Beef-Fish for Lunch

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Beef-Fish for Lunch

Jon lands a nice Steak-fish
(actually a skip-jack tuna)

4 July 2007, 96nm from the Seychelles

Dear Friends and Family,

Happy 4^th of July! This morning, in that bleary, ever-humorous state of mind that one can only achieve at 1am, Dad and I (Amanda) considered setting off a flare in celebration of Independence Day - this idea was quickly vetoed by all onboard, thank goodness. No fireworks for us, but there are other ways in which we have celebrated.

The winds, rather predictably, dropped during the night, as did the seas. We shook out the two reefs in the main and continued sailing west at a more reasonable 6 knots. This morning Dad tossed out the fishing lines for the first time since we pulled them in 6 days ago, and not 5 minutes later had a beautiful 2 foot Skip-Jack tuna on board. This stayed on deck until he convinced me to fillet it for him.

4^th of July burgers, with Amanda's
wonderfully fresh homemade buns

Celebration while on passage, unless the weather is bad, usually consists of making and eating meals we rarely have the time or patience to make while we're anchored somewhere interesting. Breakfast was pancakes, which we actually have fairly often, and lunch was honest-to-goodness, 4^th‑of‑July hamburgers. Hamburgers, you ask? Indeed. After 2 months in Chagos, we are rather tired of fish tasting like fish, so Mom borrowed a marinade recipe from a fellow cruiser which turns tuna into moist, melt-in-your-mouth steak when seared in a hot pan. Slap this between two homemade-by-yours-truly rolls and voila! The best burgers we've had in months.

More steak-fish is currently being marinated for dinner, and an apple crisp is in the oven for dessert. Too bad there's no ice cream, but we did have a nice ice-blended pineapple drink this morning. Mm-mm.

At noon, while we had our hands around those big beautiful steak-fish burgers, we were at 4°52'S 57°22'E, 114 nautical miles from Victoria, having made 136 nautical miles in the past 24 hours. The wind is a bit forward of the beam but blowing a nice 16 knots and Ocelot's shouldering it beautifully at 6‑7 knots. At this rate we'll arrive in Victoria at 5:30 tomorrow morning, but we'll probably slow down some during the night.

Fair winds and calm seas -- Amanda, Jon and Sue Hacking

Lifetime
Commodores
of the
Seven Seas
Cruising
Association

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