I should not say that......JOhnny caught another fish, that takes his score
the 5.5, but Beltana also caught a flying fish so now we have a new entrant in
the competition: JR – 2; POG = 1.5; JM – 5.5; Beltana – 1; problem was this time
the the Mahi Mahi caught today was judged not to be bigger enough and was thrown
back into the sea – well not quite thrown, it flapped around on deck and Johnny
tried to pick it up, he failed miserably, and unceremoniously pushed, kicked and
guided the fish over the side of the rear deck on the gas cylinder side.
Actually, we have set aside the starboard side of the very rear deck as the fish
preparation deck – there are no toe rails at the rear corner, so we try to do
most of the gutting in a bucket of water there where we can throw the gizzards
to the sharks (no – we have not seen any yet) then use a chopping board on the
deck to fillet and skin the fish after they bleed out in the bucket. (Did I
mention I lost my best bucket over board the other day? I was collecting water
for dishwashing (part of our water conservation project – we are going green on
Beltana II) and had not clipped on the the retainer line the railing wire
thinking I am strong skillful and don’t make silly mistakes, and woe and behold
I missed time my throw in the dark of the night, filled the bucket to the brim,
and it yanked out of my hand. No problem I thought – we went into Man Overboard
drill, which was easy as we had no genoa up at the time and were already
motoring, turned her around and backtracked our course following the Raymaine
GPS tracker. We really did not think we would find it, it was soooo black
and dark, made you realise how important once again the motto of “Stay on the
boat” is, and how important it is to wear a life jacket at all times with a
strobe light, as you really don’t want the crew to try to find you in the dark!!
Anyway, we did a great job finding the bucket bobbing away upside down, but I
did a lousy helming job of bringing Beltana alongside and took two goes to
position her. but as Johnny tried to hook it with the boat hook, it gurgled on
one side and let some air out and then slowly sunk......I said where is it guys,
and they quipped “only 5 metres away – straight down” frustratingly we could see
it forever with the torches just hanging there in the water – some of I ts
bouyancy overcome by the heavy hook I had on the lanyard. So we
reorganised the forepeak and put into service the mandatory second bucket that
the ARC safety plan has on its list for inspection.)
Where was I.......
We also run the deck wash hose from the bow where we have a deck wash pump,
down to the stern at the fish prep deck, and hose off the mess and scrub the
deck after each fish cleaning exercise. Any way, the last fish I caught, I
gutted and cleaned it, filleted it (first side was really bad, second side
really good as I got my hand in) and then skinned and washed the fillets ready
for cooking, then only a little nit later cooked them up myself also, with
butter, salt pepper and a little citric acid as per Anna’s advice – yum they
were.
I have spent much of the day in the galley today, Breakfast of fruit and
muesli, brunch of seared tuna steaks, lunch (rather late today) of fresh fish
with beetroot on the side, and I also did dinner using the beef casserole I had
pre-prepared in Las Palmas before the crew joined my (our freezer is running
just great on this trip) to which I added champignons and a bit of yogurt and we
have not sour cream and I I called in stroganoff. We also had Turkish bugla rice
with it and some short cut beans – went down a treat with a not so hungry
crew!
A bit of reading this morning, much great debate about the course to
steer given the wind direction and strength (non of whish seemed favorable for
much of the day), and in the end by 4PM UTC time we hoisted the spinnaker again
to get soomething in place to push us along in the light airs, but more
importantly in the right direction. So that was an eventful part of
the day after all. Then we spotted the bottom batten coming out of the batten
pocket at the rear of the sail again! So down comes the mainsail again for
emergency repairs. You should have seen my crew at action stations – what a team
– Johnny immediately got all the required tools up a the mast and started
dismantling the batten holder, John kept the hawk on the wheel keeping, and
Graham at the batten pocket trying to work out why the last repair did not hold
and what to do this time. Nothing much left for me to do other than encourage
and pull a few lines out of the way. Graham found the old sharp plastic
batten end cap that had broken was still in the pocket and was likely to be
doing the damage, so we wriggled that out of the batten pocket hole and then
this time Johnny devised the solution to reinforce the pocket with some webbing
tape on the outside and then he showed off his suturing skills with a big needle
and thread, and he and Graham sewed in what I think this time will be a
permanent solution. Well done team, you have done it again!
Enough nonsense from me for now Bye for now it is 6am on the night shift
time for me to helm again – Jono