Xenial - Day 20 - Fish!

The crew onboard Xenial woke up on Saturday and was quite groggy, as most of us reported not sleeping too well.

The sailing committee floated two ideas. Ulrik wants to fix the hailyard so if we do get into low winds, we can try and fly our gennaker. Janne suggested hoisting the code zero to take pictures of the damage and then roll it in properly, to prepare it for repairs in Grenada. Neither idea got anyone particularly excited and neither seemed to urgent, so the crew instead opted for a quiet morning of napping on and below deck.

You must know that CJ has some very strong opinions about sleeping during the day. Unless he is absolutely exhausted and has no other option (which was not the case today), he will not nap or sleep during the day. So he was reading on deck and was clearly bored.

The seaweed that we have been sailing through seemed to have thinned out a bit, so I suggested he puts down our fishing line. He promptly did so, only do report that we were catching as much seaweed as we had in previous days. Every son often he would reel the line in to get rid of all the seaweed and clear the bait and hook. As he was doing so, we noticed something bright green at the end of the line. At first we thought a piece of plastic, the color was so bright. But as it came closer it became apparent that it was a fish!

Fish! Fish! We have a fish! Suddenly excited cries could be heard everywhere onboard. The fishing committee members, who were napping below deck, quickly awoke and the whole crew sat in the aft watching CJ slowly bring the line in. The excitement was palpable, this was probably the most action we would get all day!

(Some of you will ask - didn't you feel the fish pulling on the line? Let me tell you, this seaweed is quite thick, so when a large clump of it gets caught in the line, it does feel like something is pulling.)

As the fish came neater and nearer we could see it jump in and out of the water, a bright green gold color. Bobo got ready with our long hook to bring it onboard, and the Major, who is the Chairman of the fishing committee got ready with our "fish death".

"What is fish death?" you may ask. Good question! It's an essential element of the fishing committee's toolkit, although I believe it to be something the captain put together. Once you catch a fish, you need to kill it. A time tested technique to do so is to pour alcohol in its ... we don't actually know what the fish's breathing mechanism is called in English. It's branchie in Italian and gälar in Swedish. Anyway, you need pour alcohol into them, and I have seen many a bottle of not so good gin generously poured on the fish and all over the deck. Not so on Xenial! Captain Ulrik always has a more efficient system. In Las Palmas he purchased some very very low quality white rum, and put it in one of those spray bottles you use to water small plants. To distinguish it from other spray bottles we have on board (some with water, some with dish soap) he wrote "fish death" on it. So today on deck you could have see the Major excitedly spraying rum into the fish as if he was wateri
ng some
delicate flowers. It worked like magic, the fish died instantly. I have pictures, you will love them!

Chef Janne, the second member of the fishing committee, then swiftly took charge. He declared the fish to be a dorado, or what the Swedes call golden mackerel, and he estimated a weight of 3,5kg. He then proceeded to expertly fillet it and within no time the fish was clean and ready to be cooked. We couldn't wait to hear what he was going to do with it!

While Janne was letting his creative cooking mind run wild (and don't believe for one moment that it was limited by the supplies we have on board, we provisioned to be prepared for such an occurrence), we put the line down and caught a smaller, unidentified fish (a bonito maybe? But none of us has ever seen one), and we decided to let it free. It was an encouraging sign that we hadn't just got lucky once. I expect the line will be always thrown behind us now.

Now please imagine being in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean and this is what is served:

Dinner menu onboard S/Y Xenial on Saturday 26/11

Starter
Catch of the day (Dorado) belly
Prepared as ceviche, with lime, oil and estragon

Main
Catch of the day (Dorado) back fillet and roe
Fried in butter and served with soy sauce mayonnaise and sushi inspired rice
Wasabi to taste

Dessert
Boat made lemon curd on digestive biscuit

Do I need to say anything else? Thank you Janne (and CJ for catching the fish)!

Over and out,
Mavi

P.S. Small sailing update - still sailing with only mainsail, took one reef in for the night, the Major convinced the Captain to gybe during his night watch (he sleeps better when the boat is Lean towards port side), and we have 740 miles to go.


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