Hi All,
FISH ON!! FISH ON!!! FISH ON!!!!
OH….how I love those words……had a double….now that is what I’m talking about….but, one got off, drats and the other is still spooling….oh boy going deep…..well, 15 minutes later we get the fighter to the surface and see it is a skip jack….really….sore arms and all….well, big fella….it was fun and you get to fight for another day!!!! (while some people like the taste of skip jacks we find the bloody red meat a bit too strong for our palettes!!)
Another trawler like day….The winds stayed light and variable most of the day. Late afternoon they built to 8-12 kts E-ENE (pretty much on the starboard beam) and have stayed like that through the night.
The SW swell grew a bit to about 6-10′ long period and we have a 1-2′ beamy wind chop which adds a bit of jerkiness to the motion!!!
The current has been neutral to slightly positive all day!!!
SWEET AS!!!!!!
So what did you do today besides read, nap, fish and then repeat….well, Kathy sprayed off a lot of the salt off the boat and then wrote a blog article titled “I am a Weather Brat”….awesome, excellent reading!!! Me, I updated the spares excel spreadsheet that got corrupted when we lost my laptop last season….joy, NOT. I then started to update our movie list….we have not done that for a few years so didn’t finish yet!!!!
We did decide to slow down from 1700 to 1625 rpm primarily to conserve fuel and keep our safety reserves about 20%. The speed has stayed up around 7.8-8.0 kts so good enough to get in around noon tomorrow…..oh, I can taste the tequila/beer already:)))
Stats: May 13 1900 UTC (7:00am May 14 local time):
Position 13 May 1900 UTC (7:00am May 14 local time):
Position: 21 20S 169 25E
Traveled: 191nm today; 922 nm total; 226nm to go; ETA to Port Vila is Friday ~Noon
Course: 329M COG
Wind: 12-16 kts ESE
Waves: 2.5 SW swell, long period; <1m wind chop ENE
Speed: current speed is 8.0 kts SOG; has varied 7.8-8.4 kts today; avg is 7.8 kts for passage; slowed to 1625 RPM for fuel conservation
Weather: 70% cloud cover this am; sea
Fishing: FISH ON, FISH ON…..but alas a big skip jack that gets to fight another day:((
Sail: down
Fuel burn: 1.21 nmpg yesterday, 1.20nmpg total; that is about on target for this higher rpm.
Hope all is well!
John
Mystic Moon
GO MYSTIC GO!!!