Poisson Cru

The weather's been kind to us so far, (I'm sure that just tempting fate too much). Yesterday we ran for 24 hours in more-or-less the right direction without adjusting the sails, except for a brief period during the night when we gybed to steer round the back of our first ship of the passage. The wind remains E - ENE ~15knots, making the sailing fast and enjoyable. It's our easiest passage to date. We should arrive in Penrhyn on Tuesday morning, timing our entrance to allow for sufficient light to pick our way through the coral to the anchorages.

We've been busily demolishing the tuna. So far we've enjoyed multiple servings of seared fillet, and sashimi. Last night we decided we'd experiment a little and came up with "Poisson Cru" and "Nori Rolls". The "Poisson Cru" was an unexpected success - raw fish with coconut cream, lime juice, vegetables and onion, chilled in the fridge and served with cold rice. It tasted fantastically refreshing and provided the perfect antidote to the close-to-unbearable heat during the day. It also appeals to my hunter-gatherer instinct as the major ingredients are readily available for the taking; fish and coconut milk.

chewy Nori Rolls

The "Nori Rolls" looked the part - we'd bought some seaweed sheets in Papeete - but tasted a little more chewy than the sushi I've had before. Worth trying again though especially as we've another eight sheets to chew through. We plan to finish the tuna today then put the line out again, hoping to catch something before we arrive.

The only other news-worthy item is the a minor drama with Ellen's iPod - "Philip". For a while, it appeared terminal, the startup screen was replaced with a image of a "sad" iPod and a web address for Apple support.

It looked like we'd be music-less until New Zealand, but after some experimentation we found the equivalent of ctrl-alt-del and all's well again. Phew.

Position @ 16:30 (26/8/06): S13° 45' W153° 40'