Day twenty one - bloody hell, that's three weeks!

Adonde
Neil & Tracy Batcheler
Mon 8 Jan 2007 18:51

Noon position 13:32.9N 52:18.7W

 

Day's run the usual 114nm

 

Well now, there was me only yesterday saying that even the fish couldn't be bothered when a short time after sending in our daily report the reel started screaming and off we went! We’d been trolling with a large green and yellow rubber squid lure (hereinafter to be known as “green killer squidy thing”) with a scary looking hook for hours without anything showing any interest, and the next thing we know we’ve got ourselves a rather impressive bull Mahi Mahi (Dorado). The theory goes that when trolling from a yacht under sail, when you get a strike you should drop sail to reduce speed and use the engine to play the fish, and when it’s knackered reel it in. We couldn’t do that as we had the gennaker up at the time and it takes too long to drop, so we just reeled the fish in anyway. Seemed to work. Dorado really are a fantastic looking fish, with terrific shades of electric blue, green and yellow on their skin which really shimmers as they are lifted out of the water, but unfortunately the colours fade away rapidly when they die. To be fair, if someone repeatedly bashed me over the head until I stopped wriggling I expect I might look a bit off colour too. Talking of bashing, our technique has improved slightly in that this time we put a rag over Mr Fishy’s head prior to clumping him, thereby containing the yucky stuff and maintaining marital harmony.

 

 

Anyway, we’ve now got enough fish for a few dinners, even after allowing for all the waste that my shockingly bad filleting leaves! We dined on dorado last night, which was very nice indeed, and we’re looking forward to it again tonight. And tomorrow night. And the night after. And the night….

 

Fishing aside, not much else happening. At 1230 UTC today we entered the 21st day, or 3 weeks since leaving Las Palmas. I’m not allowed to whine as you know but I had hoped to arrive in Barbados around now or even earlier so it remains disappointing that we’ve still got three days or so to go, not least because we’re both pretty fed up with it all now and really would like to get off and go for a walk! Never mind, nearly there…