Spindrift ARC Log - Day 8

Austins' Travels
Chris & Lynn Austin
Sun 27 Nov 2011 16:56
18:30.15N 28:15.56W
Yesterday afternoon we caught two fair sized mahi mahi fish about 70-80 cms long. We cut up one of them into steaks and put it in the fridge and will have it for dinner tonight. Chris A has volunteered to forego the feast, just in case there is any problem as I am sure that there will be plenty of opportunity. Ken has agreed to try it even though he has previously strongly disliked this type of fish - if you don't try it here you never will and sometimes tastes change. We also had two flying fish land on deck. One jumped into Chris E's lap during the night and really made him jump as it flapped around!!
After a night of rather slow progress running under only a poled out genoa, this morning we experimented with different rigs for a couple of hours but didn't really improve performance much and each required steering a bit off course so we reverted to the genoa. A bit frustrating to be only making 5-5.5 knots at present but at least it is in the right direction.
We haven't seen any other boats or ships for three nights now although yesterday evening we did see another yacht on the horizon going in the opposite direction.
With relatively settled and easy sailing at night and no shipping we are able to enjoy the peace and beautiful starlit skies and have seen a number of shooting stars.
Today we had to empty the bilges under the floor boards which contain some of our stores of water, wine, beer and juice. They got oil and water in them from the generator leak of a few days ago and some of the stores were affected so all had to cleaned and put back. This is a long and tiresome job when the boat is constantly rolling through 25 degrees from side to side. Other little jobs followed, like fixing the kettle handle which broke when the kettle went flying during a roll yesterday, fixing a cupboard catch that somehow has lost a screw and started flying open when rolling, trying to fix a bent engine throttle connection that was damaged when looking for the lost steering pin yesterday and the normal activities of running watermaker, generator, and checking the general health of the boat....and so it goes on. No fishing today - too busy and we have plenty in the fridge from yesterday.
As we are now one week from the start I announced that today was SHOWER DAY !! Everyone has enjoyed the almost forgotten experience.