Race 3 - Day 15
Crew Diary - Race 3 Day 15: Cape Town to Fremantle
15 November
Cake or Death?
Life on a Clipper Race boat revolves around one thing and surprisingly it has nothing to do with sailing or the ocean. As the legendary Bagpuss (Martin Greenshields) taught me, it's all about the meal times. The meeting of the watches so one can refuel and regain feeling in their limbs while the other loads up before heading 'upstairs' onto the battlefield. This wrongly infers that we can fight back, we can't... so it is more like a contestant entering hang tough against Vixen on the classic Gladiators program or when the contestants reach the final stage on Takeshi's Castle, a beating!
I had the pleasure or burden, depending on how you view it, of Galley watch yesterday with the ever reliable and willing Hefner, one of our Sanya Ambassadors. As you may have heard we have been beating up wind for the previous few days, which means the boat heels over (a lot) and makes doing anything impossible, especially cooking.
After a slight scare when Jan changed our lunch menu due to supply issues, we got stuck into our first service of Cape lentils and organic carrot soup with an optional side of buttered rye bread. Being the 'senior' crew member I took the lead and when I say it went well... people had seconds! I was shown what it means to represent Sanya in the galley by Jen on Leg 2... the pupil now becomes the master. This was followed by an afternoon of bread and cake making, which was a first for both of us. We made 2 loaves of bread for breakfast tomorrow and 2 vanilla sponge cakes for something sweet after dinner. Before we started this the wind decided to pick up and the sea state went from big to seriously antisocial. Thankfully bread is hardy even during the preparation stage, whereas the cakes swiftly morphed into a Clipper Race favourite wave cake. This is caused by the gimble on the oven having a maximum tilt, which the boat does not possess. As you can gather from the name, after this effect the cake resembles a wave rather than a perfectly flat sponge. We sadly could do nothing but watch and hope the inside of the oven wasn't redecorated.
Dinner was on the horizon and what a challenge! It was bolognese pasta and a veggie option for Wendo. Having made some bologs in my time, thanks bubs, we got cutting the onions (vegetable chopper free - sorry Dmitry) and garlic and frying. I turned to see Hefner holding a can of chopped tomatoes the size of her head and heard her remark, 'These next?'. A few minutes later Wendo emerged from the heads to a unidentified yelp. She saw Hefner holding the can above her head, me with the can opener engaged and red splattered all over the galley. A wave had arrive at an impeccable time to take the last turn of the can opener out of my hands, sending the contents flying. Hefner did point out, 'It's quite alright, we got 95% of the mixtures in the pan', great attitude. Then the 'meat', 500g of dehydrated beef needing to be hydrated, more liquid in these conditions was bad news. With a helping hand, or two, from Tom and Kimbo and moral support from Damien, we added boiling water to the mixture. Tom proceeded to reseal the transparent lid and show the intriguing meat aquarium we had created. The same had to be done for Wendo's soya 'alternative'. To me, 'alternative' is no-no on any menu and I had seen what the 1st choice was on this one. We added more water to that powdered substance and realised we had nowhere to keep this liquid 'safely', so Hefner (plus anyone with a free hand) held it for the next hour or so.
Pasta was the last element of this masterpiece, but while I tried to boil some water, each wave removed half the liquid and deposited it on the low side seating area. At this point I went to change into my foulies, know your enemy. The next half an hour consisted of flying warm/hot water, raw pasta and some cooked pasta, similar carnage to a Bine Cottage Easter egg hunt. We tidied up the galley and added some tomatoes to Wendo's concoction, we served the on-going watch and Wendo... there were requests for seconds on both pasta and wave cake (I'll let you into a secret - seconds are requested pretty much every meal by almost everybody and Dmitry always goes for thirds). As Tom said, we were like swans, behind our counter flapping around like crazy, but from the waist up - serene control.
Then my watch (port) came down after 6 hours on deck to eat and again it went down a treat. There were requests for seconds from all angles and this, despite most of these guys having seen this creation in mid-production.
As quickly as it started, service was over and it was just me and Hefner in the galley having used every item possible and the incessant sea state wasn't passing. Our night finished with marigolds on and Hefner singing a few Sea Shanties she had learnt whilst crewing in Sweden, rather surreal.
On galley you get to sleep from around 8pm until 4:45am, luxury... that's if you sleep through 2 watch changes. Then up for breakfast, which some would say is the Everest of Galley Watch. I was on toast (home-made bread!) and Hefner was on porridge and hot drinks. This is more of a Teppenaki counter vibe, everyone shouting what they want and you move as quickly as possible. This is the problem with giving your customers choice, they suddenly think they are in charge. A code has been developed on the boat to clarify how many times you want your bread toasted:
- Single is an 'Andy Murray'
- Double is a 'Harry Potter' (don't ask, something to do with Dumbledore)
- Triple is a 'Jonathan Edwards'
Luckily Hefner and I were on form and we have been likened to a young Niall Quinn and Kevin Phillips up top for Sunderland. Happy customers is the name of the game and with one last request for a good rating on TripAdvisor, we showed them the door so we could clean down. 2 hours later I was back on deck into the watch system as though nothing had changed. Given this is my last leg that will be my last Mother/Galley Watch (sorry Nicola), which creates a mixed feeling of pride and relief, but we did it Hefner!
Max and Sids, see you in Oz, only 8 days to go!
Thanks for listening,
Ollie
P.S. Joss, my M&M's were supposed to go on the cake, but Dmitry was asleep in cave lockers so we will keep them for Thomas' 50th bday on Wedensday, thank you!!