Into the rythm of a long sea passage
gale-at-sea
Humphrey Gale
Mon 25 Mar 2013 09:28
I am into the rythm of a long passage.- almost weeks into this 3 week passage which is the longest passage of the trip, about 3200 miles - no land, no other sailing boats, no sea birds, only water and sky wherever you look. Frequently there are flying fish to be seen skitting over the surface and to date lots of different cloud formations. We had 2 large commercial ships pass us in the first 2 days, but now very unlikely to be any further commercial traffic. The major routine events of the day are my 2 x 4 hour watches, 2-6 am and 2-6 pm, lunch and dinner. In between, there is lots of staring out to sea and contemplating life and the universe, some reading, and doing daily maintenance jobs on the boat. In the dark of the early morning, it is 4 hours alone for me, which I like, the others are asleep, I will do my journal - more like a few notes on the day! - and for example this blog entry. And enjoy some quiet time on deck, with any luck there are are stars and or a moon, bit it has been very cloudy recently so not a lot of either! In the afternoon I get probably between 1 and 2 hours of time alone on deck enjoying the sailing while Andrew and Sussanne take an afternoon nap together
I caught a 3 lb mahi mahi today - whitish fish, not the dark colour of tuna. Mahi mahi is the one with the yellow hue to the skin ( there is photo of one caught by Malcolm in the post named 'fishes come in threes, like London buses' dated sometime in late january and with blog photo entry of a large fish). So the menu reads 'Ceviche' ( fresh raw fish marinated in lime juice and some sliced chilli) for lunch for the next 2 days ( photo of same in the previuosly mentioned post). It seems like whenever I put the line in the sea at the moment I catch something so it does not always go out, only when we seem to be running out of fish from the last catch. At the moment on the passage the freezer is still pretty full so little room for freezing excess fish. The fishing is for food not for sport so only what we can eat will be caught
There is plenty of wind 15 -20 knots, sailing between a beam and broad reach with the wind mainly south easterly trade winds ( that means they blow steadily and consistently interspersed with the odd squall) making 8 - 9 knots over the ground including ocean current. The swell is quite awkward and tosses us about a bit, but we have had a lot worse in the Atlantic and Carribean sea, however last night/tonight it was very uncomfortable so I did not sleep well - very interrupted.
Peter, perhaps the compass as the feature photo from the grab bag?