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cooker and poured the bag of corn into it. I had an old four pound hammer in the bilge; this
was next hauled out and washed.
“What on earth are you doing?” asked Gavin, from behind his dog-eared Western.
“Patience and all will be revealed, myer zee,” I replied in heavy accent.
I retired outside to the cockpit and began pounding the corn into flour. It took a while, but
I ended up with half a pot of ground yellow corn. I then went below and opened a beer
which I poured into this meal, and mixed it up along with some salt, sugar, cooking oil, and
more beer. I ended up with a beery smelling solid lump of corn dough. Lighting the paraf-
fin “wonder stove” in readiness, I found our aluminum pot with the battered-in bottom and
greased it with oil, strapping it onto the stove. I stuffed the batter into this pot and placed
the lid on top. I turned the heat down as much as possible and went to lie down on my bunk
again.
Within ten minutes, the most wonderful smell of baking cornbread filled the cabin.
“Gaanders!” was all Gavin said, but that said it all. Although he had a real smelling prob-
lem, he could smell the baking bread.
“Yup, fresh baked cornbread straight from the oven. It's your turn to make tea!” I gave
him the wicked weasel with fluttering eyelids, and he reluctantly swung off his bunk and
made tea. Soon we were feasting on slightly burnt, but absolutely delicious, hot cornbread
smothered with melting margarine, peanut butter, and honey, washed down with sweet, hot,
strong brown tea. What more could a sailor ask for?
The next day had me screaming bloody blue murder to Murphy who had taken away our
wind and arranged for me to step on my only pair of sunglasses. I broke not one arm off,
but two. They were rendered completely useless, and I had relied on them so much. I was
furious, and now with no wind, very miserable. This was typical of sailing; it lay some-
where between great moments of wondrous elation and the blackest pits of despair.
I thought lovingly of our farm back in Natal in South Africa nestled in the soft, green pas-
tures of the banana and sugar cane belt in some of the lushest farming area of the country.
I would much rather be there now if I could only get off this damn becalmed and slatting
boat. I recalled a scene I had once read from the Robin Lee Graham book, Dove. In it, he
douses his interior with paraffin and sets his boat on fire as a means of escaping from the
confines of being at sea. I could understand perfectly his moment of insanity.
That evening we had happy hour from four p.m. until eight p.m. with the bottle of rum and
orange juice. We listened to Radio Australia and watched as the cockroaches did the hokey
pokey on the double-sided sticky tape. We opened a can of spaghetti in tomato sauce and
