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Bluewaft - Bluewaft Log Day 20: Fish and Squalls




Bluewaft Log Day 20
Friday 9 December 2016
18°41’.474N 054°25’.925W
Only 500nm to go! A good day’s sailing where we’ve clocked up just under
150nm. The winds have settled into a solid Easterly ranging from 10 to
18kts. We’re goose-winging with the Jib and Gennaker. The sea state is
still confused with a cross swell, but the waves are only around 1-2m. We
have been dogged by squalls from sunset to sunrise, with most of them
moving in an East to West direction. (Last time they were always North to
South). To make matters interesting, they move just faster than Bluewaft,
and because we are travelling a little south they tend to ‘creep up’ from
our port stern and cut across our bow. We’ve been using the radar to track
them and furl the Gennaker if they get too close – but it takes constant
vigilance! They haven’t been too viscous yet, with wind speeds gusting no
higher than 22kts, but better safe than sorry!
We saw a pair of frigate birds today (no sign of our Egret friends).
After 5 days of no fish our luck changed. James’ line was the first to go
but snapped almost immediately. Mine went next and after 20 minutes of ‘to
and fro’ we managed to land a 3.8kg Skipjack Tuna. We saw more Skipjacks
jumping around the boat for the rest of the day – but (fortunately) didn’t
land any others.
For sun-downers we went with a fruit cocktail (rum, grand marnier, gran
pomier, vermouth, apple, grapefruit and cranberry juice.) We are being
forced to become more inventive with mixers as we’ve now run out of
pineapple and coconut juice. We’ll manage somehow… ;-)
Fortunately James was on the roster for dinner and we had some lovely Tuna
steaks and sashimi with rice and some picked chillies, peppers and capers.
Needless to say it was delicious! The plan is to make Poisson Cru and Sushi
with the remainder today (there’s plenty).
We had a Monty Python movie night - watching 'The Meaning of Life'. Years
ahead of it's time!
Hopefully the wind and the fish will continue in abundance!
Happy sails.

P1000951

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