Hauling the mail

Lia Dutton on her singlehanded voyage in the Faraday Mill OSTAR

Morning! After a considerably naff start [getting hung up on headlands] I am finally, as the South African sailors say, 'hauling the mail,' reaching off the wind [55 degrees] on a course of 255deg cranking a wicked 12 knots. Fantastic! I am perched below on the stretcher bunk, feet against the survival hatch watching a continous rinse and spin cycle churn past my window. To go any further north, I would need to hoick back up the drifter reacher of yesterday, whose fibre in 15 knots true might be a tad too light without going seriously deep, and however tempting, I fear might add to my job list.
 
The ergonomically wonderful egg timer, which rings with the shrill sound of an old fashioned telephone, appears to be overboiling the eggs and stalling. I shall crack it open later and give it a quick spray of WD. It may just be the spring. Unfortunately it doesn't have a snooze facility. My time is simply up! The digital version also aboard, rings so faintly that I sleep right through it. Neither can surpass the fishing-trawler putt-putt-putt-putt of the generator!
 
Somewhere between last night and this morning, I started the generator. Or rather attempted to start the generator and discovered another spark plug blackened with mystery carbon deposit.
 
I am extremely chuffed with the Marigold Futura rubber gloves that Gray purchased. 'For hands that do dishes,' they are nicely preserving my hands from continual 'bath tub affect' and fantastically match their nocturnal counterpart, the commercial fishing glove. Who needs Musto?! What else? I ripped into the Jetboil stove package yesterday, for lack of a mug! And out of the pressies so far discovered I am hoping their might be a bar of soap among them to match the luminous flanel. A teddy might also be nice. The family on the Muster station sticker, with 'o' rings for heads, doesn't quite cut it.
 
Having eaten chocolate for breakfast for two days running, the novelty has now worn off. I have only heated food twice so far. My system seems to go, not hungry, not hungry, not hungry, ravenous - and I have found them quite satisfactory cold and straight out of the packet. I'm thinking also, that with the hot/cold variable to play with, it might be as good as a different meal flavour altogether! Flavour? Ah! The missing ingredient in those Mountain house sachets. The meat texture is as convincing as vegetarian ham and the general consistancy a monosodium glue. Still, the evening meal has so far found me sleep enough to be past caring.