BIG MISTAKE! LESS FOOD?

We are not sure how it happened ( all checking Dave's figures on the
computer)but today was a big revelation to find that we had too much food on
the list, so now our daily rations are looking very grim!

The Capsize test was postphoned, as the weather was very bad last night with
heavy rain and winds so it was an inside day. Pete sorted the first aid kit
and managed to work on the boat a little, Dave and I went shopping..yes I
escorted him this time..to buy more stuff for the first weeks in Tonga and
Mike kept recovering and managed some research for us.I spent most of my
time on the computer emailing Aust. Govt, Customs and Quarantine plus
contacts in Kupang and the Govt. of Tonga. We have many logistics issues to
sort out.

Things were going very slow for awhile with some on long phone calls and yes
Dave managed to slip out shopping again to get 10 rolls of Duct. Tape..he
returned a few hours latter with three rolls and $700 of his own camping
gear for Hong Kong kayaking trips! So I issued a panic day notice to them
all...you see when you are on expeditions it is always a panic on the last
days..so to try and solve that problem I occasionally will call a panic day
which means all the jobs on the morning work list have to be finished before
anyone can go to bed....well they all just went to bed and it is
2230hrs...so now I am Blogging and "most" of today's list was done!

SHOCK..HORROR! The big bad news for today was the discovery that we cannot
have as much food as we thought...Dave has been worried about the lack of
food..so when we started to pack it today, we separated it into seven
piles..one for each week...and there seemed not enough to have one can of
beef every day...a quick check made me think we had made a mistake and we
were ten Kilo's short...Dave was ecstatic as we could buy more food...I
checked again and found we were 18KG over weight?..all the fruit and nuts we
not now available...

We had been planning 110grams of Ships biscuits in the morning, 50 grams of
nuts and 50 grams of fruit for lunch and then for dinner 110 grams of Ships
Biscuits with 85grams of tinned beef or baked beans each day...this was all
wrong...we discovered we could have no lunch at all...and only if we now
made six weeks of food we could have the 85 grams on beef five days out of
seven...we were all really shocked...and stunned..how could we do that as it
was just not enough...I can tell you we were laughing a lot for awhile, but
then we realised we have a real problem here. This is not a game.We are
realising how little Bligh had...we are trying to use only the same weight
of food that Bligh took, but split four ways instead of 18..but we just
cannot do it!!

It is obvious that we may starve as that is very little food. Discussions
became very interesting but at the end of the day we had to concede that it
simply may not be possible.

This is a shock to me but I have to concede the point. So the decision was
that we will consider sticking to only consuming the Bligh food for lunch
and dinner...but now we are going to think about allowing ourselves to have
a free lunch!..it is only 50 grams of nuts and 50 grams of dried fruit...but
we need that to survive...go measure all this out and see what you
recon...we will starve any way..and 100 grams of free lunch is nothing...but
it is going against our original plan...But what can we do...we are going to
think about this and make the final decision when we are in Tonga....but at
this point we don't think we have any option...we will pack the fruit and
nuts incase we decide to go with it...but if you think we are giving up on
the food before we start...please go and eat 100 grams of biscuit for
breakfast and dinner..with 85 grams of beef five days out of seven and tell
me how you got on! We are only talking about 100 grams extra!

BIG DAY TODAY!..Capsizing tomorrow..