Monday, April 2, 2012

4/2/12

Noon Position: 42 27' S, 76 25' E, SOG 6.2, COG 090, Day's Run 141nm.
Had a good blow yesterday - about 14 hours of solid force 7 from the NW,
running off under just staysail, that kicked up some nice seas before
the wind went hard S and died out a lot, bringing a big S swell to play
with. I'm starting to get through my fresh provisions now - I still
have plenty of lemons, oranges, and onions, with garlic and ginger as
well, but I'm down to my last two rather bedraggled looking cabbages and
almost through the 20lbs of potatoes I got in Chile. Once those are
gone I'm going to start in on the unbelievably indestructible sweet
potatoes of an unknown variety that I still have from LA. I also have a
few dozen eggs left, covered with a light coat of vaseline and stored
under the port bunk I'm operating without refrigeration, except of
course for the air temperature, both to save power and because on a trip
of this length there isn't much point to a fridge. Anything that will
keep this long will keep just as well unrefrigerated as refrigerated, it
seems. I've had about the same amount of loss from rot as I did on the
first leg of the trip - the cold in the south atlantic acted as a
preservative, but the pervasive moisture just about counterbalanced it.
Some things, like tomatoes, lasted a lot better in the cold than in the
tropics - my green tomatoes from LA had to be eaten in the first 2 or 3
weeks out, but the ones I got in Chile lasted just over a month. I took
a lot of fresh vegetables along out of each port, and for the most part
was able to pretty easily get 2-3 weeks out of them. The real winners
in longevity are of course what's left, although I had mangoes that
lasted a month from Valparaiso too. The key to preservation seems to be
the admittedly futile goal of keeping things dry - most of my losses
have been very noticeably due to water. All the citrus fruit is wrapped
in newspaper, and as long as the wrapping remains intact and dry the
fruit remains in solid shape. I ended up wrapping most of my vegetables
- peppers, cabbages, tomatoes, cucumbers & zucchini, in newspaper and
found that it answered well, leaving only the naturally wrapped onions
and garlic loose. One thing that has seemed important has been getting
high quality & fresh vegetables - my california garlic and ginger both
look significantly better than the rather pitiful specimens I obtained
in Chile. I do wish I'd brought more apples - I was still eating
California apples arriving in Valparaiso, but I only got a few for the
next leg and finished them all before the horn. My biggest problem with
food so far has actually been with the canned fruit - I've lost about 8
cans, all of which dribbled a foul black goo into the bottom of the bin
before I realized and could get it all cleaned up.

2 comments:

  1. Eric,
    Thanks for the descriptions re: provisions.
    These are all good "tips."

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  2. Glad you came through the storm unscathed. Amazing you still have sweet potatoes from LA!

    ReplyDelete