Return Crew Day 6 – 13 February 2020
By Kristy Whillier.
First of all; well done to the race crew for stocking up on endless amounts of “Vegetable Breyani”, and for leaving us some! We are only on day 6 and we already have our favourite comfort food. We are definitely going to have to find the source of this heavenly stuff! Race crew?????
The weather forecast was accurate in terms of the change in wind direction, however, not so accurate regarding the speed. The wind speed has been consistently low and so we have had to do a lot of motor sailing over the past 12 hours, which sets us back slightly but at least allowed us to have a good night’s rest. We were all hoping that we would be able to go for a swim because of the slow sailing, but the rain and clouds are refusing to give out, making it a tad cold, BUT that did not stop Francois and Oliver from dancing in the rain to ‘I’m a believer’, ‘YMCA’, and ‘Hooked on a Feeling’; which undoubtedly brought smiles to all of our faces!
We have all finally started getting our sea legs and have been able to put the “Chumbucket” away, which means it is finally time to start the fishing and beer bread making! The boys were all extremely excited for the fishing and had envisioned catching the biggest Dorado in the sea; leaving them to have to wrestle it on the boat, but we are unfortunately still waiting… Their hopes are still high and have started building up the energy by devouring the first made beer bread for the trip. Cameron has really set the bar high with his incredible bread making skills!
Rory and Tony managed to catch a good downpour of rain and had a good fresh water shower; leaving them feeling less like sea creatures.. (And less like a Meerkat in Rory’s case). Francois and Kristy quickly tried to change and get soap, but as soon as they went outside, the rain stopped, leaving them looking like weirdos standing in their costumes on the stern of the boat, soap in hand, just waiting and waiting and waiting. Eventually they gave up and accepted that they would have to feel sticky for another day. But hey, who needs a rain shower when you have leaks on the boat to stand under! (Especially the leak that has kept Francois feet clean since day 1).
So far, Francois and Tony have been the only one’s brave enough to read on the boat, while the rest of us are still feeling a bit too fragile. And so we will be talking a bit more about Francois today. Francois is a 27 year old (soon to be 28 on the 2nd of March) Yacht master who has spent the last few years working on charter yachts in the Caribbean and Mediterranean. Francois has chosen to pursue the life of a sailor due to his deep love and passion for the ocean and everything to do with it. Francois initially planned to sail a different yacht from Rio to Cape Town, but due to the terrible weather that passed during January, the yacht was damaged and could no longer be sailed, and so, us on JML Rotary Scout were lucky to find him! Francois lives between Cape Town and Johannesburg and will be working as an instructor when he gets home, but who knows where his next adventure will take him!
We have travelled 104nm since the last blog. Moving along slowly but surely!
Total: 667 Nautical miles
Poker time!!!