Routine

TIME: 2021/06/05 02:26 UTC
LATITUDE: 09-46.52N
LONGITUDE: 155-42.92W
NEXT WAYPOINT: 22N-159W
COURSE (COG): 307T
BOAT SPEED (SOG): 4.5 kn
WIND SPEED (AWS): 19 kn
WIND ANGLE (AWA): 65 deg
SEA STATE: NE 2M Short period, making dinner prep a balancing act
COMMENTS: No rain today, mostly cloudy with sunny periods. The wind is still too much from the NE to make much progress north. When conditions allow we try to pinch as much upwind as possible.


Sleep, eat, watches...in no particular order, this is the basis of our day. A rotation of these three functions day in, day out. The landscape does not change much so it does not take much for something to catch our attention. We enjoy when a seabird or two occupies space near us, swooping and diving around us. In fact the other night we had a second bird crash land into our cockpit. This one was so small, I can't even begin to imagine how it got this far away from land. It rested with us for a long time but eventually took flight again before sunrise. Another seabird took great interest in our tow generator. It quickly determined it was not a flashing fish for him to eat, but he would bob in the water behind us and continually dip his head into the water to investigate this most bizarre phenomenon. He would let us sail ahead of him and then he would catch back up to us and repeat his investigation.

Yesterday evening as final dinner preparations were underway, the girls were both sitting at the helm when one of them shouted "Dolphins"! We have had only a few, very brief dolphin visits since leaving Tahiti. And for some reason it has been in the worst conditions of steep waves and driving rain that we will see them passing by, never staying for a visit to play in our bow waves. However, last night was different. As I came out to check out the dolphins, I noticed as this torpedo shaped body caught the last of the sunlight, the most beautiful colours!! It was a school of HUGE yellow fin tuna jumping and feeding just meters off our starboard side, going in the opposite direction to us. How amazing is it that out of this massive ocean, we were able to briefly witness these tuna jumping so close to us!! And the answer is no...we did not have the lure out. I was quite content just watching these beautiful fish going about catching their supper.

Here is our reality. One of the reasons we have not been fishing is because our freezer/fridge has not been performing well on a starboard tack. Our freezer and fridge are a set of two drawers and on the starboard tack, the freezer drawer is not staying sealed. The result...it is very difficult to keep our meat consistently frozen. Further to this, the compressor for our fridge is by far the largest energy drain on Maple and so we routinely turn it off to try to reduce the constant drain on the batteries. So it means that our meals have been focused on eating through the meat and fish in the freezer as quickly as possible and as such don't need to add to it by catching a monster tuna. Perhaps once we have an empty freezer and after a week or two of vegetarian meals, I will want to try to catch ourselves a sushi dinner, but for now, the fishing rod remains unused.

All is well with the four of us! Sailing under beautiful conditions with plenty of sunshine. Still hoping for that wind direction to change a little bit for us to start heading more north than we are. Currently we are lining ourselves up perfectly for a stopover in Japan just as we planned for back in January. Perhaps we can check out the Olympics after all, assuming they are still scheduled?! ;)