Day 6

Sadie
Mon 11 May 2015 16:05

26:33.400n 61:10.000w

 

Distance to home:  3149 miles

 

Distance run today:  130 miles  

 

Course 355

 

We have barely changed anything on the boat set-up for 4 days now.  Most of the excitement for us has been on the Natural History front which makes up the better part of today’s update.

 

Domestic

 

Our “Catch of the day” was the feature of domestic activity yesterday, and we hoped a sign of things to come.

 

Dinner of baked Dorado with Rice and vegetables was served in the cockpit and Tim had knocked up a really fiery chilli and ginger dressing to help it on it’s way.  We are in the middle of an ocean and whilst we have plenty of water, we need to tone down the dressing to stop the tanks being emptied.

 

 

Sailing

 

No changes – our night watches are literally that at the moment.  We haven’t had to reef, steer or otherwise interfere with the boat for days.  Wind and weather are being good to us, for now at least.

 

 

 

Natural History

 

Lot’s to report here, the sea seems to have really come to life over the last couple of days.

 

Things started well when Jez did the morning checks for sail and rigging.  There was a fair sized flying fish that had landed on deck so he put it to one side for Wills to have for breakfast.

 

We were then joined by a big sea bird that was just over the cockpit and hovered there, riding on the wind at about 20 ft up.  It was big and stocky like a big brown gull and similar to the skua we saw earlier in the week but without the complicated tail feathers.  It also has a single white stripe  on the top and bottom of it’s very broad wings.

 

After a brief discussion, Tim and Jez decided to feed Will’s breakfast to our new friend who pounced on it and then followed us really closely for the next hour.

 

As it happened, he should have waited 90 minutes because the next installment kicked in when the rod leapt into life and line started to run off the reel with the rapid clicking that we all love to hear.

 

This was Will’s fish and he set to with the rod.  From the outset we knew this was a big fish, the rod bent and he went deep taking line with him.  Will tightened the clutch and started to bring our catch to the surface at which point disaster struck.  The fish went under the boat whilst still deep and the line was tangled in either the rudder or propeller gear

 

A lesser man would have cut his losses here but Will’s wanted his fish so after a brief debate he was issued with a facemask and snorkel, had a rope tied around his waist and was over the side into water 4 Km deep he went to try to clear the line.

 

2 minutes later he clambered back on board landed the largest Dorado yet caught anywhere on Sadies’ travels.  It is (was) 90 cm nose to tail and weighed in at 8 lb.  Proper Boys Own stuff !

 

He has now been filleted in the cockpit and is in the bottom of our fridge. 

 

No more fishing for a few days, we need to eat what we have for now.

 

We have also had a second bird overhead this morning.  It is a Petrel (we think) the larger type that we saw on the way over. 

 

Todays responses

 

Dave Payne – No sandbanks out here and we now have some info having read up on the back of the chart.

 

Dave Smart – hope your fishing is as productive as ours.    We are hoping you came home with an armful of Bass.  Bird was not a tropic bird as we know them, much more like a tern but at least twice the size of those at home and with a single streamer tail.

 

Em – Yep.  Suffolk hundred is on the cards for next year.  Good to hear the Helen and Debbie made it.

 

Harvey – thanks for the keys update.  Keep an eye on them  :-)  

 

Lizzie – Well done on your geography test

 

Richard – thanks.  It’s a Bosun bird then. 

 

Tom – Thanks for the Norwich Ipswich update – Jez is a Tractor Boy !

 

Sadie