Fish on!!
Chelone's travels.....
John and Susie Blair.
Fri 30 Nov 2012 17:17
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N21:45.00 W30:51.00
Well, NINE fish to be exact!! fancy that eh? after
catching nowt for days suddenly we catch loads! every time we put the
line out, within an hour we've another fish. What are we catching I hear
you say? 'Mahi Mahi' (also called Dorado or Dolphin fish) we caught
many of these on the last crossing too. So Ross and myself made a fish supper, I
filleted and skinned the fish, Ross made chips, we had mushy peas, mayonnaise,
Tartare Sauce. Some of the diced chunks we coated in Moroccan fish spices, some
with Martin's 'Hot n' spicy chicken fry mix' and some plain, all were pan fried
in batter....and went down a storm!
We used three fish to make the meal, all other fish
were returned to the sea alive as we're confident that when we want more we'll
just have to put the line back out!
Flying fish are in abundance though none on deck
yet and there were some Dolphins for company again yesterday too though no whale
sightings yet.
We're over a thousand miles from the Canary Islands
now (1086 to be exact) and the sea here is over three miles deep (5000+ meters).
Yesterday while motor sailing in relatively calm conditions and sweltering heat
we decided to stop for another swim. The sea was warm and we all enjoyed a
cooling dip, I checked the rudder and propeller for any signs of one of my
lost Rapala fishing lures (see pic) though only line was seen.
We flew the Gennaker (Big billowing sail alike a
Spinnaker) for a while but there wasn't quite sufficient wind to make our
minimum passage speed of 5 knots but good practice for everyone.
The crew busied themselves with a big clean up
around the interior and the Port side fuel tank was topped up to full with the
last of our deck lashed cans (bar 40 litres reserve).
So, now it's Friday and last evening we reported to
Herb that we were motor sailing in 8-10knts of breeze from the north east, he
advised that we should see an increase and sure enough, in the early
hours the wind veered and increased to 20knts gusting 30+ at one point! so the
engine was again at rest and those who were off watch had a quiet though
rolly-poly sleep.
Along with the wind came torrential rain and having
foreseen this we had Chelone's rain catcher lashed in position ready for action
(tough plastic sheet about ten feet square with a hose tail in the middle). By
first light we'd caught around eight gallons, great for a body wash and washing
clothes etc.
As I send this blog report we have a perfect 20knts
of wind from astern (behind) so we're flying along towards Barbados and spirits
are high, especially as we're sailing again, soon it'll be 'listen with Herb'
time again then maybe some music played over the boats cockpit speakers while we
eat our evening meal together.
Bye for now, JB.
PS. Thank's for the message Geoff, go ahead with
the house, SJ.
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