Day 17: Passed a milestone
Officially I have been at sea now for longer than attempt #1 to Walvis Bay.
An excellent psychological milestone.
Even though the sea had increased in size and Osiyeza was rock n rolling again, I decided to celebrate with a breakfast fry-up of scrambled eggs, bacon and a coffee 🍳🥓☕.
A little tricky to pull off when the ocean is trying to toss you onto the cooker and the pot onto you. These are skills they don’t teach you at any culinary school.
To think the ingredients are more than a year old and are perfectly preserved through the freeze-dried process.
So what’s the difference between dehydrated and freeze-dried?
Simply put, heat removes the moisture from dehydrated food over time. Same concept we use to make our beloved biltong.
Freeze-dried uses an effect called sublimation. Freeze the product. Place it under a vacuum. As it warms up, the frozen liquid turns directly to vapour, skipping the usual step of turning to water before turning into “steam”, all due to being in a vacuum.
Vacuum bag with a moisture absorption pad, and it’s good to go for several years.
Nighttime in the cabin has been a lot quieter than the first two weeks. Since the BIG BLOW, I have not used the autopilot. Osiyeza has run true all on her own. One odd phenomenon is the battery draw remained the same.
On average, overnight, Osiyeza will consume 11% of the battery capacity and by early morning, they will be back to 100% from the solar panels. There is two 100Ah Victron LiPo battery on board.
I borrow my sister’s old kindle. Synced it with the good wife’s kindle, and now I have access to all her books. I have never been a big reader, but on this trip, I have enjoyed the reading time so far. After having issues with my audiobooks, I saw that the kindle has a text to voice options.
Cool, let’s give that a go.
Mmmmm, not great; it might take some getting used to.
With today’s AI, I would have thought that, by now, it would be indistinguishable between human and computer voices.
The wind and sea have continued to grow overnight. Osiyeza is now bucking as well as rock n rolling. Not a pleasant night. It is forecast to reduce to calm on Saturday slowly.
I look forward to some calm to relax the tension the rough seas cause.
Back to the underwater question.
Some suggested going commando, which might make sense but I would rather wash underwear than have to clean my mattress. The end of my bunk is where I sit to make food, navigate and just about everything.
As for how many days before washing or changing. They are on a five-day rotation.
Co-ordinates: -21.715530° lat 3.271800° long
Breakfast: bacon & scrambled eggs
Food: chilli con carne with noodles
Too many junk snacks.
Finally some big flying fish about.
Amount raised for Operation Smile: R167,979
No of new smiles: 30
