Day 14 – Saturday 22 February.
By Cathleen Hughes.
The crew had an early awakening to celebrate BP’s birthday with the sunrise on the fore deck. The crew all put on their crew shirts and made their way onto the fore deck where we huddled together showing the scout flag for a picture. Renier kindly offered to take the photo as he isn’t a scout and wasn’t too sure what the celebration was all about. Once the photo was taken, it was uploaded to the laptop where Cathleen edited it using Paint to add a special message. Along with our BP celebration, we are also aware that today is exactly 2 weeks on the ocean for this return trip.
Lord Baden Powel (BP), born 22 February 1857, was the founder of Scouts. Scouting started 107 years ago for boys. The first camp was organised by BP on Brown Sea Island off the coast of England. Every year on the 22nd of February, Scouts around the world celebrate his birthday in his honour. In South Africa, Scouts wear their uniforms to school and in public to show their pride for the movement. The first Sunday after the 22nd is also reserved for a service which we call BP Sunday. It is a celebration where Scouts from all around the Western Cape gather together to honour BP, remember what scouting is all about and what it means for them.
In the afternoon, Lorraine and Ashwyn made a decision to tweak the bread recipe because since we left Brazil, the bread has been rather flat and taken a while to cook through. We assume it was because of the difference in beer, that the Brazilian beer was lacking yeast. After adding extra yeast to the mixture, the bread was even flatter and more dough like. We think this may be because the CO2 in the beer cancels out the rising process of the yeast. They then decided, in order to possibly resolve the problem, they needed to use warm beer and extract the CO2 from the mixture. After leaving the beer in the sun for a couple of minutes, it was decanted into a separate container and shaken a number of times and opened in order to release to gas. It was then added to the mixture and the dough was left in the sun to rise before being baked in the oven. Once the bread came out of the oven, it looked more magnificent than it has looked since we have left Cape Town. It was also more light and airy than any of the previous breads. We celebrated by cracking open a new bottle of chocolate spread.
After lunch the stories began again. There were debates about government, banter about sports teams and tales that began with, “When I was a Scout…” Renier was interested to learn more about the scouting movement to which we responded with explanations of BP to help him understand this morning’s celebration as well as stories of the adventures we have had. We also managed to find a couple pictures of our scouts in uniform. It was the perfect day to share our scouting stories, think about where and how scouts started and reconnect with our scouting roots.
We didn’t forget about the Blue Fin Tuna that was sitting in the fridge after being reeled in by Chris in the early hours of the morning. A group consensus revealed that dinner would be a fish braai with a fillet or two being saved for Sashimi. The tuna was dusted with mixed herbs and lemon juice before being placed on the braai. As an accompaniment, Ashwyn made a traditional Brazilian side dish which we first discovered in a local Rio deli and then again on Ilha Grande. It is Brazilian black beans in a delicious sauce that tops simple white rice. Before leaving Rio, we searched the local supermarkets for these beans. The meal came together perfectly. The fish was cooked beautifully with a slight pink centre and the succulent meat was dripping with flavour. The Sashimi was a bonus with a bit of soya sauce and for the brave, wasabi.
The winds haven’t been too kind to us over the past few days with a range between 4 and 8 knots. This evening the wind picked up to 10 knots which allowed us to sail at a boat speed of at least 5 knots. All of a sudden the wind dropped back down to 5 knots and stayed there. We are aware that the winds are going to remain like this until Monday when it is supposed to pick up to 10-15 knots. There is also a cold front that should catch up with us on Wednesday that will hopefully give us some speed and take us through to Tristan de Cunha, weather permitting. If the weather is bad we will alter our course to pass Tristan and head straight on to Cape Town.
GPS: S31 degrees 26.7 minutes / W023 degrees 29.6 minutes
HEADING: 152 degrees
