The Weekend That Was
07 September 2009
John
In my last blog entry I stated that we had entered Dorado territory and hoped to catch one of these fine fish. Well, on Friday afternoon we did just that. A fine specimen took our lure and before long it was being filleted and bagged. Unfortunately it was caught too late for Friday dinner but we had a great meal of fish and salad on Saturday night. But, not only did we bag one on Friday, but another on Sunday, together with two Marlin that decided that our lure was a tasty morsel to be eaten. We kept the Dorado but released both Marlin as they are really such pretty fish, although they also make a fine meat.
We have done a lot of spinnaker sailing over the weekend as well and have had the boat moving along at a good pace in a moderate breeze. She sails extremely well under this huge sail, keeping a good track and not fish-tailing like some boats I have sailed with a spinnaker.
Our "Ship Spotting Competition" is going along well - we all have an equal score of zero ships spotted! Yep, in the last 1800 nautical miles we have not seen one other vessel. I cheat sometimes and tune my handheld radio into the AIS frequency to see if any ships are transmitting their AIS reports, but that has all been quiet with nothing heard. We are, however, getting close to our first major shipping route since St Helena and should see one or two ships in the next two days. Thereafter we will be in the shipping lane which goes up the northerly coast of South America and competition should be good - Hardy has already stated that he will win the bottle of rum, which is the prize.
We have suddenly started seeing more life around us in the form of birds. Gavin, aboard a 46' catamaran about 200 nm ahead of us has reported seeing a number of whales - we have had no whale sightings since the African coast. On Sunday night we had two "hitch-hikers", of the feathered variety, sleeping on the bows. How they did not fall off during the night baffles me as we were really bouncing along at about 7 knots!
At the moment there are six Leopard catamarans all heading in the same direction and spread over about a 1000 nm distance. Every couple days we SMS each other to get positions and weather updates. All the skippers know each other and there is a bit of competition involved to see who is catching who. It's good to know that our boat, although running behind all the others, is actually keeping pace with the 46' ahead of us. We must be doing something right.
By the next blog entry we will have reached our next waypoint off the South American north coast. We then have to try and stick to the continental shelf to pick up and make the most of the strong current that flows up towards the Caribbean. If we are successful in finding it, we should have a few days of over 200 nautical miles per day. Lets hope we find the current as soon as we hit the waypoint!
Hope you all had a great weekend - we did. Regards from the motley crew, Andries, Hardy and myself, John