14’55.1S 032’18.4W course 189′ speed 7,2kn
What a fight! Were sitting on the aft quietly, all minding our own business, enjoying the improved weather, when all of a sudden, the fish line starts wheeling out! PRRRRRRRRRRRRR it goes! Bob is the first to reach it, then Tim comes bursting out and Karsten is not far behind. They have big smiles on their faces, finally a fish! But the line does not stop wheeling out.. not when they adjust the brake, not when they try and wheel it in… it just keeps going ppprrrrrrrrrrrrrr. There is a lot of line of the rod, but way to quickly it seems like it will run out of line.. They pull back and try to haul when coming forwards.. nothing.. ppprprrrrrrrrrr it goes. I get a towel and wrap my hands in it, and grab the line itself.. with the three of us, Bob, Tim and me, we can stop it from wheeling out.. but now we have to get it back! I ask Karsten to get the welding gloves from my dad from the engine room, big and thick so we will not cut our hands.
We take turns wheeling in, handling the line by hand and staring at the water to see if we can spot the fish. Progress is at first slow. The fish is fighting, the line goes from port to starboard and back again.. But surely at some point it gets a little easier… Karen comes in to give a hand, pulling in the line, then Karten and finally we can see a huge fish! I see a tail fin come above the water, could it be a shark? If it’s a shark, we throw it back I say. Andy has come outside by this time, he is helping on the rod, all of a sudden he says, it looks like a sail fish.. I am not killing a sail fish! And I agreed! They are so beautiful and over fished, this is not one for us.. but we are not there yet.. we still have to lift it on board. It takes three of us holding the line, and even then we can hardly get it out of the water, its more then 1,5 meters long and weighs (to our perception) over 35 kilo’s! It gives another big WHACK and it frees itself of the line! Good for him! a good for us, this way its not even a choice! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sailfish
What an animal, what beauty! So glad it made it out alive!
Other then that, the day has been beautiful. It started off with cloud cover and a fair breeze. By the afternoon we were once again sailing under blue blue skies. By evening some showers rolled in and by night time we were surrounded, sometimes to our dismay, with showers. The showers sometimes give extra wind, but they seem to eat the wind as well. With the ship starting to roll and the sails starting to flog violently we had to turn on the engine a few times to get out of the rolling and make some headway. 5 minutes later we would have to steer more down wind because the winds were too strong to keep a close reach or even a beam reach. So a lot of work during the night.
By morning the showers got a little less variable, but still we are doing between 4,5 and 8 knots.
All is well on board, jet
