Sunday, December 16,2018
We are having a terrific sail so far. We are now in our fifth day out (departing from Marina Rubicon’s fuel dock at about noon on Wednesday December 12th) and have only had to motor for 5 hours. All the rest of the time we have been sailing with smooth seas and moderate winds. The first day was a bit uncomfortable due to irregular swells, and none of us felt that well, particularly Vivi-Anne for whom it was her first foray into the true ocean. After that, however, winds and seas have been fairly consistent and pleasant. Today was supposed to be almost windless, but we have a lovely breeze and have been sailing all day. The big thrill today was when we caught a fish early this afternoon. Mark has been trailing two lines behind the boat since we left, and suddenly today, just as we were discussing what to have for lunch, there was a catch. We all got so excited and Mark pulled in the big mahi-mahi without any trouble at all. Tom helped with the cleaning and Vivi took pictures.
We cooked some fillets up with garlic and curry and lemon and followed up the meal with a perfectly ripe mango. Great day. Our crew, Tom and Vivi are super nice and helpful and their presence has made our trip so much easier. We eat well every day, enjoying some of my pre- cooked dinners and Toms special potato,egg and onion specialty dish. We have so much good food on board that we are certainly not going to be losing any weight on this trip.
The weather forecasts we get are not as accurate as we would like, but thus far, our weather has been better than forecast, if anything. We have been sailing with our two headsails poled out for two days now which is a very comfortable sail configuration and perfect for our primarily downwind sail.
Mark does the first shift every evening, while Tom and Vivi sleep a bit, then they do the hard 10 pm to 4 am shift, and then I do the 4 to 7 or 8 am shift. I get to see the sunrise which I really like. During the day we all kind of keep watch, with Mark playing the role of captain extremely well.
We’ve only seen a couple of other boats and all are quite a good distance from us, so it feels like we are the only ones in the whole Atlantic Ocean.
Tom and Vivi think they may have just seen a whale, we are all going to keep a lookout for more sightings.
We are hoping everything continues like this for the whole trip. Suddenly the interminable 18 days sounds like a piece of cake.
L.
PS. Scores of dolphins just visited the boat for an hour just before sunset. They jumped, and swam back and forth across the boat, and put on a fabulous show.