Yesterday’s photo was taken from the pilothouse with us all peering
through the ladder to the fly bridge. It was the trickiest one yet as it
takes so long to push the timer button and then scramble down and race
out the door and up the steps. It took a couple of goes.
Again I couldn’t sleep before my watch, so I tossed and turned from 9pm
to 3am. Watch again was uneventful. Peter reported one large container
ship passed 3 miles in front of us. I let Robbie sleep as long as I
could but I woke him at 6.30am as my eyes kept wanting to close. He got
an extra half an hour and every bit helps.
I woke up (so embarrassed to say at 10.30am) and the boys were
transferring diesel from containers into the main tank, using a small
pump connected to a battery drill. We took extra diesel in 20 litre
containers when we thought we were crossing from Canary Islands to
Barbados, as it is an extra 700 miles and we wanted to have extra diesel
on board, just in case. Once the storm was in the Atlantic and the
decision was made to go to Cape Verde and wait out the storm, it negates
the need for extra diesel as the distance is shorter and we would have
had a comfortable buffer anyway. But we already had the diesel on board,
which we got in Gibraltar at .49 c per litre.
Conditions are good today, the wind has dropped it is only 13 knots
right now. The weather forecast we received from Stokey today indicates
it will be good until Sunday and then will increase to 20+ knots. Sad
face! Oh well I really can’t complain the crossing so far has really
been not so bad. If we would have left when we were going to on the 10th
from the Canaries and headed straight to Barbados we would have got
stuck with the storm with 40+ knot headwinds which would have been
almost unbearable. There’s no way we would be cooking in that.
Heidi went down for a sleep around 4:30pm GMT, and I was just
contemplating getting some salmon out of the freezer for dinner as we
hadn’t caught a fish, when Brrrrrrrr goes the rod (it’s a clicker on the
rod and it makes a loud noise when a fish bites the lure) and yep we’re
on! We’ve got the routine down pat down, I head for the throttle and cut
the revs to tick over, (just over neutral) Robbie is on the Rod, Peter
is winding in the other rods and I run to the cockpit. Yep it’s a big
Mahi Mahi and he’s fighting. Robbie really had to put some grunt into
this one and we got him aboard (and closed the gate) He was a beauty a
real good size, the biggest yet. Robbie cut his throat and bled him but
he was still fighting and jumping, and spraying the cockpit with blood.
It was like a massacre!
Eventually he gave up. It is sad to see such a beautiful fish die and I
do feel bad about it. But I do have to say we put a lot more back than
what we ever keep, and we always eat or give away what we keep. I guess
Robbie put back 5 smaller fish in the last 2 days.
We are all out of Panko breadcrumbs so Heidi and I have been drying some
white bread to make our own, and we crumbed half of it today but the
other half weren’t dry enough. I think it will be enough to crumb some
fillets for dinner. The other night we used yogurt but tonight we will
do the egg, flour and breadcrumbs. It’s a lot messier but I think the
crumbs stick better. We will have salad with it, we cleaned out the
fridge this morning and the only thing I had to throw over was 3
overripe tomatoes. Everything else has kept really well. I am amazed at
the lettuce, but we brought it in Cape Verde, washed it and broke it
into leaves and put it in a zip lock plastic bag, and it’s like the day
we brought it.
Tomorrow is half way, and so there are special celebrations planned! We
are going to have one beer each and a swim in the Atlantic!
Today’s photo will be in the fly bridge as it is calm enough!
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