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| A quick stop at Turtle Bay in the Galapagos before we took off last Saturday. |
• On Friday (May 24), after 6 days at sea, we officially crossed the 1,000 mile mark. Only 2,000 more miles to go!
• Avg Speed: 7 knots (Although a few days we were doing well above 9!) We have been lucky to have a lot of current going with us.
• Weather: No rain and quite comfortable breeze the entire time (post edit: It just rained, for about 5 minutes.)
• Fish Caught: 2 Mahi Mahi: 1 caught by me and then an hour later, 1 caught by Meredith. Mahi Mahi remain faithful to their mates throughout their lives. So, we figure I must have caught "Fred" first and "Joan" (Meredith's fish) may have sacrificed herself to spend her remaining days in the freezer with Fred. Completely speculative, but it makes sense.
• 1 Skip Jack Tuna (I don't remember who caught the tuna).
• 2 small Mahi Mahi (released). At least 20 squid and oodles of flying fish have found their way onto AMARA's deck each morning.
In fact, one day, while Sue and Martin were up on the fly bridge, they saw a flying fish fly up over the fly bridge and almost stop in mid-air to assess the situation and then continue on to the other side of the boat and into the water. It may be a fish tale, but these two are sticking with their story.
• Sea Life: 2 spouts from a whale (witnessed by Sue and David) and a pod of around 100 spinner dolphins (witnessed by all). Jumping Mahi-Mahi. Martin saw more whales and dolphins on his afternoon watch today.
• Books read: David-1.5, Sue-3.5, Meredith-1.5, Kym-1
• Bouts with seasickness: Kym, 7 days and counting. The rest of the crew, are reading books, watching movies and I may have even witnessed a little dancing. In other words, the rest of them are just fine.
• Bananas Consumed: 40. Only 160 more bananas to go. Turns out, the Frey family is not big on more than one banana each per day. Had we known this prior to purchase; instead of paying $13 for 200 bananas, we would have just spent $6.50 on 100. However, Sue is determined that the banana's not go to waste. It feels a bit like an excerpt out of Forest Gump when Bubba starts naming off all the things you can do to prepare shrimp. It's an ongoing joke... Well, not really because anytime you walk out of the kitchen, Sue says, "Would you like a banana with that?"
Currently, we have had the following banana concoctions prepared by Sue:
1. Day 1: Banana Bread (2 loaves)
2. Banana Custard
3. Bananas Foster (sans Rum)
4. Banana Pancakes
5. Banana Smoothies
6. Candied Bananas-Pan fried with syrup and sugar
7. Plantains
8. Crushed Bananas on you name it
9. Bananas and Peanut Butter on toast
10. Day 6: More Banana Bread (2 more loaves today)
11. There's even been a discussion of drying some sliced bananas above the generator to make banana chips.
Meredith had to bow out of the banana smoothies, but she gave it the old college try. I really tried to like the banana custard, but with my sensitive stomach; toast and saltine crackers are pretty much my food of choice these days. Lily is probably the best sport in eating bananas. She even had them with her eggs yesterday morning. As usual, she thinks anything that Sue prepares for her is like ambrosia to the gods - so she is game for anything.
At the end of one day, Martin and David counted that they had eaten 16 slices of banana bread between the two of them. If only another ship would come by so we could throw them some bananas... not so lucky. So far, we have seen no other ships. Just us in the middle of the ocean.
We are shooting to reach the Marquesas on June 6 or 7th, but Meredith and I are secretly hoping it will be the 5th.
Spirits are high and our determination to get to the South Pacific remains steady.
Keep following us!
