Day 12 Half Way and Better Winds
Moondancer
Thu 4 Dec 2008 17:56
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Well we got the spinnaker to fill yesterday
evening, and such is our need to catch all the wind we can we went into the
night with it up. After several hours pulling the boat along really well in 16
knot winds we hit a couple of stronger gusts and down it came at 2am. Somehow we
this seemed to take no time and no effort, maybe are getting practised. So then
it was up with the polled out genoa, and we sat out the rest of the night in...
16 knot winds. So we had not needed to make the change but after the previous
couple of nights when we left reefing rather too late, we wanted to be safe
rather than sorry. Still no harm done and back to the big red sail at first
light this morning.
Today's forecast showed a low somewhere north and
west of us largely disrupting the trade wind flow, down as far as 15 degrees
north where the trades would be there but light. And where are we? well we
are sitting at 14.30N apparently just below this disruption, we have kept
the same steady breeze all day. Right behind us and not quite strong enough to
be really fast but, after the concerns of the last couple of days good to make
steady progress to St Lucia.
As predicted in yesterday's blog the rods were out
again today before breakfast. Within 10 minutes I caught a wahoo, one of
our favourite eating fish. This one is a skinny teenager that has grown long but
yet to fill out. Probably about 6lbs. I then retired the rods on the basis that
we had plenty to eat but was persuaded by Andrew that he should have another go
as he wanted some tuna for a fish pie. Another few minutes and we had yet
another dorado, I will try later in the day tomorrow to see if we can get a
tuna.
  So the winds have filled in, the fish are biting
and the skies have cleared, we also passed half way about 5 am, which we define
as when distance travelled passed miles to go. This may not quite be half way,
as we may add to that distance to go if we wander off track in search of winds,
but as this part of the trip is meant to be quicker this seems like an ok
definition. Looking forward to seeing how many miles we added yesterday
with our long spinnaker run.
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