Passage NYC Day 2
Blue Note
Marco M.
Tue 17 May 2011 16:20
Position 21:33.61N 66:32.82W
COG 358M, SOG 6.2 kt, Wind 130M 14 kt, Barometer 1000.9 stable
Temperatures: Air 27C, Sea 23.7C
Last 24h Sailed Distance: 126 NM
Sailed distance since departure: 228NM
Time since departure: 1d 18h 00m
Average Speed since departure: 5.45 kt
Intention: sail to NYC
Distance to End on rhumb line: 1212 NM
ETA: Thursday May 26 6:10
Thanks to Hugo and Henrik for confirming that Blue Note blog works.
Yesterday it was a very busy afternoon.
First in our search for good wind we ended up jibing with the spinnaker a couples of time.
We also learned that it's recommended to close all hatches while jibing.
The boom vang got caught in the main cabin hatch and bend it a bit. Nothing some strong persuasion could not fix.
Eventually the wind disappeared and we had to start motoring and changed course following the rhumb line for NYC. We have motoring on-off since only during the night we had a 4 hour window of wind right before large thunderstorm pass us on the west. After the wind disappeared again.
At 2pm we switch the new tuna-friendly lure for the well proved old lure that had yield a numbers of Mahi and one blue fin tuna. At about 6pm while under motor we caught a huge (6 ft) Marlin !!
The fight did not last long since we soon
run out of line in the spoiler and the lure was lost together with the Marlin. Probably better this way, since it would have been "problematic" to bring on board a 6ft Marlin. On top of that I read that the Marlin is not that good to eat anyway. Just to bad that the fight did not last long enough to grab the camera and take few pictures.
After all these afternoon excitement we were blessed by a beautiful sunset with the GREEN FLASH.
I was always skeptical about the existence of such thing but Jeff and I saw it at the same time. A very clear green light just before the sun disappeared.
Due to the lack of a catch of the day, dinner was pork chops on the grill served with red Spanish wine and rice. Dark chocolate as dessert.
This morning we used a replacement of the "proven" lure and set a trolling line early in the morning. At 11am under an incoming rain shower just when the wind was start to pick up we caught a blue fin tuna about 2 ft long, estimated to at at 12 lbs, nice and round. Lots of sashimi for tonight....
According to the latest grib file the current east wind should stay with us for another 30 hours and after more of the
light winds.