Day 21
Conditions are now much more lively aboard as we
find ourselves in amongst the trade winds and we are bounding along at last
making good miles.
Last night we had all three full working sails out
all night; including our staysail and made decent enough progress; speeds of
around 3kts, although we got pushed a little off course at one stage.
Today we have been enjoying more wind and seeing
speeds of 6 and 7kts. Jamie took in the staysail around mid-afternoon and we
have been continuing to make good speeds under full main and headsail.
After enjoying our Tuna supper last night Jamie
once again streamed his trolling line today and changed the lure through the
day according to what colour he had read attracted fish depending on the time
of day. It was a successful formula as he had three fish on the line during the
course of the morning and early afternoon. Each one a fighter and got away
before he was able to land them. The fourth was the lucky number at around 4pm
when he successfully managed to land a beautiful Mahi Mahi; 2ft long and
weighing several kilos, enough for at least 2 meals each for the three of us.
Again we are all very excited; especially Meep!
Jamie had cooked up a vegetable curry earlier in
the day which we will now set aside for tomorrow so that's the next 3 nights
catered and the fishing gear packed away for the week. It is nice to finally
have some success on the fishing front. We haven't really fished much between
our ocean crossings and usually setting sail takes precedent over messing about
with fishing lines but it's nice to be catching supper again and already we
have had more success in the Pacific than we had in the Atlantic. We will be
very careful not to catch more than we can eat but as our fresh supplies start
to run low it will be nice to have fresh fish in our diet.
The boat we have been tracking on AIS is
"Beez Neez" which is another Trident Warrior 40 that we met in
Antigua where the current owners had recently purchased her from the previous
owners that had circumnavigated in her. We know the crew quite well and spoke
to them on VHF when they got within a mile or so and they called us up. It is
funny to think that in a body of water that covers something crazy like more
than one third of the earth's surface (another one to fact check at a later
date) we pretty much "bumped into" someone we knew!! We are currently
leaving them behind at quite a rate which makes me think they have shortened
sail. I think Jamie is enjoying that our wind instruments aren't working and therefore
I am not insisting that we reef down our sails because I can't see what the
wind is doing... jokes on him because I am happy to keep full sail and go as
fast as possible now; I am looking forward to getting to Hiva Oa and if we
maintain this speed then we are halfway there (in terms of days at least - not
miles!)
Tomorrow we will pass the longest we have been at
sea for any single passage; we will have been at sea longer than our Atlantic
passage at 21 days!
Our 5pm to 5pm daily run today has come out at 105nm. Another solid days progress (insert muscular upper arm
emoji here!!)
