The Flying Lentil The log of Festina Lente, Sigma 38

The good news: We´re allowed to stay in La Gomera, by sweet-talking and doing everything short of outright bribery of the marina officials. We´ve spent the past day or so walking up in the clouds and sheltering aboard Festina from the frequent torrential rainfall.

Once we´d got past the disappointment, one unforseen aspect of the delayed crossing is that Festina is now full with three weeks´ worth of Fruit and Vegetables, in various stages of ripeness. A fly on the wall last night would have spied Festina´s crew lying down, groaning and holding their large, distended stomachs, having taken to heart the task of munching their way through 10 enormous mangoes, 50 giant oranges and 40 huge apples, as well as numerous cabbages, lettuces, tomatoes and potatoes. We´re getting there, but the supplies are putting up a fierce resistance and we don´t seem to have made much of a dent! The next milestone will be to see whether the 3 hands of bananas, secreted in various places around the boat, all ripen at once. In which case, any inventive recipes involving Bananas will be welcome!

There´s a major depression somewhere to the northwest, creating large swells, the size of which increases with every re-telling. Some sources have them as big as 10m, but whatever size they are, the boats in line with the harbour mouth are receiving a real pounding, rolling from gunwhale to gunwhale, their lines shrieking as they try to rip the cleats from the deck. Luckily we´re tucked just away from the worst of the swell, but it´s not a nice sight.

Happy Christmas to everyone, and good sailing in the New Year.