Day 5 - Perseverance bring a dinner with fish (tuna)

Blue Note
Marco M.
Fri 13 May 2016 16:30
Date:  Friday 13/05/16   - Time:  12:16 EDT
Position 28:07.67N  70:38.577W
COG 308T SOG 6.0kt, Wind 144T 12.9 kt,
Temperatures: Air 30 C, Sea 23.1 C
Barometer: 1013  hPa
Last 24h Sailed Distance: 107 NM
Last 24h Decrease Distance on rhumb line: 105 NM
Sailed distance since departure: 689 NM
Time since departure: 5d 2h 6m
Average Speed since departure: 5.60      kt
Average VMG since departure:   5.48  kt
Average VMG speed last 24h:    4.36 kt
Intention: sail to Chesapeake.
Distance to End on rhumb line: 599 NM
ETA (Entrance Chesapeake): Tuesday May 17, 2016 @ 23:00

Detailed Track (50 is the maximum number of point, i.e. once the last point reaches 50, the last point always is 50):
Click on "SPOT" at following link.
https://sites.google.com/site/sailingvesselbluenote/blog


After our sunset gin and tonic while we were slowly sailing with still our spinnaker up ....  zzzzzz we have a fish.
Jon start to slowly bring back the fish line that was take way whil I bring down the sock of the spinnaker to slow us down.
This time all worked out well and we were able to bring the catch of the day alongside and gaff the fish and bring on deck.
We are not sure if we caught  a black fin tuna or a less prestigious "Skipjack tuna". A magnification of the photos taken indicates some stripes in the lower half of the body characteristic of the Skipjack. After the tedious work of filet the 15 lbs tuna (measured with a scale), we prepared it by quickly and seared it in a non-sticky pan. We served with rice and Pinot Grigio.
Personally, I was a bit disappointed by the taste of the meat. Perhaps confirming that it was a Skipjack (with less quality meat according to our book)
but perhaps was cooked a bit too much.

The night was sailed slowly with spinnaker and the main wing-to-wing and winds at 7 kts making average of about  3.8kts to 4 kts.
This morning we retired the spinnaker, jibed and motored sailed wing-to-wing with a pole-out jib. Slowly the wind increased to 12 kts and
we are not off the engine and sailing at 6kts. The course is west of the rhumb line to avoid area of opposite current as indicated in yesterday qtVlm analysis.

Jon with the tuna catch

Jon with the 15 lbs tuna

filet

Tuna filet ready to be pan-seared