I woke up this morning as usual for my 6AM shift. A big 5 meter swell has rolled in from the N-NNE so we’re on the Slapdash roller coaster again. I went for my morning bow pee and provided naval burial at sea ceremonies on the way for 4 fallen flyers. Everything appeared to be in order topside so I came back to the cockpit and checked on our overnight progress. I guess we insulted the Atlantic with our comments in the last post because it’s making up for lost time. Fine by me! We averaged 5.8 knots for the past 24 hours which means we’ll put 140 miles behind us, our best Atlantic day yet. One more like that and we will be in Barbados tomorrow night.

By then the sun was up so I came inside and read a few pages of War and Peace. Right now the rich Russians are retreating from Moscow. Alexeyevich is doing some stuff with Bolkonsky in Torzhok while Napolean runs around clicking his heals saying “Zut Alor!” or something like that. I decided that working behind the toilette would be more fun so went and pumped out the float-tank, still appreciating the irony that something on our boat called a ‘float-tank’ keeps filling up with water and threatening to sink us.

Float-tank emptied and toilette cover back in place I went outside and pulled out our last jerry can of fresh water. I topped off our 5 gallon jug of drinking water that we keep in the tool shed by the galley (one of those kitchen jobbies with a hand pump on the top) and poured what was left over into our starboard main tank. After that I dug all of the jerry cans out of the starboard lazarette and poured the dregs in each into the tank as well. There are 5 jugs and each had a half gallon to a gallon of fresh water so in total we squeezed out another couple of gallons. I checked the main tank and was pleased to see that we scraped together a quarter of a tank, maybe 7 gallons. The port side is completely empty now but this 7 gallons and the drinking water in the tool shed should easily last 3 or 4 days.

After that I shaved my head. This was accomplished by laying face down on the settee facing aft (feet towards the bulkhead). I put an old towel down to catch the clippings, plugged the clippers into our little yellow 12V converter and went to town. Hairless once again I went outside, sat on the top starboard side transom step and poured buckets of sea water over my head again and again. I lathered, rinsed and repeated. I towelled off, shaved, brushed my teeth and woke up Jaime for her 9AM shift.

While Jaime wandered around getting oriented I checked the LPG. Our conservation program seems to be doing well, the tank was heavier than I expected. This was shaping up to be a good day and we celebrated our good fortunes with a big breakfast. I scrambled up our last two eggs with salt pepper and parmesan cheese. We’d been saving a pack of bacon which saw the pan this morning, which I rounded off with some sliced potatoes with mushrooms (canned) and diced onion. Then we washed the whole thing down with a cup of coffee for me, tea for Jaime. Decadent!

Despite our friend Kerry’s opinion that the embassy has not returned our messages because they are:

“busy cleaning out your cell after the seventeen Haitian refugees that were living in it up until yesterday were repatriated”…

… we have had some indication that I may not be going to jail immediately upon our arrival. Pam has been working on this from Vancouver and sent a message to us yesterday stating that she had finally been able to get through to someone from the embassy that was really nice and claimed to have knowledge of us. Pam made her pinkie swear to tell somebody at immigration not to arrest me and has since received confirmation that she did. So we’re really grateful for the shore support and we’ll see how all of this ends soon enough. If it works Pam gets a spot in the Slapdash hall of fame and I will consider the iSatphone Pro to have totally paid for itself.

We also received confirmation that Jaime’s mom Laurell will be arriving in Barbados on January 26th. She hasn’t been out to the boat since we snuck her in as Jaime’s surprise birthday present in Jamaica so we’re both excited about her visit. Speaking of visits we’ve had several threats which must have something to do with the Canadian winter and our new proximity. We have a new policy of not reporting any potential visits until flights have been confirmed though so I’ll leave it at that for now.

Have I mentioned that our toilette is leaking from the hand pump and now smells like a shrimp cocktail left out in the sun? The leak will be no trouble, I have a rebuild kit. A freshwater flush with a bit of bleach will take care of the smell. Would hate to arrive in Barbados and have to enjoy myself or something. Fortunately a new list has already begun to materialize, such is boat life. Paperwork, bureaucracy and toilette repairs are lurking just around the corner to keep me from getting bored.

Meanwhile the wind is windy. The sun is sunny. There are signs of civilization here and there, a passenger ship, garbage, a bird. So I think we’re heading in the right direction.

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