18:38.42N 40:40.72W

Day 13. Sat 28 January. 12 Days of Sailing

Distance Covered: 1883 nautical miles

Distance To Go: 1217 nautical miles ( approx. )

Well, since my last post the wind has died right down. On Thursday we had a really relaxing day and covered a mere 96 nautical miles in the 24hours. (Yesterday we covered only 111).

Luckily today the wind seems to have picked up slightly as although the slow bumbling along is all very calm and well we do still want to arrive at our destination sometime within the next two weeks and a little extra wind to help us on our way is always appreciated. (Not too much though!).(How picky!)

Still no boats, but we did all see an amazing display of flying fish – a huge school of them must have been attacked or frightened for a whole group of them jumped out of the water at the same time and gave us an impressive display of their flying capabilities. Even with very little wind they managed to fly an impressive distance. One had landed on our boat during the night and was unfortunately dead when we discovered it in the morning, but it did give the girls an impromptu biology lesson on the workings of flying fish (not the innards I have to say – simply the wing/fin arrangement!).

We’ve had a disaster on the fishing front. On Thursday morning Sofia caught a fish; a huge and very fast fish because before she had time to do anything the rod simply snapped. Just like that. Perhaps she had a shark on the end?! On Thursday afternoon, after her new rod was set up and she was once again trawling her fake small squid on the end of this time, a slightly smaller wire ( but still capable of carrying 50 kgs so not that small) Isabel suddenly said “what’s that noise?”. We were all suddenly made aware that that noise was the noise of Sofia’s fishing rod going berserk! She’d caught another fish! Everyone became very excited, I had my camera to the ready, Isabel was holding the bucket in anticipation, Sofia was strapped onto the boat (via her life jacket) with Daddy behind her and she was reeling him in. It became evident after a few minutes of this that Daddy needed to step in and take over as this fish was huge. We all waited with baited ( sic ) breath as Daddy slowly reeled the enormous fish ever closer… And then…. Twang. The wire broke. What a shame. It must have been a corker. Still, Sofia was not to be deterred and the very next morning her fishing rod was once again set up and she was fishing… I’m not sure why but by the end of the day we had all forgotten about Sofia’s fishing rod and made the fatal mistake of not clearing it up as night fell; for as the girls were getting ready for bed we all heard the unmistakable sound of the fishing rod leaping or rather whirling into action. Oh no, Sofia had caught another fish but this time it was pitch black outside. The girls quickly donned their life jackets, I grabbed the torch and Erwin was out and on the line. It was a much smaller catch this time and Erwin has no trouble reeling him in …. By the light of the torch we could see what looked like an eel on the end of the line, but a large one and it was thrashing, poor thing, wildly. The bucket was in use ( soaking our filthy flag) and for a moment no-one knew what to do. We tried to bring it close but the poor, pretty large thing was flapping so wildly no-one was willing to touch it. What we then did is shameful and I am not at all proud of it and wish we had acted differently. Erwin, who apparently has a slight aversion to all things alive and slippery simply couldn’t handle it, nor could I – it was simply too big and when I asked Sofia – as it was her fish if she could not grab it – she said “ No I can’t. I’m only ten”. So we had a dilemma. Not wishing to drag this poor fish any longer we simply cut the line. Awful. I still feel bad about it (and it doesn’t help that I am in the middle of reading a brilliant book entitled – “Eating Animals” by Jonathan Safran Foer, if you have heard of or read this book then you’ll understand why. If you haven’t I really recommend reading this, I in fact really think everyone should read this book). So, there’s to be no more fishing on this journey until Sofia can handle the possibility that she may be the only one able to deal with the situation should she catch a large, eel-like fish.

Isabel has been sewing whilst Sofia has been fishing. I know as much about sewing as I do about fishing and so we have decided that we need to find two people ( or one ), who know about fishing and sewing, who could spend some quality time with the girls - teaching Isabel the art of sewing and Sofia the art of fishing (including the handling of them) ……

Will update in a few days,

Jane, Erwin, Sofia, Isabel

xxxx