12’35.4N 025’37.9W course 184′ speed 6,9kn
Yesterday started off perfect, sailing, nice weather, nice people, what more could you wish for. But then the wind started to slack.. and around 16:00h, as Daniel was giving a lesson in fish and where to find and catch them, we could hardly hear each other over the flapping of the sails. So engine back on, sheets in and back on course South. We had come up to the wind a little more every watch, to see if we could fill the sails better, but sometimes it felt like that way the waves came in on an even worse angle.. But in the end, the waves were just too steep, to irregular and too frequent to keep sailing with less then 7 knots of wind.
Earlier in the afternoon we had been sailing with 7 knots, with a nice breeze. The water was a little unsettled the whole day, so even though we felt like the wind was no more then a force 3 beginning 4bf, the water looked like it was a force 5 with white foaming tops and all.
During the day the fish line was out, like on most days, but no luck. So far we have nearly caught something twice, but it got off the line and we caught a mahi mahi that was too small, so we threw it back. We also had a fish bite of half the plastic bait… which made us wonder how big that may have been. This afternoon we had to take in the fishing line as we were circled by the first Red Footed Booby of this voyage. It was an adolescent or first year bird, with lots of brown spots on its body still. Mark and I watched it as it was gliding through the air, then swooped down, chasing a flying fish on the ocean surface, catching the flying fish, and with it in its beak it shot up almost vertically into the air, throwing up the fish, catching it again and eating it straight away. It looked like it had definitely done that before! When it started looking at our bait behind the ship, we quickly took in the line.
During the day Soete had taken apart the port side winch to clean and grease it (picture of the day by Magnus) and then together with Floris put it back together. All parts of the winch are back in, no items left behind and it works perfectly again!
For dinner we thought it may be nice to do a fun meal, as the wind was no fun at that point. So we made hamburgers and buns (or pita breads) for everybody. Eating them was a lot of fun, with all the extra’s (jalapenos, cheese, union, souses, chimichurri and salad) piling out of the bun and then trying to eat it gracefully, was a big task. Some of us, me included, went outside to eat, where it had already gone dark (we have shifted one hour, we are UTC -1 now), which helped, because nobody could see me or the mess I made!
Water temperature is now 27,2 degrees, surface water. Which is warmer then the windy shady places on board. This may have attributed to our first sightings of thunder just behind the horizon during the night.
Since 23:00h we have been back under sail now. The wind has turned due East possibly even with a little south in it. Both the no wind of this afternoon and the current East winds were not predicted in our grib file, so I am curious to see the next grib file to see if it can explain any of the weather we have had today.
All is well on board,
Jet
