Distance in last 24 hours: 128 nautical miles
Distance to Hilo, Hawaii: 3737 nm
Position: 11 11.616N
Longitude: 090 49.648W
COG: 283M
SOG: 4.0 knots
Wind: 4 knots from SSW
Seas: Sea calm
Weather: 40% Cloud Cover
Barometric Pressure: 1012.5 mb, steady
Sea Temperature: 87 F
Glassy ocean and no apparent wind. Sunny and hot with high cirrus.
We had a mellow day yesterday. There's a long period swell of less than
a foot running. It really feels like we're boobing around in a lake. The
wind was light, but we managed to sail until about 2200 UTC. Then, as is
quickly becoming a tradition on this passage, we started up the main
engine. We tried to sail a couple of times during the night, but the
wind couldn't keep us moving above a knot. In case we continued in these
calms, we've throttled back to basically just over idle, where we're
only making 4 kts.
The boys started Calvert yesterday. It's their last unit of their last
year before returning to land. Looks like it should keep them occupied
for at least part of the cruise.
Phillip and Kelly had to process a bunch of pineapples after they
started to spoil. The rest of the produce is doing well. It still seems
like an impossibly huge amount of food, but four people eating three
meals a day consume quite a bit. Phillip made fresh bread and mayonnaise
so that we could have homemade sloppy joes and carrot-raisin salad for
supper.
The genset seems to have air in the fuel lines, but no amount of
bleeding made it want to run for more than five or ten minutes at a
stretch in the afternoon. We even changed out the (perfectly good) fuel
filter in case that was part of the issue. We're confident that we'll
get to the bottom of it today.
Last night passed uneventfully. Watches are becoming easier to get
through now that we're acclimating to the schedule underway. There was a
large vessel that passed about two-thirds of a mile from us around 0830
UTC, but otherwise there was nothing to see but the twinkling of the
stars in the sky and the glittering of the phosphorescence in our wake.
Kelly got up about 1340 UTC this morning to take watch, and Nicholas
came out of his room about the same time. Not more than three minutes
later, we heard the clicker on the starboard reel go off. Nicholas
quickly threw on his harness while Phillip and Kelly went to bring in
our catch. We were greeted by an amazing sight. All around us near the
boat were hundreds of spinner dolphins and beyond them we saw thousands
of tuna jumping high into the air, even higher than the acrobatic little
porpoises. Sure enough, it was a yellow fin on the line. Kelly spent
about twenty minutes fighting him. When he got close enough to leader,
both Alexander and Nicholas tried to support the rod. Nicholas's
reaction was, "Wow! He's heavy!" Indeed, he was.
Phillip gaffed him and brought her over the lifelines. Once she was on
the deck we killed her quickly, and Nicholas snapped a couple of photos
before Phillip made the cuts to bleed the fish and hung her over the side.
Tuna are special because they actually raise their body temperature
while struggling. To have the highest quality meat, it's important to
let as much of the blood out as possible before it literally cooks the
fish from the inside out. The boys are partial to sashimi, and bleeding
is doubly important for it.
Just as Phillip started processing the fish, the spinner dolphins
returned, hundreds of them right alongside the boat! Nicholas and Kelly
went to the bow to get a better view of the show. Nicholas even saw them
chasing yellowfin tuna, trying to catch their own!
Phillip got a minor cut on his knee when separating the second fillet
from the spine of our tuna. That's why we have a medical kit though.
Soon, we were all eating steel-cut oatmeal for breakfast with the fish
fillets and eggs chilling in the freezer. We had to move a bunch of the
other meat to the fridge to accommodate the tuna. Hope we're feeling
hungry later on!
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