14:04.601N 60:56.883W

10 days of nothing much happening then it all happens at once . After I wrote yesterdays blog the following happened ( in order ) we caught a massive fish ,  a Booby moved in with us , we were becalmed ,and  we spent 6 hours in a massive thunderstorm dodging lightning.

First the fish – I know I said we weren’t going to fish anymore in case we caught another Dorado but I decided to use a barbless hook so if we did we could easily release it.  The line had been out all day with no luck so about 6.00pm we decided to put it away for the night but when we pulled it in we found the hook had turned round in the lure and was useless so we sorted that out and decided to fish for another hour . Line had only been out for ten minutes  when it started running out at incredible speed , “ quick Jan , ladle water on to the reel before it catches  fire and the monster pulls us under “ I shouted , remembering how to do it from Moby Dick. I fought for an epic hour with this demon , twice getting close to the boat for it to screech off again. Eventually we landed it ---- a 15 – 20 kilo Wahoo. Wahoo indeed.

While landing the fish a Booby or maybe a Gannet , we’re not sure which , was hovering around our cockpit at head height and seemed to be watching what was going on . It eventually landed on the solar panels and stayed there. It was still there this morning and seems to have settled in. We’re pretty sure it’s a juvenile as it happily wanders around the boat biting everything it can reach to see if its edible. It’s really clumsy on the boat and ever so inquisitive . Obviously has no experience of humans as it doesn’t worry about us at all , I’ve even nudged it out of the way with my hand a couple of times and it just looks at me as if to say “ allright , allright no need to push “. Couldn’t workout why it was staying until earlier today when it took off and started swooping low around the bow of the boat picking off flying fish as they were frightened out of the water. It is amazing to watch , this clumsy oaf of a bird turns into the most amazing aerial acrobat ,skimming the water with just the tips of its wings then changing direction instantly to pick the fish out of the air or dive on them as they re-enter. Obviously , we are playing the part of an aircraft carrier for this little fella.

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Just as we were cleaning up and packing away we noticed the wind had swung right round and was coming from the west – straight at us! Had we not been so preoccupied we may have noticed that something was up . Within half an hour massive storm clouds had formed directly ahead of us and were coming at us fast . we turned south to try and skirt around the bottom but it kept growing and within a very short while it was as black as a coalmine – we couldn’t see a thing , couldn’t even tell where the horizon was . The radar was warning us of very heavy rain all around and then the lightning started – I have never seen a storm like it – flashes  every 5 to 10 seconds , some just in the clouds but many down to earth as laser straight bolts of intensely bright light. For 5 hours we picked our way between the worst areas using our radar ( screen grab to follow tomorrow ) and finally came out the other side at about  4 in the morning . No damage to the boat  or us , just another experience to pop in our knowledge sack .

Update

Jan evicted our house guest last night while I was asleep – evidently he had personal hygiene problems – he made the boat stink of ammonia . I reckon he will be back soon with a solicitor’s letter demanding his right of abode.

Update – Update

13^th December

We’ve arrived  !!!!! Seems that the blog above was never posted  and for the final week we had such rubbish satellite reception we had real trouble even getting our weather charts through so  we didn’t even try with the blog.

However , we arrived here at about 7.00 a.m local time  to a fantastic reception from our new friends on the ARC who came out in their dinghys to hoot , toot , wave and shout us in as well as hand us our first cold beer in nearly three weeks.  We knocked back our courtesy bottle of rum punch had our Covid test then slept through until this morning . Now the big clean up .

Once we’ve got the boat all ship shape  I’ll do a catch up of the final week and tell you all about the magic drinks cans , being stalked by the son of Wahoo , running out of water , almost completely running out of electricity , having to jump start the engine and much more .