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Thula - day 6



Day 6

 After four seemingly endless days of shameful fishlessness and great (fish) hunger we were finally able to haul onboard two true monsters of the Atlantic Ocean. While many (but not all) among us had already given up hope and were hardly paying attention to the rod at the rear of the boat anymore, the first fish swallowed our irresistible squid-type lure at around 2pm. Despite the great excitement and surprise, every one in the crew immediately knew what to do: Jakob got hold of the rod, Philippa at the rudder calmly slowed down the boat, Dieter grabbed the Gaff (a large hook to get hold of the fish and haul it onto the boat), Markus wetted the teak deck (with water, that is), Liesel got the camera in position, Jimmy just looked splendid and Mike supervised the whole process and coordinated all the efforts. As the fish came closer to the boat we could finally lay our eyes on our quarry: an (admittedly rather small but nonetheless) beautiful mahi-mahi. After the fish had been pulled in we took it straight down into the pantry where Mike filleted and trimmed the fish like a five star Japanese sushi chef. As there were still some doubts as to whether the fish would suffice as dinner for 7 people we put out the lure again…and - as it happens - 3 hours later another small mahi-mahi was on the line. The amazingly tasty, firm and white mahi-mahi meat was served by Liesel with mashed potatoes, guacamole, a green salad and some more couscous salad – Yummy!! Besides the fishing everything is going well, too. The weather has continued to become even warmer. We are still to the north west of the Cape Verde Islands and trying to make our way further south west to meet the steady Passat winds. However, we have had two largely cloudy days in a row now and even some drops of rain. Looking at the charts and the infinitely small progress our boat makes every day we really start to realize what we have gotten ourselves into. We already feel like we should be arriving any day now – but in fact, we haven’t even left a third of the overall distance behind us. In the end, it really is like driving a (very nice but also very rolly) bus at 15 km/h from Hamburg to Lagos. The seemingly endless amount of fruit piled up in the galley is diminishing by the day – the luxury of enjoying fresh salad, herbs and fruits will only be enjoyed for another couple of days as it looks – after that, the odd sashimi meal will likely be the freshest thing we will get (to make sure we at least enjoy the sashimi in style Liesel and Dieter accumulated about 23 litres of soy sauce, 8 kg of ginger and 5 kg of wasabi)

 We are thinking of you back home and send you all our wishes.



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