East meets west

Not referring to the delicious red Thai chicken curry we cooked for
lunch,( but more on that theme later), but rather to our
inconsequencial passing of the meridian (ZULU,GMT, UTC whatever!) WE
had planned a nonsense video shot of Mary pointing out the line in the
ocean as we passed, with quick freeze to GPS showing 00 00 00, but we
missed the blooming moment! So back to mealtimes! On my previous three
Atlantic crossings, for reasons probably best explained by the word
"sucker" tattoed on my forehead, I have been very involved with
provision planning, meal planning , and actual cooking. I am also an
advocate of the "HappyHour" ritual, whether the boat be dry, or a one
drink permitted version. I think it is important for crew to get
together at least once per day for a social chit chat. This tends to
take place at 5.30, followed by dinner, and a watch change! All very
crowded, and not lekker for the cook! Then there is the hassle of
washing up, and going to bed on a full stomach. Less than ideal.
This has obviously come about by crews taking land based
habits and applying them at sea regardless. Mary & I have adopted
different one which works for us. We have coffee and biscuit with
6.00am watch change, and the choose our own breakfst options at about
9.00. ( If a boat is lucky enough to have a baker in the 3 to 6 watch,
then Breakfast is over red rover, before you can say peanut butter and
honey!) We then plan our main meal of the day, for lunch. As both of
us are normally up and about, the cooking is done by one, and the
washing up by the other. At Happy hour, we then have a cooking free
light snack /meal with our tipple. The off watch person can then
retire to bed .
Tonights Happy Hour is courtesy of John Gowlett(Pato), who gave
us a special bottle of Ladybird , with which to mark an occassion. So
cheers John, we will be enjoyng smoked salmon on Rye, Tsetsiki, and
smoked mussels, with a glass of your wine to celebrate missing the
Meridian!
Our position is 20.46S, 00,26W. We did 147nm today, and have
400 to go. All going well,we plan to arrive at about 9.00am Sts time,
{11.00RSA time} on Monday, by which time we can see , and the Island
will be awake!
Cheers for now