Helgoland 100623

After arriving in Brighton we decided to have a big breakfast to celebrate our arrival and prepare ourselves for a day out and about. I went to the gigantic supermarket located just of the marina, picked up my groceries and went to the cashier where I stood in line behind a Swedish couple. As I am travelling incognito I did not bother them with the somewhat boring fact that we were from the same country, but rather I enjoyed their difficulties in separating a pence from a pound, which I might say was not as easy as one might think. When they finally got it all right, had payed and left, the lady behind the desk leaned over and said in trust: "Am I allowed to say it?", "Yes, of course" I replied, "Bloody foreigners" she said with a smirk, I agreed and nodded my head. I am not sure if it was my very British tan, lobster style, or my British breakfast habits, consisting of sausages and bacon that made her believe that I was one of them.

Having finished our brunch in the sunshine aboard Cantare we went to watch the England vs. Slovenia game and down a few pints, luckily England won without playing very well. The late afternoon I spend cooking a nice spaghetti Bolognese while the ladies were of buying the supplies we needed to celebrate the midsummer in the proper way on our way to Helgoland. We all fell asleep early that night watching an episode of Dr House.

The second and last day of our stay in Brighton we spend at the Palace pier and in the city, shopping. We all managed to get ourselves a few bargains and returned to Cantare filled with the joy that only successful shopping brings, we filled her up with diesel and left the British shores behind.

Helgoland, here we come, approximately 380 nautical miles to go or four days of sailing. Early Friday morning we were coming up to the passage of Dover - Calais, here I had my first encounter with serious fog, I must acknowledge that being in a sailing yacht in a relatively heavy trafficked area with no visibility, just hearing the horns of substantially larger vessels is somewhat frightening to an inexperienced sailor like myself. I woke the captain up and she got up, horn in hand ready to signal. When the fog finally eased up we noticed that we had fish on the hook, we reeled it in and to our surprise we had not caught one but three mackerels, midsummer's lunch was saved. Fried mackerels with potatoes, finely chopped spring onions and lemon butter consumed in the sunshine was just as good as it sounds and the culinary peak of this trip so far.

We now live our lives in a very nice three hours on and six hours off routine that gives us plenty of time to enjoy the beautiful sunshine, and as I said before, I have gotten an extraordinary tan, some might say that when your face starts to come of , you have burned yourself. I say it is the normal way of getting a tan, it never comes easy and one has to earn one's tan. Besides working on my tan I have relistened to some of my favourite pod casts, read one sailing biography of a Swedish couple exploring the world in a 62 feet Hallberg Rassy and another about 3 young adventurous people that sail the world in a Vega, two totally different experiences but each with interesting episodes.

Now it is time for me to start my watch, Stay Black!

Boat Bunny 2 a.k.a The Bosun