it became apparent that this morning was going to hold no sunshine for us, Raf and I had to do think of something uplifting to do for the rest of the crew. So Raf took the wheel while I went down below and baked us a handful of fresh, hot broodjies which we had with butter for breakfast.

 

Now if that isn't worth crawling out of your wet bunk for then I don't know what is...