24.28S 161.33E
Mojo 2
Andrew Partington
Fri 14 Oct 2011 04:01
|
Guest blogger and first mate Gerard Cameron here.
Andrew is having a rest from the blog today and giving me the duty. We are
now two days out of Noumea and things are going swimmingly. Not sure that is a
good terminoligy whilst sailing. The winds have been terrific . They have been
pretty constant at 15 knots and have slowly worked there way from the South
to now be in the North East . Yesterday in the 24hrs from 11am we covered a very
healthy 156nm .That leaves 485 nm to Brisbane.One hopes we can maintain
something similar to this sort of speed and we will have this licked in no time.
I have been reading Andrews blog long enough to know that this never is the case
but being the optimistic soul i still hope.
Our two and a half days in Noumea certainly
were a suprise. I was astounded how cosmopolitan and modern the place was. Over
half the population are ex pat French. It was incredibly difficult to
communicate at times because of the language barrier . Very few people
speak English and those that do are pretty poor at it. The food was
fantastic though with the obvios influence of French cuisine.They had a
great market each morning near the marina which sold everything. This seems to
be more popular way of shopping than the very modern supermarkets. It was very
much like our Saturday markets in Albany only ten times bigger.. I am getting
used to the routine on the boat and we are managing the sleep,eat,watch etc etc.
The cooking bit last night was al ot more difficult with the rougher seas.
Fortunately Andrew had some fozen bolognese suace that we used for some pasta.
So it was a matter of keeping the pots on the stove whilst the pasta boiled and
the sauce reheated.Not easy but all done and enjoyed in the end.The sleeping
part has been the pleasant suprise. Despite the changes for watches and the
pitcing and rolling i have found going off to sleep easy and enjoyable. We did
see two more ships again yesterday and one of those in the middle of the night.
He passed our route 7 nm ahead of us and then tracked 3nm South of us. You can
see why it is important to keep vigilant with the ship watch.
It is now 3pm in the afternoon and we are still
making good progress at 6 knots with a constant 15 knot North Easter on our tail
and looking like it will hold at that.
All my love to those at home and i look forward to
seeing you all next week.
Cheers Gerard
|