Another beautiful day of sailing today and we are really making distance. Kerry and I set the spinnaker at 8:00 and we have been cruising along at 7 to 8 knots all day. We also fixed a couple of fishing poles and fit them with old fashioned cedar plug lures. So far we have had three tuna bite but have lost all of them. It's almost impossible to slow down with the spinnaker up, you can't just drop it or head up wind like our regular sails. So we have to try and reel them in while sailing at speed and the fish are flipping off. We will keep trying until sunset then reel in the lines, douse the chute, and put up our regular sails.

I finished that book, The Shadow of the Wind, in record time. I couldn't put it down - it's excellent and so I'm adding it to my "Club D" list. Now I'm starting "The Foreign Correspondent". It looks good.

Hold on - as I was writing this we had another strike on the un-trusty plug. I rushed out and grabbed the pole and a battle of wills began. This was no ordinary fish on the line. It was smoking me, my arm against his tail. I'd make a little headway on reeling him in and loose it a second later. We fought each other for what seemed like an hour without either giving or making ground. Skinny was standing by with the gaff as we started to see the monster swimming in the surf behind us. We were excited and he was tiring. Finally he gave up and popped to the surface and I brought him to the stern where Skinny nailed him with one sweep of the gaff.

Turns out that blackfin tuna are really good fighters cuz he was only about a 10 pounder. I was kind of embarrassed with my lamenting during the fight about my shoulder being pulled out of its socket. Apparently I need to go to a gym. We quartered him up and Dave is in the process of cooking him right now. In the meantime we had two more strikes simultaneously that Dave and Kerry took, but we lost both. So the score was 6 strikes, one win for the day.

We are going to be spending about 3 or 4 days in Southern Spain and thought if anyone reading this had any suggestions on must see's they could send or post me suggestions. I don't have a guide book with me on the Andalusia region.

Course 94 true; Speed 7 knots