A sociable day on CAMPER

Hamish Hooper blogs from on board CAMPER

Today was the most social day we have had onboard CAMPER in pretty much the last month. At one point it wasn’t just the entire crew having a good social get together on deck, but the sun decide to join us also for the first time since we left Auckland 27 days ago.

Talk about cause for celebration, there was a dozen cans of Coke quietly loaded onto the boat in Porto Montt, so it was fizzy pop all round to celebrate.
Nico has offered his can to Animal if he can manage to not be grumpy at all for 48 hours. Animal is up for the challenge but thinks he will need to be blindfolded and ear plugged for the duration to win the can.

I like it when Animal is grumpy, so hope he doesn’t win the challenge.

One or two of the guys are holding out to have the coke until we have the equivalent of one Sydney Hobart race to go.

A bad move really, because the cans were still a bit chilled today as the icebox boat has kept them so. But now the sun is shining things are only warming up- and quickly, so they basically are holding out to drink a warm can of coke and the majority of us failed to see the attraction in this.

Sometimes people can be too wise for their own good.

Speaking of wise guys, today was Adam’s day cleaning, there was great anticipation of how he would go, as history doesn’t tend to suggest he has great enthusiasm or skill for cleaning. Regretfully it was rated a ‘D-‘ for overall result, and an ‘E’ for effort.

The good news- there is room for improvement next time.

Mike has been very busy trying to repair the broken water maker. We have had the spare ‘emergency’ water maker going for the past 24 hours, but it struggles to make as much water as is consumed by the 11 guys on board. So Mike has had his head buried in the engine box pulling the water maker apart trying every thing possible to get it fixed. I think he has tried just about everything, but yet to find a solution to the issue.

Mike is very good at hiding frustration, and doesn’t give up on things very easily. I predict he will probably have that water maker fixed as we cross the finish line. In which case it won’t be too much of an issue anymore because we can drink beer- but that wont matter to Mike because he would have fixed it.

We now have less than 1000 miles to go, which is bordering on magnificent. The finish line can’t come soon enough, the fact we are watching each other clean and fix things illustrates our readiness to step off this vessel.

GOLDEN QUOTE: “It’s got a lot warmer, the fog is gone, the temperature as gone up. As with all of these things always, the bad memories fade quickly, we have had a pretty heinous few weeks but already that is fading. A bit of sunshine puts a whole new light on things and we are looking forward to getting there and getting on with the race. ” STU BANNATYNE