And what did you eat?

What did we eat?

Lots!

For breakfast we did a "help yourself".

We would simply rig up something either before or when coming off watch at a time that suited yourself.

Breakfast would be oats or muesli, coffee or tea and if you wanted, some fruit juice.

During the morning we would snack away at whatever we laid our eyes on.

Lunchtime was an organised set meal. Tinned tuna, ham, cheese, pickles etc. Or a quick snack boil in a bag meal if it was cold weather. And crackers and spreads, rounded off with canned fruit and custard.

It is very hot in the Trades over noon and we have found from previous trips that lunches can be kept simple and small.

During the afternoon the sun would beat down heavily and the wind tended to drop in strength.

You then tended to drink vast amounts of water. We took onboard about 70 litres of bottled water and also some lime juice. Going onto an afternoon watch we would then rig up a litre of water and lime drink. And sip away at it. Keeping well hydrated was important and made life in the tropics a pleasure.

Come late afternoon we would aim for an early dinner and have the dishes cleaned away before sunset.

I wanted to take a beer a day for the race but Jeremy said it was going to make us lethargic. So I skipped the idea and just took a small container of white wine for sundowner/ dinner time.

Dinners. Tanya made us 4 pre-cooked dinners which she froze. These meals were individually packed and carefully wrapped in newspaper for added insulation. They were then transferred into a coolbox filled to the brim with iced bottles of drinking water.

We therefore had nice dinners for 4 of our 9 nights at sea.

Our routine was to get the meal out of the coolbox quickly and shut the lid. No other scratching inside the coolbox allowed. This kept the food frozen or very cold for five days.

Tanya's meals were beef stews, mexican food and curries. What I call nice boat food. The meal simply had to be heated and we would cook rice or a pasta to go with it.

For the remaining days we had tinned meats and veggies. Some of these meals were better than others.

The galley onboard Banjo is "compact". A single burner gas stove, a small s/s sink and plenty of lockers for the everyday stuff. Washing up was done in a plastic bowl in the cockpit.

We carefully rationed the fruitcake my Mom had given us. It just lasted the duration of the voyage. We took too much sugar, tea, milk and fruit juices.The rest of the stuff was just about polished by the time we crossed the finish line.

All in all it worked well.

One thing I learnt again is that you do not need a fancy boat to have a nice passage. Simple and functional and neat is all that you need. And the cabin must have no leaks.

Next time.......................

a bit about the heads arrangements.