Unmarked coral, fine on the starboard bow!
A year afloat: to the Caribbean and back
Sam and Alex Fortescue
Mon 11 Apr 2011 14:00
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20:49.44N
73:34.34W
Since we switched the donk off yesterday afternoon,
we've had a constant wind of at least 12 knots. Summer Song has been forging
along, first under spinnaker, then once night fell, with the gib and main, at
about 6 knots. This good turn of pace will go some way towards making up for the
lamentably slow progress over the previous 24 hours. As I type, we're in the
broad channel between Haiti, Cuba and a hitherto unkown Bahama, called Great
Inagua. The greatness seems to relate to size rather than any outstanding
attribute, as the place appears to be largely unsurveyed, fraught with rocks and
mostly uninhabited. We had to alter course in the middle of the night to avoid
running too close in under its lee. In a seriouslty irresponsible oversight, the
island only shows up on our electronic chart when you zoom in close. Although it
measures about 40 miles by 15 (not much smaller than Luxembourg, by way of
comparison), Inagua really isn't marked on the large scale charts. It means that
a man on a long passage could set a course straight through the place without
realising his mistake until there was the crunch of coral under the bow in the
middle of the night.
Anyway, we spotted it and reacted accordingly. By
my reckoning we have about 300 miles to run up to Cayo Coco, which means we
should be arriving around midday on Wednesday. With Dom and the boys arriving on
Sunday, there may even be time for a crafty visit to Havana before they arrive,
to see how the ground lies. Then again, we may put in a stop somewhere in the
Bahamas, for a number of sensible but complicated reasons, before scuttling
across to Cuba.
In other news, the fish tally edged up again
yesterday. We struck gold with a smallish tunny, who was coaxed out of the sea
close to sunset on the pink squid lure. Oddly enough, this lure has proven
distinctly unalluring throughout the Caribbean, but takes on a peculiar charm
for fish as soon as we set off on a longer passage. Perhaps squid aren't seen
around the islands. Though of small stature - 18 inches long and probably no
more than 8 pounds - the tunny put up quite a fight as I tried to reel him in.
He made a point of diving, so that he was almost under the boat at one point,
with the reel pulling him straight up out of the water. We were sliding along at
about 7 knots under the spinnaker when he struck, so he had an exhausting time
of it just keeping up with the boat. Tunny is what we'd been hoping for, as it
really makes the finest sashimi and the best steaks of all the fish we've
caught. We'll be breaking open our few remaining supplies of wasabi and fresh
ginger at lunchtime, when we'll marinate chunks of the fish in lemon juice to
'cook' it. During the Atlantic crossing, this recipe provided probably our best
meal, notwithstanding Will's skill with a pizza and Graham's willingness to put
quid in the skipper's food.
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