37:44N 33:17W. Motoring both engines, 7-8 knots. Horta 210 nm away now.
A few knots of wind behind us, but BxWx says a strong south-westerly wind
is following behind us from the West, likely to arrive Azores late Tuesday
through Wednesday. Hence both engines to get into port ASAP.
The highlight of yesterday - and a memorable highlight of the whole trip so
far - was the fishing. We spotted something floating in the water about half
a mile south so we diverted to have a look. It was an upturned
almost-sunken fishing boat, or part of a boat, nothing much of interest.
Except that a shoal of fish had gathered around it and followed us. We threw
out the lines and they instantly swarmed and snatched at the lures. We
circled for the next 20 minutes or so, and caught about a dozen fish,
including four Blackfin Tuna about 8-10lbs each, and 3 other white fish,
2lbs or so, perhaps Perch, we're not sure. The smaller ones we threw back.
I've not come across a shoal of fish like this before on these transat
trips - we've just caught the occasional lone predator with a trailing lure.
Aussie Dan is the fisherman amongst us and rigged himself two hooks on the
same line and twice caught two at a time. Much jubilation at the fish as
they were landed, and we ran out of bucket space. Murderous bloody scenes
of fish-gutting for the next hour or so, and discussions of fish recipes
continued into the evening
Marc plans to make a soup from fish heads, and Karim made sushi and a
Tahitian raw fish salad (with pineapple and coconut milk) for dinner to go
with his fabulous chicken curry - already in progress before we found the
fish. There's video film (of course) including MattD hooking and landing a
fish, big grins all round. We'll all remember an amazing afternoon of
frenzied fishing in perfect spring sunshine, hundreds of miles out in the
middle of a calm clear blue Atlantic Ocean.
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