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Brainstorm - 16/1/22 How to tank at sea, kill & wait for wind



Today is a special day as it marks the day of the longest consecutive sail for us all. And what a day it was!

 

It kicked off with a late night shift for men and me. The sun started to rise when Hein and Michiel woke on what would be our second windless day. A breathing taking gold-orange to green-turquoise sunrise with some pink clouds floating across a deep blue sea.

 

My morning nap ended with something peculiar in the air: there’s nothing like the smell of diesel in the morning.. Some of our diesel stash was stashed away behind the dingy in the dingy garage. This means we need to lower the transoms door at the back of the yacht, pull the dingy out on top of the platform that it forms and climb inside the garage. A job most comfortable and safe with little waves like today. After 7 jerrycans of our 15 reserve, totalling 320 litres, the tank of 300 was all topped up again.

 

The deck cleaning and garage stuffing was followed by a morning swim, wash and swim in the ocean that is now 5.000 meters deep and 24 degrees warm 😁.

 

All fresh I decided it was my day to catch lunch and put my study on doing so and the effective slaughter of it to the test. On the first note -the catch- the colour of lure to use is dependent on the time of day and the brightness of that day. Together with the weight to pick for depth depending on the swell and the amount of line to drag depending on the speed of the boat should determine how quick you get a bite, if any at all. Luck may be on my side but I had a bite in 15 minutes and was able to reel the Bonito in.

 

On the second note, the slaughter, I learned that Michiel’s cutting in the head, with 10 minutes plus of body spasm that follows, isn’t the best for meat quality. Instead, I looked for the brain (the soft spot above and between the eyes) to stab and twist with a knife, at a 45 degree angle, in order to make the brutality that follows as swift as possible for our dear lunch while preventing the spasms. When the mouth fell open, as the indication of being dead, I cut out a 90degree triangle, removing the brain completely in order to revealing the hole of the spinal cord to shove down a wire trough the neural canal in order to destroying it entirely. This ensures the body to remain calm and relief the built up lactic acid from the fight, while I cut the mayor blood vessels behind the side vins and below the tail which bleeds the fish clean and dead as the heart keeps pumping throughout this exercise.

 

Michiel took over the gutting and cleaning because I haven’t come to study it yet, which from the looks and smell of it may take a while. The tuna teriyaki lunch was delicious but I think we agree on releasing our next catch if it’s any sort of tuna.

 

By this time the wind had dropped to dead still and the ocean looked like a mirror slowly being bent by the swell underneath. A small cloud looked like painting as it was reflected by the sea while it was coming towards me as I was semi siëstaing on the front deck. When Hein and Menno came to check it out we spotted them again: dolphins on l horizon.

 

But something was different here, the small pod wasn’t comprised of the lightning quick torpedoes we knew them to be. They broke the surface slowly and when they came closer we saw many where in tandem. As they drew near, it became clear this must be the nursery right here. There were at least 7 baby dolphins ranging from mini to medium and moving in complete sync- to twirling around their mother respectively. Menno ran for the go pro but as we were holding him upside down to get an underwater shot I believe one had spotted our fishing gear. All the way back, next to our lure it was hitting its tail on the water and the rest quickly changed course. They should know we would have done a catch and release as they’re known not to be tasty 😜.

 

Being under engine is starting to get dull and annoying. The night ended on fire though with whiskey flamed pork chops and over roast vegetables.

 

Writing this I know we were in 12th position earlier via our Remmert intel and H&M said they’d spotted 3 different lights all looking like top lights. Very happy the wind is picking back up now as predicted by our models. Just a little further and we can drop down south west, hopefully get wind sideways, hoist our couch-0 and here we come Rapsodie VI, Bastet and What’s Next!!

 

As the is setting behind and through the clouds we’re sitting in the dark with a first row seat for a thunderstorm performance on starboard side up north.. Can’t wait to turn the engine off and continue sailing in a bit! 💪💪

 

Once more into the spray,

Through the night we pray,

May we sail another day



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