Almost there. Radiance can sense that the end of a long trip is near and she is heading for the barn, like an old work horse. The wind is from the East today so we could let out the sails a bit and let her stretch her legs.

The day began with the VHF coming to life. We usually have the VHF radio on channel 16 like good responsible sailors. For the last 12-days we have not heard a sound from the radio. The range of this radio is only about 10-miles. So when a voice suddenly is heard on the radio it gets your attention, because it means that somebody is near, sometimes too near. Not in this case though. A single-hander (1 crew boat) had spotted us this morning about 8 miles ahead of him, and just called to say hello. We all had a nice talk, and took each others position. The boat is from San Francisco and is heading to Opua like us.

My fishing luck changed today. Ever since the Marquesas we have been trailing a lure to catch fish. In the beginning not with much luck but we became better with time. We all have our preferences when it comes to which fish we like to catch and eat. But I think almost everybody has got the yellow fin tuna on top of the list. So after trailing a lure for 3500 miles I finally caught a yellow fin. It was a nice big 25lb one too. I filled our deck bucket entirely with tuna steak when cutting it up on the side deck. We had a great big tuna steak for lunch, I think mine must have weight 2lb and was as big as my dinner plate. We were going to have sushi for dinner, but were still stuffed from lunch.

Well we are in the shipping route just North of the North Island so I better go.

-Steen