What goes up may not come down !
Rik
Fri 10 Nov 2023 14:20
Last night we didn’t put the 3rd reef in, the forecast was for slightly less wind and even a hint of an easing sea. We felt two reefs and a partially furled head sail would be fine, the wind followed forecast and we had a fairly uneventful night, still bloody lumpy mind!!
This morning we thought it might have calmed down enough to fly the spinnaker. First job was to repair the tear after the day one incident. So we got out all the many rolls of sail repair tape and hauled the spinnaker out of its locker and round to the cockpit. Once we had pulled it out of the snuffer bag we found the damage was a bit more extensive than we thought but we set about and completed the repairs with enthusiasm.
Once repaired and back in the snuffer, we took it back to the foredeck and connected up the tack, sheet and halyard (ropes to fly it). We then started to haul it up the mast, unfortunately it was twisted from the “wrap” on day one, so down it came again. All twists removed up it went again, but it was soon to return to the deck as the halyard now also had twists. Halyard untwisted back up it went, but now both the spinnaker and halyard had twists, seems the “wrap” had twisted it all more than we thought. So with fear that it was also twisted inside the snuffer we decided to stop hoisting as there was a very high chance of not being able to get it back down again. We are now having a fabulous sail with one reef in the main and full jib, 150 degrees off the wind, the sun is shining, it’s warm and all is well with the world.
We have a regular battle with another catamaran called “Rumcat” we are currently running parallel at exactly the same speed, we are slightly further down wind so feel we have a tiny advantage.
Fishy Dicky’s luck with the fish continues, two more have escaped his clutches since the last post and he has asked for three more offences to be taken into consideration.
However, yesterday afternoon I caught this little beauty.
This is a Mahi Mahi or Dorada or Dolphin Fish, very tasty !!
When I say I caught it, Dicky prepared and set the lure, gaffed it, killed it and filleted it.
Kath cooked some of it in a fabulous butter sauce for supper, it was absolutely delicious. There is still a lot left so maybe Mahi curry tonight !
I may have mentioned, Moose is a dry boat (no alcohol) when passage making, but we did break out a zero percent Heineken to celebrate the catch.