spinnaker sailing
18 October 2011 | West of Funafuti, Tuvalu
Kathy
Tomorrow will be a week since we cleared out of Lautoka, but we spent two nights anchored in Vatia Bay waiting for antibiotics to kick in for the infection of a bug bite on Allen's leg so it won't be an official week that we departed until Saturday. Then we flew over Bligh Water, with Morgan taking "sealegs" anti-seasick meds and a patch for myself. His worked, mine didn't...I finally gave up my undigested breakfast by lunch and no dinner, but I quickly rebounded and have been fine since. So far the sailing's been pretty good, which equates to rather slow because of the calm, but fine for me! The 24 hour totals have varied from 110 miles per day to 150mpd, slow, slow, slow.
The second day out we ran our emergency drills. The boys hear the command, "battle stations" and are to run forward to the locker in Wyatt's cabin and don their lifevests. Once buckled into theirs they are to bring ours back to the galley. In the meantime Allen retrieves the ditch bags and I collect the EPIRB, passports, powerbeam light, and handheld VHF. Then the different scenarios play out for whether or not we abandon ship, like if there's time, the dogs get lifevests too. God forbid we ever need to ditch, but all those years in the airline practicing emergency procedures comes in handy for planning ahead out here.
Yesterday there was a big fat flying fish in the gutter. I left it there and when I wanted to chop it up for the dogs' lunch, it was gone. There was a bloody trail where Dulce had dissected and eaten everything except the wings! When Allen went back down, the boys and I played Scrabble. I happened to glance at the meat hook line and saw that it was released from it's clip, which meant that there's a fish on. I had only pulled the whole line in once a day or two before to stow it for the night (I'm not a fisherman), but this time there was something on it, most likely already drowned. Sure enough when the line changed to monofilament I put on the gloves and pulled in a very nice wahoo. It didn't give more than a roll of the eyeballs and a final shudder, nothing to entice the dogs to their usual barking and fish attach mode. That would've been automatic had it been a real fishing rod with its' whirring sound. Since Allen was asleep I decided I could try and clean the fish, so I got the filet knife and cut it's head off the way Allen may have shown me 10 years ago. Overboard went the head and before 5 minutes had passed, there was another fish on! By now Allen could hear us banging around above him topside, so up he came and was quite surprised that I had decapitated, and gutted the fish! He pulled in the next fish which turned out to be a little skipjack tuna that he tied over the railing to bleed. Unfortunately the knot came untied and off dropped the fish with the line around his tail. So much for sashimi breakfast! With the wahoo he made some steaks and fillets, and after a couple of tries we got the vacuum sealer operating and sealed it all up for the freezer. One fillet made a delicious dish of fish in lolo(coconut cream), which has diced tomatoes, carrots, bell peppers, onion, and garlic mixed in. YUM. Served over brown rice, it was a real treat.
We ran the magnificent red, white, and blue spinnaker up yesterday and put it back up today, probably the first time ever it's gone up without a hitch, which just seemed to go hand in hand with "smooth sailing". We were tempted to leave it up overnight, but we should know better since the one time we did that it the halyard sheared in the night time and I discovered it dragging alongside the hull like a giant water balloon. We've got it up and flying again this AM, and just had another quick drill to get it down for what appeared to be a squall, but passed behind us and now we are moving right along again.
I awoke this morning to shouts and barking, the boys got to see a giant dolphin parade under the bow. They have been doing a nearly full home school schedule for at least 3 hours a day, and we play catch in the cockpit with a whiffle ball for recess, or go swing on the preventer under the boom up on the cabin top or do calisthenics there. They're pretty big on dance contests in the cockpit too, depending on the time of day.
I wasn't in the mood to write on the night shift in the early morning hours today, but the moonlit night was so spectacular as to take your breath away and make you feel so insignificant in between the vast expanse of starry sky and ocean depths. The moonlight lit a silver path across the water almost mesmerizing, teasing your tired mind to think you could step out on it and walk to the moon! It's the beautiful part of the night that you miss most nights of your life. The other best part is watching your family sleep unawares, with the boys always sleeping in their abandon with their arms stretched up over their heads, and seeing my husband tangled in the sheets. It's definitely warming up and the fans barely move the air, and it was safe enough to open a hatch last night to let some fresh air in. Another beautiful sunset. Good night.