Day 6
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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 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. 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 |