Chapter Two - g) tuesday 7th February (1956) - Logged 73 Miles

Alas, our fresh food is beginning to show obvious signs of depletion as we shall soon have to switch over to tinned stuff. The situation today is as follows: -

Bananas -all gone
Oranges -about 30 left
Lemons -about 50 left
Pineapples - 2 left
Cabbage -1 left
Carrots - 25% consumed, 50% left, 25% bad, dumped
Potatoes - dwindling but lasting well
Pumpkins - 2 left
Cucumbers - 5 left
Sweet Potatoes- 5 left
Onions - 70% left

We have enough tinned and preserved food to last nine months, but certain vitamins and proteins are lacking in this time of alimentation. It seems our main problem is food. The cooking position is as follows:

• a) Oliver - still cannot go near the galley as it turns his stomach immediately.
• b) Juan - Only too eager to take over the cooking but his highly seasoned Spanish food not properly appreciated. He has been "rationed", as cook, to one day a week.
• c) -Me - Very little experience. I make early morning tea, an occasional macaroni dish and help preparing fruit salads, peeling spuds, cutting carrots, washing up, etc.
• d) The Skipper - Hates cooking but actually does nearly all of it on this trip for his scratch crew.

Today we had lentil stew with sausages and bacon, and fruit salad for lunch and lentil broth and fruit salad for supper. Excellent stuff. We are using up fresh food first as much as possible before it goes rotten, and keeping the preserved food for later on.

Saw two albatrosses, which we christened Albert and Albertina. The skipper took some films of them landing on the water and taking off. Amazing the way they run along the surface of the water several yards, paddling hard with their webbed feet, before becoming finally airborne.

Today light winds, slight sea and heavy westerly swell.

Trolling for fish. No catch.