Bash 4
06/29/15

Billie and I relieved Shorty and Mark at our usual time of 02:00am. We saw some fishing boats during the night even though we were about 60 miles offshore. We motor-sailed through the night as we have been doing throughout the trip. Every three hours we lift one of the covers to the engine room that are built into the cockpit floor to check on the motor. It has been chugging along for over 48 hours nonstop, and is running beautifully. The morning light revealed dark clouds and bumpy seas with little wind. I put out the fishing lines at first light, thinking I might get lucky and catch a sleepy fish. No such luck. The sun made its appearance a bit later, but was hazy most of the day. We all went about our routines, which by now consisted of reading, eating, and napping, in any order. I was determined to have Billie catch a fish, as she claims to have never caught one before. She finally got her first one, a nice Yellowfin Tuna, in the afternoon. We made sashimi and enjoyed it with some cold beers. The wind came up enough that we were able to turn off the motor and sail for a couple of hours. Bear in mind that the motor had been running for well over two days continuously. We all reveled in the sudden quiet of just sailing. We had one more quick strike on one of the poles, but did not get a fish on the line. Just before sunset we were visited by several pods of Spinner Dolphins, who delighted us by leaping and riding our bow wave. I took the opportunity to sprinkle ashes from both my sister Pattie and my mom into the swimming dolphins. They both always loved dolphins, and are now part of that pod. We also spotted lots of red crab-type critters on the surface, Shrimp or Krill, we are not sure which. Once again we reefed the mainsail for the night and prepared ourselves for another night at sea. We will arrive at our halfway point tomorrow morning of the Baja Peninsula, Turtle Bay. We will anchor there in the morning, get fuel, check the weather, and take hot showers!