Day 145, Year 2: Another Granola Day
Date: Sunday, September 16, 2007
Weather: All Sunshine and No Rain
Location: Port Vila, Efate
No waterfall for Windbird today. We decided to make this a “bake ’til you drop” day. This means using the oven and that means a hot boat. I decided that I just couldn’t bear to risk losing all of my honey when arriving in New Caledonia, so I used every bag of oats onboard to make granola today. I also decided to make a four-loaf recipe of bread and freeze that. And while I was at it, I used the very over-ripe bananas to make banana bread and I made a chocolate cake just for the fun of it. I
turned on the oven at 8:30 AM and it is still on at 5:30 this evening. The last of the granola will be coming out soon and we can turn off the oven and hope the 95 degree temperature in the main cabin comes down a few degrees before we go to bed. I also did a mega-laundry today. Since we are in port and have access to water, I decided to wash the mattress cover, sheets, and towels, in addition to whatever dirty clothes we had. Mark defrosted the freezer and we got out the last of the meat and
put it in the top of the freezer. Our freezer is much larger than our refrigerator, so we use the bottom of the freezer for frozen food, and then above the grates dividing the top from the bottom, we keep ice trays and food we want semi-frozen for consumption in the next couple of days. Above that we keep drinks and bread. We are working hard at getting ready to go, but right now it looks like it will be Wednesday or Thursday before we can leave. I forgot to mention that yesterday while I went
shopping, Mark changed the oil and the transmission fluid, so when the weather is right, Windbird is ready to leave for New Caledonia. And so are we. Today we got notice that we have been approved for visas for Australia. The visa we needed would allow us to spend up to six months at a time in Australia and to return multiple times over the course of the next year. That means we can come home a few weeks after getting to Australia in November and then return in the spring (fall down here) and
spend four months or so working on the boat and then sailing up the Queensland coast and over the top to Darwin. And we won’t have to apply for another visa when we return.
We had dinner aboard Ranger tonight and the food was delicious. We talked a little about when we will leave for New Caledonia and we spent some time talking about our first experiences in the South Pacific when we reached the Marquesas last year. I owe Paul an apology. I was sure we didn’t use a stern anchor in Hiva Oa, but my logs tell me we did. In fact, I wrote that I had never been in such a crowded anchorage in New England. So these daily logs keep me straight.
