May 2nd Day 2 of a now 3 night passage
Well the 2 nighter has turned into a 3 night passage unfortunately. We had plans of having favourable current with us and then anchoring the 3rd night, but that hasn’t eventuated and we will now continue straight around to the North side of Provoceniales direct to the Turtle Cove marina where hopefully we will make it before Brad and Kristie arrive.
It’s been an interesting day, initially Robbie hooked up a Mahi Mahi and it broke the lure. Then he hooked a nice Marlin and he also broke the line and ended up with the hook in his mouth and he danced along the side of the boat, not sure if he was showing off his new jewellery or he was letting us know how mad he was about it. We only ever catch and release Marlin so it’s a shame we couldn’t get him in to get the hook out. Robbie assures me they rust out pretty quickly. Although we did see a Tarpon in the huge bait ball we had, that had a big hook and some leader hanging out his mouth.
Eventually we had another double hook up, except that Robbie didn’t realise it was. While he was bringing in a Mahi Mahi (yes the most wanted fish this side of Texas) in the cockpit I, was also bringing one in on the rod in the rod holder just outside the pilothouse door. Robbie was so wrapped up in bringing his one in that he didn’t hear my screams of joy! I thought I was just reeling in the rod but there was a beautiful Mahi Mahi on it. They are so colourful and beautiful when you first bring them in they are bright yellow and green, but they turn blue in a matter of minutes. One of the prettiest and also the nicest eating fish.
They were on the smaller side, still legal but quite a bit smaller than what we were catching on the Atlantic crossing. Robbie starting filleting and next minute another rod went off and sure enough there was another Mahi Mahi! Don’t worry I said, I will make room in the freezer. (I would for Mahi Mahi but not for Yellow fin Tuna!)
Still have not seen hardly any boats, except around 4 pm I noticed a Sail Yacht “Moonshadow” out to our Starboard side. She tacked about an hour later and was then following us. Call her up said the chief filleter and fish cleaner and chat to them. OK, says me wondering how this will go down. Well there was a great guy on the other end of the VHF and we had a good chat. Its Paul, Monica and their friend Jim. They are on their way back to Chesapeake Bay after cruising in the Virgin Islands for a few months. They do it every year and make a straight run down and back each year. He asked our plans and then said he will keep an eye out for us in the Chesapeake Bay area and try and have a drink and dinner. Was lovely to hear another voice after 2 days of nothing. We chatted for a bit, its nice to know there’s another boat out there not too far away. The weather forecast is for this wind to continue today and tomorrow, and then it will drop right out to virtually no wind. Not good for sailing yachts. We call that “Southern Star weather” and we love it.
We have missed our fantastic crew of Peter and Heidi, our German friends off Stormvogel that crewed for us across the Atlantic. It sucks doing night watch for so long. Didn’t realise how good we had it only 3 hours on watch and then 9 hours off.
We had sporadic sessions of internet when we were not so far off the Dominican Republic and we were able to receive some emails, some really helpful emails from Jennifer and Mark on Starlet who are currently diving their way around Turks and Caicos and we will hopefully see them before they rush off to meet up with Jennifer’s cousin in the Bahamas. As we have not made such good time it means we were going to have to either find an anchorage in the night or continue on around the other side of the island. Mark had some helpful advice about where we could pick up some moorings but in the end we decided to continue around the island and we should be arriving at the entrance to the marina around daylight. We might slow our speed down a little to ensure the marina is open. They will send out a guide boat to guide us through the reef cutting and the dog leg passage into the marina through the reef.
It’s now 2.40am on my watch and Robbie is sleeping like a baby. I have been watching the bioluminescence in the wash of the boat. It’s incredibly beautiful, like fairy lights in the waves. I just rang Jess on the Sat Phone to see how she went on her interview for her job. (Business Services Manager, Human Resources, at Helensvale State High School) It went Ok she said, she won’t find out until Thursday so that will be a nail biting few days. She has been doing the job for over 18 months but has had to apply for the permanent position.
Its 3am and I’m off for some sleep. I never sleep much on the first night on passage but after a while the sleep deprivation takes over and I crash, that’s what I’m hoping for now!
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