Day 5 - Swimming with the dolphins
A year afloat: to the Caribbean and back
Sam and Alex Fortescue
Thu 25 Nov 2010 14:16
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21:22.26N
019:49.90W
Dawn came in the best possible style this morning.
I was replacing William on watch at 7am. As is his custom, he was dozing gently
over the tiller when I emerged, listening to the dulcet tones of Tony 'I did it
my way' Blair on the iPod. But as I settled into the driving seat for my three
hour stint, there was a promising scream from the fishing reel positioned on the
stern rail of the boat.
This noise can often be a sign that we're moving
faster through the water than the fishing lure can accommodate, putting extra
strain on the line. but this time, the first shriek of line was followed
insistently by a second and a third. William made it to the reel first and
started cautiously applying the brake, while I dumped the main and jib to slow
us down and reduce the pressure on the fish. We'd already lost two lures
fruitlessly, and we're keen not to lose our most promising one - a pinky purple
cuttlefish with huge eyes.
Will began to reel the line in, which immediately
went suspiciously slack, raising doubts as to what lay on the other end - just
another trailing end of wire? But as the lure was pulled in closer to the boat,
we could make out a weary looking silvery form on the end of it. Closer it came,
and closer still, growing with each yard toward the boat. Alex was raised by the
hubbub and came rushing out on deck, armed with the red-handled prawn net that
my colleagues at Dairy UK had given me. With the fish at the stern, it was clear
we would need more than a prawn net to land him, and we unwrapped the gaff hook
for the first time this trip. With a smart jab, I caught the beast amidships and
lifted him over the rail, quivering violently and throwing a froth of blood and
seawater over the cockpit.
We reckoned I'd gaffed it through the heart,
because it was dead by the time it hit the cockpit floor. He weighed in at 8kg
(18lb) and we set about gutting and filleting the beast straight away. We tried
the Frenchmen's recommendation for conditioning some of the raw flesh in lime
juice with chopped tomatoes and onion for an hour, and it made a truly excellent
starter. Then we took the more orthodox approach of grilling three big fillets
(of the 8 we removed from the carcase) for lunch and are now sitting about
sipping tea, feeling thoroughly replete and speculating about the rigging of a
hammock.
The going has otherwise been fairly leisurely, as
you can tell from our chart positions. We were becalmed shortly after
yesterday's post and spent a few hours washing the boat, swimming and loafing
about with the sails down. There was an extraordinarily complete silence for a
couple of hours. We saw a school of dolphin approaching the boat- some sliding
across the surface of the water, others leaping clear and some even surfing down
waves. Will and I hopped in to the sea for a man-meets-beast encounter that we
hoped would further our respective cultures. However, Will tried some dolphin
speak under water as the fish were making their approach and they turned around
smartly and set off in the opposite direction. We're not sure what he said, but
it can't have been encouraging.
The wind slowly returned from the west or north
west, wafting us along with the big jib up and the main at between 3 and 4 knots
for most of the night. In the morning it freshened and we're now close-hauled in
220 degrees doing about 5 knots through the water. Other boats around us have
had a similar experience, but many decided to motor through the lull, in an
attempt to reach the trades south of 20N before they are suppressed by the
approaching low. We shunned such tactics, feeling that a sailing race should not
be so quickly abandoned and have undoubtedly paid the price in terms of our
overall ranking.
But the weather forecasts have so far been fairly
wide of the mark, so we figure we'll graze the north-west most Cape Verdes and
see what we can find at about 18N.
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