20 Years Ago Today -- April 19, 1996 -- Day 11

Fri. 96-04-19 - Day 11 - 14° 53' N  118° 14' W  Log: 816nm

Pretty, red dawn before I went to bed this morning, and, much later, a pretty, red sunset to match. Up at 1700Z. Overcast today, with wind 15 - 20 knots from the NE. We continued wing and wing all day, and put in a reef before sunset. The boat's moving well (and a lot!), averaging 5 to 6 knots.

I've been particularly grumpy today from the incessant rolling, swearing a blue streak every time I tried to do anything. Cooking was very slow and frustrating, as the boat rolls +/- 35° at least once a minute as some steep wave overtakes us.

I cooked french toast cheese sandwiches for myself for breakfast, which were pretty tasty when I finally got to eat them.

Today's lottery: Dave: 145; John: 140; Log: 132; GPS: 135. John wins. 4:4

Oh yeah, Doug the boobie left us not too long after sunset, after dropping into the cabin to check things out. John says he fell off the dodger through the open companionway. John threw a blanket over him to get him out of the boat, and unceremoneously tossed him overboard, as he had outstayed his welcome. Quite a bit of poop on the dodger.

Finished reading the Bourne Ultimatum, and frankly was sick of it long before I finished.  Weird, since I had quite enjoyed the Bourne Supremacy a few months back, but this didn't seem to be in the same class. Started reading David Stanley's South Pacific Handbook, which is quite interesting (eek, non-fiction!). Interestingly, he comments in it that Boobies can be found at sea as far as 50km from land, yet Douglas came to us a couple hundred miles from the nearest land, and there were quite a lot of boobies around until yesterday -- I didn't see any today (some shearwaters though).

Saw a flying fish today. Streamed the white feather lure this afternoon, but still no fish caught.

We had trouble with the trolling generator, as its prop keeps jumping out of the sea at these speeds and the rope gets kinked up. After untangling it 3 times, John gave up and brought it in. Unfortunately, without it we had to run the engine for a couple of hours tonight to charge batteries (1st time since the 11th, despite refrigeration and watermaker and running lights -- troll generator and solar panels really work).

Interestingly, the generator tows off-centre, I guess due to the prop spin -- it's adviseable to ensure it's mounted so it tows outward from whichever side of the boat it's towed from, so a fish line can be towed clear of it on the other side. It's been a concern for us, as the right-hand prop (from aft) tows off to port, but the generator was mounted on the starboard side of the cockpit.

Starting to run low on fruits and vegetables. Celery (rotten), bananas (rotten) and carrots (rotting) were used or thrown out today. One head of lettuce and 2 (questionable-looking) cabbage left, as well as 1.5 jicama (root vegetable that looks like turnip and tastes [raw] sort of like carrot). Apples and oranges (in foil) generally OK, although we've been finding rotten oranges occsionally since day 3.

I cooked baked beans (from a can) with a carrot/jicama/raisin coleslaw salad for supper, with a couple of slices of John's excellent Boobie bread.

No CDs.