9th May 2011

Position: 18°08.8’ S / 154°46.0’ W (so near yet still so far from land)

Today’s weather forecast is supposedly good weather, in our case: no more breaking seas, no more squalls and actually a bit of sun to dry EVERYTHING out, including ourselves. Though every time Marc mentions this supposedly good weather, our deck gets pounded by an 8 metre swell, dousing everyone and everything in its path. So the verdict is still out for the count.

Due to the safety hazard, since the bad weather we haven’t been able to throw out a line. Still no fresh fish on the Gaualofa lines since departure from NZ. But with the weather improving we’ve begun to speak in hushed tones of finally throwing it out and trying our luck. What fish we’ve been eating has actually been quite interesting: flying fish. These poor creatures throw themselves on the Gaualofa deck unknowingly (or maybe not?) at night and become the cook-up for the dawn breaking shift. I recommend deep fry with a bit of garlic; the sizes vary from 6 inches up to 10 inches and they’re very plump out here we’re pleased to report. Though it must also be reported since we’ve come closer to French Polynesian waters, we’ve received less and less of these gifts that just seem to find themselves in the frying pan.

On passing the 21°S latitude we were able to spot a few new sets of stars that we rarely see in Samoa: Leo the lion and the Big Dipper. A night or so later on our early morning shift, at 19°S latitude and NNE of the va’a, we spotted 3 planets aligned in a triangle: Venus, Jupiter and Mercury. They were all quite a bright and a beautiful sight.

Salai made topai koko samoa for breakfast two mornings ago. It went very well with the crew, who praised his culinary arts but made a point of his clumsiness - he had accidently cut himself while trying to open the koko samoa packet, quite a minor cut. Of course it lasted until lunch (minus the putas). LoL. Though I don’t know if he’ll be able to be talked into making a koko samoa meal again anytime soon.

We’ve opened our 6th 5kg bucket of Punjas Breakfast Crackers since departure, which was about 22 days ago. That’s a lot but then again we Samoans are quite satisfied with our crackers, ergo the reason why there’s always a dozen boxes/buckets of crackers at every fa’alavelave.

Since the arrival of the sourdough culture, Lole and Marc have been constantly baking bread. And of course Brynne has been steadily baking away in great concern for our sweet tooth. John has done his share by making fruit crumble last night with a side of yoghurt (yes we have a yoghurt maker onboard, it’s a standard va’a issue)!

As we’re reading this, we notice that we’ve written almost entirely about food. We’d like to remind everyone we like to talk about food on our shift!
And on this note, soifua lava.

E fia momoli atu le faafetai lava I le tapuaiga ale atunu’u ao feagai ai alo ma fanau a le atunu’u i folauga I luga o le vasa.

Gaualofa