Footnotes from Water Music

It's been a busy 24 hours on board the good ship Water Music - just as it was getting dark we managed to catch and more importantly land a small tuna! Brian (the Japanese expert)prepared sashimi which was enjoyed as a first course with pickled ginger and soy sauce. The seas have got up and it is very difficult to do anything - a beef stew was prepared sadly the meat bought in Isabela turned out to consist of mainly bone - still made a delicious dish with plenty of veg. Brian kindly offered to serve it up as Grace was feeling decidedly queasy. This did not go well for him as the entire dish flew across the saloon and some hot stew landed on his head leaving a small burn which he failed to report to the chief medical officer until this morning! He is now looking as beautiful as ever. Dawn brought it's own troubles during Gabrielle's watch when the self steering gear failed and caused the boat to gybe and resulting in a small tear the mainsail just by the second reefing point. Brian and Stephen have poured over raymarine manuals trying to establish the cause and seem to have got it working again. Having completed that they set about putting a double sided patch on the main - which is now back up with three reefs in. We now have that and a reefedd jib - meaning that we are able to maintain just over 7 knots of speed.

The seas have calmed down somewhat and are a bit less confused - but still running at 6-8ft. One rogue wave came aboard this afternoon when stephen was asleep in the cockpit - woke him up with a bit of a start!

Just before sending this we landed a mahi mahi - which will be delicious for supper. Day runs so far have been 166Nm, 180NM and 175Nm