19.56S 179.37W 1st October 2011

Mojo 2
Andrew Partington
Sat 1 Oct 2011 01:30
Hit the jackpot with our fishing [as there's not much else to do] yesterday....Wahoo. It was around 6.30pm and the sun was about half an hour from setting when we had another big strike. The reel was screaming and we gave up heaps of line before we applied the drag to slow the fish down. Rob grapped the rod while I tried to slow the boat down by turning to windward and dropping the genoa. Applying the drag just made the fish angry as it went on a series of strong runs. Rob just held on through these and I held on to him. Eventually he was able to get some line back but just when we thought it was over the fish went on another powerful run. All up it would have been around 15 minutes before we had the fish at the back of the boat and even then it still kept taking line in short sharp bursts. Eventually we were able to land it on the port stern but had to haul it into the cockpit area because it would not fit on the steps. Not sure what this incredible fish weighed [Rob was grunting trying to lift it!!] but it was 1.4 metres from nose to tail and after cleaning [finished in the dark] it filled a 10 litre bucket with fillets. I had to lean on the freezer to get the door shut. Any concerns I had with whether we had enough food aboard were wiped out with one fish. Fresh fillets tonight.
 Dean's purple halco lure had come through for us again. Since Panama this same lure has caught sailfish, yellowfin tuna, mahi-mahi, mackeral and now a huge wahoo. The hooks have been changed because they had been bent and broken by all these incredible fish and the lure itself really does look as though it has been a dog's chew toy. When Dean was on the boat we were discussing how expensive lures were. He made the comment that lures are well known to catch more people than fish. This may well be true but this particular lure has been a ripper and I am considering offering it a retirement package and a well earned rest.
That was the good news. 
The bad news is that we are in a flat calm so are still motoring. If we did not have a destination and a timeline this would be the perfect day. At 10.15am the ocean is like a mirror and there is not a single cloud in the sky.
We motor-sailed late yesterday into a weak south-westerly breeze. It had just enough angle to fill the sails and give our motors a bit of a boost. The skies had cleared fully towards dark, after another overcast and gloomy day. We were able to keep motor-sailing into the night but eventually we hit calm at around 4am and it is with us still.
It is 10.30am now and I will take a break and come back this afternoon with, hopefully, news that the wind is blowing south-east at 15 knots!!
...Back now and it is 2pm. We have some wind but it is a south-westerly at 7 knots and is right on our nose...Aarrgh!!  It looks as though it is trying to swing further south but it hasn't been all that convincing in its efforts.
We mainly motored yesterday for 80NM. We are still averaging 100NM but we really need to be doing better than this. Fingers crossed for a change to the south-east tonight. Brisbane is a very distant 1567NM away.
Andrew.