18.2nm to Turtle Bay
30 October 2008 | So close is sometimes So Far
Capt Rich
When traveling at 4.5 to 5.0 knots (kts), 18.2 nautical miles (nm) can seem very far away, and even more so when the boat cabin temperature is 89deg. Still with winds under 4kts, THIRD DAY is motoring the last few miles into Turtle Bay. We do have all three sails up to at least look good while motor sailing and I'm sure some of the boat we are overtaking just can't figure out how this ugly girl at the dance is holding her own with the 45ft rocket sleds that even look fast at anchor. My excuse is that I'm filming and trying to move through the fleet to get some good video, and for now no one has called me on it! With a full fridge of fish, we didn't even try fishing today because you can only eat so much fresh fish.
Today we were surrounded by a pod of at least 500 dolphin. They were jumping all around THIRD DAY and sometimes were so close that you wanted to reach out and touch them when they leaped up into the air, as if to get a peak into our cockpit. They stayed with us for about an hour and everyone on THIRD DAY enjoyed their company.
We should arrive at Turtle Bay at about 1900hrs, just in time for dinner and a rest that won't involve getting up every few hours to check the engine oil and heading for the first time in 3 nights.
Today we ran our water maker for a little over an hour and made about 65 gals of water. It almost makes you feel guilty to be drinking right out of the water maker outlet house with life giving water splashing all down your face and chest, but that guilt is short lived when to cool myself off I held the hose over my head and did what could be called a victory dance on the bow of the boat. The impromptu cool off shower was well worth the effort and hard work that went into building the watermaker.
I added about ? of a quart of oil to the engine this afternoon and the oil leak appears to be not getting any worse, because having no engine with NO wind is not something we would look forward to experiencing.
After all the motoring we have been doing, we will try and buy some fuel in Turtle Bay to top-off our jerry cans. At $2.50/gal why not buy all the fuel you can carry?
Just as I was about to send this Blog Update the "Fish On" was screamed from the cockpit. It seems that with me down below on the computer, Jason put out the fishing gear. We had a nice dorado on the line but lost it as we were trying to bring it aboard. As I was just sitting at the computer to send this update "Fish On" was shouted again. This time we landed a 5lb Stripped Bonito but let it go after Jason reeled in the fish without any help from me! I had better send this update before "Fish on" is yelled again and pandemonium breaks out in the cockpit for the third time in less than 7 minutes.