The View from the Veranda 6516 Pacific Seafarers Drive, OceanWorld, Planet Earth 03 44N 131 55W The Veranda with a View is what we call our cockpit; and who wants to speculate about that? Our home may only have 50 square feet of floor space, but we have the biggest view ever for morning coffee and espanol lessons. It was quite messy up there last evening as we finally caught a fish. When we do, we don't mess around. This catch was/is a Wahoo maybe 25-30 kg. How do we weigh a fish? Well, if I can't pick it up with one hand, it weighs more than 50 lbs, and if I struggle with two, more like 60. This was a 54 inch two hander! Gloria and I had been downstairs putting things away (more on that later); I went upstairs, and voila, a fish was splashing behind us on the starboard hand line. I've pretty much gone to 2 hand lines; much easier to deal with than rods and reels, although they make an appearance once in a while. We spend 15 minutes getting ready; that is, everything off the cockpit floor, squabs put away, clothes off, buckets and vodka ready. The vodka is poured on a fishes gills to subdue it, along with bleeding it. You don't want a 60 lb fish bouncing all over. Since Wahoo like this are about 6-8" wide, we cut it up into steaks after removing the dorsal fins and guts. Into the frig they go in a bucket and ziplocks, then this morning we got out the seal a meal machine and vacuum packed it two steaks to a pack. We have found vacuum packing to be far and away the best way to freeze a fish for flavor and no freezer burn. So that was our big excitement. The last two days had quite boisterous conditions, 18-22 knots wind with 2+ M seas; no fun to close haul in. Waves were going over Pincoya; and of course water will find a way in, so it did in a hatch and Nicro solar vent over our navigation station counter surface which was loaded with a printer and lots of bits and pieces. All had to be removed, rinsed in fresh water, allowed to dry, including the non skid, then replaced. We tightened the hatch and packed the solar vents with cut up socks and paper towels. This turned out to be a great way to make the weather milder and today we have full sail, 15 kt breeze, 1.5M seas and a lot more comfort. Our bananas finally died; the few left were goey, so I turned them into banana cakes, which are much better tasting than the bananas. We are ready for a break from bananas! We still haven't found the counter current, but the wind has backed to the ESE and we are able to go much more E finally! We are starting our 10th day hard on the wind.