Days 8 and 9 – Surf’s up

Welcome to the Ciao Bella blog weekend special! We saved up two days' worth of blog posts to bring you this bumper edition. We hope that you've all had a decent weekend. We've just finished treating ourselves to Sunday afternoon tea and biscuits. (Thanks Mrs de Carvalho for the biscuits!).

It turns out there's been a bit of shuffling of positions in the top 6. It's looking pretty close and team Investec Ciao Bella are still very much in the mix. Kathryn has thus had poor Pocket Rocket (Ryan) on the helm for hours on end. The contention in the helmsman top-speed rivalry is rife between Slick-Rick and Ryan. There is much pride on the line here.

 

We're managing to latch onto some passing rain squalls for an extra bit of wind here and there. The wind is forecast to drop in the next few days, so we're putting the money in the bank now. Michaela Mae’s confidence has also built, and is now also claiming some hours on the tiller. All under the watchful eye of mum, who studies the speedometer like a hawk. Ciao Bella’s GPS unit continues to show us at 21degrees south, 32degrees west. Thus we are forced to continue to navigate with a barometer, compass and ‘Homer’ the handheld GPS. It is named Homer as it is fat, yellow and ugly. The general rule of thumb is to make sure that the sun rises behind you, and sets in front of you. Well, in front and a little to the left.

 
A large risk when sailing at night is the spinnaker wrapping around the forestay. Not only are these wraps slow for racing, but they can destroy a spinnaker if it gets bad enough. It’s a real macramé when it happens. We have a net or "ghost jib" that we put up to prevent this, but it only worked half of the time. Yesterday we thought Rick was making a hammock, but he was actually modifying the ghost jib, making our forestay 100% wrap proof.

The largest problem with a crew of seven people is that nothing is ever sold in sevens. Liqui-fruit comes in sixes, Oreos in fours and there are always eight peach halves in a tin. This normally means that rationing is a nightmare. Thanks to four very dedicated friends, who equipped with a vacuum sealing machine, packed every nights snacks into separate packs of seven. Seven multiplied by 21 is how much dedication was involved. To Keith, Cal, Keagan and Shanette – thank you.

 
We've received some very interesting suggestions for naming our spinnakers, as well as come up with a few of our own. It hasn't been finalised yet, but the top contenders are: Deborah (the zebra), Ntombi, Tallulah (though it sounds like a $20 hooker), Zara, Jacob Zebra, Madge (after a Bassett hound - full of wind), Florence Kite-in-gale for the storm kite, Meryl Streep (as in the Afrikaans for stripe), Jay-Z (but Ryan vetoed that because now it can't wrap/rap) and Smurfette for the blue and white one.
 
A few nominations were received to name a zebra kite 'Gill', but we decided against it. Mom doesn't have the long face. We welcome more suggestions.

In the meantime we’ll see which names fit best. Our marine tally continues to rise. A pretty sizeable flying-fish landed itself in one of our buckets in the cockpit. We have it on good authority from Gabriel Fernandez that this kind of cuisine is a real delicacy. Kathryn, however, insisted that we ditch it. Not because of any health risks or anything, but because it was a perceived insult to her rationing and provisioning capabilities. Speaking of health risks, Kax cooked dinner tonight. In the seven years that Bren lived with her post moving to Johannesburg, he can count on his hands how many times she has cooked. At the time that this blog was posted, no casualties had yet been noted.

 
There were a couple of people who were instrumental in us getting the last bits and pieces together. We'd like to acknowledge their efforts by way of a roll-of-honour on our blog. Or a blog-roll as we’d like to call it. The first name on the roll is our friend Phil (pronounced 'Phiw' - he's English). You gave up a good chunk of your holiday and were a great help. Neville Norton, Ray Matthews, Marcus Reuter and Clarence from XtraLink are also men we must thank. And lastly, to our boy Duncan ‘Nav’ Matthews... what a champion. We are going to miss you in Rio.
 

In preparation for the light winds and warm weather, the speedos have started making regular appearance. Even the occasional rain doesn't stop it. They're calling it "practice for Copacabana". Ricky also has a new long-sleeved camouflage shirt. The camo on this thing is so good that we're convinced that the shirt actually photosynthesises. We want to put him out when it's raining and see if the shirt grows berries. Thanks again for the mails. It's always interesting watching the spike in mails coming through during office hours - similar to Mr Price online shopping trends. Looking forward to see what emails the new working week holds.

 
Wishing you all a great Monday.