Hi from ‘Happy Spirit’ Day 12

“it’s just a perfect day..” Blue sky shone in through the hatch this morning, heralding our escape, at last, from the frontal trough thingy that has been making life miserable for the last few days. Back to the tradewinds today guys, chute up before breakfast, spring clean the boat, Mr Sheen flying around everywhere, dodging the Brasso, John gives the fridge a long overdue birthday, (that stench in there cannot be allowed to continue a moment longer). The girls clean and wipe the festering contents of said fridge. I sort through about 100 onions and consign most to the deep, the remaining ones are incorporated into soup which is served on the foredeck cafe for lunch, this is the life, this is what we came for! The boat looks and feels so great I can’t help a hike up the mast to take some photos. What an awesome sight.

Decide we need fish for dinner and set to with a new strategy, not wanting to be outdone by our close travelling companion, ‘Flightless’. This time we put two lines out instead of one. Half way through our radio sched with ‘Ocean Wanderer’, whilst trying to give Anna a foolproof recipe for chocolate cake, the alarm goes, first the tin can , then the bucket, “FISH, FISH” but nobody’s around, Chloe’s oblivious on deck attatched to a Walkman and Laurie’s in the heads. Haul in one large Dorado, which now dances around cockpit, girls are screaming,”it’s heading for the saloon”. Laurie gets a knife, John tries to sedate it by liberally pouring rum down it’s gills. Quick haul in the other one, it’s a large Wahoo, he’s hauled aboard for an inspection, has his hook released, (“watch out, Laurie it’s got big teeth!”) and is allowed to slide back into his true element. He was lucky this time to be spared.

So it was champagne and fresh fish this evening and a live Jazz band at the cockpit diner, all as the sun set with a wicked array of colours and the kite’s still up….but don’t worry, all this good fortune cannot last and already this afternoon there is news of a late hurricane developing in the Caribbean………

Andy Morris ‘Happy Spirit’ ARC yacht no 53 Ocean 60