Today was Freya's 5th birthday. As we have a small boat and expected to be in Hawaii 2 -3 weeks ago, we mailed all of her presents along with the rotation of books care of the Hilo harbormaster. I was surprised and pleased that she was not bothered by this at all. Christine made her a cake and we had a nice birthday for her. She got to pick out the movie for movie night (passage making has changed.) She is excited, but patient beyond her years to get her presents in Hilo. Freya has been very helpful on the trip. She always volunteers to help wash the dishes, or find gear for us. (Very often she has "borrowed" the gear. She also tries to take care of Finn and even Sophie. She would be a great big sister, but she won't be so lucky.

Yesterday I finally got a chance to fish behind the boat. Our extremely basic technique is to troll with a hand line behind the boat - no pole. Just a snubber, some heavy line, 300 lbs test that the fish can't easily bite through, and a rubber squid with large hooks. This also compensates for not having a reel with a drag control to absorb the strike. I cleated my rig off and settled in, dreaming of some fresh yellow fin sashimi for lunch. Finn and Freya were thrilled, up in the cockpit actively watching my line and updating me every 90 seconds and asking it if was time to pull it in and check it. I had to take pictures of them. As I did, Finn told me he thought the line was coming loose. I didn't really believe him, but decided to stow the camera and check it out. Wrong order. I really think I will learn to DO IT NOW on this trip. 15 minutes of fishing and my rig was gone. (I am checking the Monitor bolts 2x per day.) I got a new rig together and started trolling again, and caught 4 feet of some old nylon line. It is surprising how much debris is floating out here. Several times a day we see bottles or old fishing floats.

Today,I tied a loop and cleated the line to the deck with my newly constructed rig. (While many cruisers deploy multiple lines at once, I decided to learn to tangle one line in the Monitor steering vane first.) After an hour the kids initial excite waned. After few hours Dale started to pull the line in to check it, and a fish jumped behind the boat. I'd like to say the fight was on, but I think he was pretty tired from being drug behind the sailboat a while. I had my gaffe and fish billy at the ready. (my fillet knife was another matter) As Dale pulled him in, I saw the distinctive iridescent blue green flash of the Mahi, we had a small bull Mahi on the line. Dale pulled him alongside I hooked him with the gaffe and brought him in range of the billy. An alternate technique to clubbing fish to death is to spray some alcohol into their gills: this knocks them out, stopping them from biting and flailing. Fish blood does not clean up easily, and bashing a pelagic fish over the head with a club is a very effective way to make a grand mess. I am switching techniques. While we could not weight our catch, I estimate the fish between 8 and 10 pounds. Several meals and a good moral booster for us.