07:16S 96:04W

 

miles covered in past 24 hours – 184. This is our noon to noon run but our best was our 0800 to 0800 run of 193, our best ever 24 hour run.

 

It hasn’t been a good 24 hours for Pacific Ocean flying fish.  Quite a number of them have ended up on Bandit’s decks, flapping their way to a slow death.   The same fate has been met by a number of squid. In the middle of the night I heard a thud on the windscreen of our hard dodger.  I got the torch out but couldn’t see anything and figured it was a wave – we’ve taken quite a few.  In the light of day I realised it was a squid – sadly he was quite dead.

 

When we’re on sole night watch we wear lifejackets, clip on and never leave the cockpit – regardless of the conditions - which is when these poor fish seem to launch themselves at us.  The odd one does a daytime suicide leap and gets rescued but right now Bandit’s decks are scattered with the corpses of those that didn’t make it.  We’ve heard that some cruisers pick them up and cook them.....if we don’t have any luck fishing today we may just have to do that.   Yesterday we lost our good lure so have told the boats coming behind if they hook a big mahimahi, tuna or wahoo with a silver lure – it’s ours!

 

Otherwise life just goes on.  I’m engrossed in an historical novel about Henry VIII’s wives Anne and Cleves and Catherine Howard – while David is reading Iron Love by Marguerite Poland, an entertaining tale set in a South African boarding school in the early 1900s.   It’s lovely to have the time to sit and read – it’s only on passages we have that luxury.

 

Only highlight yesterday was seeing a ship which we were alerted to by our AIS (automatic identification system).  It’s a fantastic tool that gives us peace of mind at sea.  The alarm went off when the ship was at five miles and David called him to make sure he’d seen us, which he had.  Of course we still keep a visual lookout but the AIS gives an approaching ship’s speed, heading and name – so you can call them.  It’s just another piece of safety equipment.

 

Slowly getting into our pattern of night watches – six hours on/six off.  If only the seas would calm down and we could get a bit more sleep....at the moment it’s a bit fitful.