Mira - SV Mira Blog #2 - Mahi Drought on MIRA is over!!
Tuesday, November 6 - the afternoon, evening and night brought continued calming of the weather. More stable winds, wave and current. Sailed with full main and genoa with winds 15-20 knots from the S-SW all afternoon and evening. Still 2.3 knots of current against us. A quick explanation about current - if MiRA is moving through the water at 9.0 knots and she has 2.3 knots of current against her - she is only making 6.7 knots of headway. Very frustrating! Waves were still choppy and confused causing us to lurch around the boat - handhold to handhold - and occasionally slamming against walls and counters. All of us are going to have some nasty bruises. But, this is the North Atlantic after all. Enjoyed delicious shrimp sausage creole over cheese rice. Thank goodness almost all of our meals were prepared and frozen! Had to start engines during the night as wind dropped considerably. Trying to maintain at least 6 knots of boat speed.
Wednesday November 7 dawned with bright sun and few clouds. Engine on with sails because wind speed was 8.5 knots only at 9 am. Current still brutal against us at 2.3 knots. Time for crew showers! We are at a point when we can stand in the shower without being thrown down. Hooray! Wind continued to drop throughout the day, and we were forced to drop the sails. MIRA is going to motor through a high pressure system for the next few days. We chose this route instead of another route that could force us to beat into heavy winds again. Quiet day spent recovering and catching up on rest. We enjoy having our main meal together in the middle of the day - easier for everyone to help with watch and not too much food late in the day. Today was white bean chicken chili with chips and salsa. We watched Avatar as the sun went down and splurged on microwave popcorn! Beautiful starry night to enjoy while on watch tonight.
Thursday, November 8th. Dawned more of the same. BUT - we caught two Mahi-Mahi simultaneously from our two fishing lines in the afternoon. This was quite exciting because we had not caught mahi-mahi on Mira before - lots of tuna, but no Mahi! Sadly, we had just devoured a pot of Beef Barbacoa, yellow rice and fresh corn salsa. But, garlic lemon butter grilled Mahi is on the menu for tomorrow!
As this blog post concludes on Thursday November 8 at 5 pm - MIRA has sailed 105 hours and 628 nautical miles with an average speed of 6.0 knots and a max speed of 12.1 knots. Only about 625 nms left to go to Antigua!