Fried Soles

‘To all those out there with a cool Autumnal day breeze, where ever that may be, I’m extremely envious. If you can do me a huge favor, go for a bit of a dander in that glorious cold, get maybe a little chilly and think of us.

It’s HOT. In fact, excuse the language, it’s stinking HOT. We dread the sun rising in the morning and long to see it slip down behind the horizon each evening. Yet you can hardly say the nights are cool, they just not quite as hot as the days. The dress code for the night watches are just the same as the days, a pair of shorts and the shorter the better. Mind you, you can actually walk the decks at night in your bare feet. Try it during the day and ‘fried soles’ are on the menu.

Talking of which, mother watch is hellish in the galley. But when you have two successive  evening meals consisting of a ‘dynamite hot’ Chili Con Carne and then a curry, however mild, one must really start looking for ones’ marbles. Myself, I’m  putting it down to sun stroke.

The days are starting to roll into one another now. Never quite sure what day of the week it actually is, and sometimes there is not a lot to differentiate one from the other. The difference today, actually this evening, just as we were about to dig into our evening meal, is that our fishing line went twang. Always source of amusement on board, a bit of a scramble to see how big it is and how we are going to land it. No dilemmas this evening,a small Barracuda, just swing it over the rail on the end of the line. Once on deck we looked at it and thought best to put it back as it was a bit on the small side. Another day my friend.

Enjoy the cold you lucky people, oh you lucky lucky people,the crew of 2041 have only another 700nms going south before we ever so slowly start to head north again. I’m off to my bunk for a couple of hours before the 2100hrs watch and cooler three hours on deck.

Take care for now Derek’