Day 7 – Fish On! 10-27-24

Mateo has been dragging a fishing line behind our boat for the last 4 days, and today he caught a fish, a nice Yellow Tail!  The fish weighted about 10 pounds, and we got a good 4+ pounds of meat off it.

Mateo has been dreaming of catching his first tuna, so he and Luke were very excited about it as you can see in the photos.  Mateo made quick work of fileting the fish while Luke went to the galley to prepare some rice.  Soon we were eating some fresh Poke, and it was good.  The Poke was just the appetizer.  Next, Mateo seasoned the fish and prepared an excellent seared tuna. It was quite the treat having fresh food after a week of mostly canned food.  Great job Mateo!

On the sailing side of things, we had MUCH better day!  The crisscrossed speedbump waves of yesterday mostly went away, and the wind dropped a bit, and turned further south.  This wind shift allowed us to ease out our sails a bit and turn the boat about 15 degrees, making the waves even more tolerable.  We continue to sail a north easterly course.

Unfortunately, we did continue to fight a current all day, but even that was reduced, down to 1.5 knots against us instead of 2.5+ against us.  So, between the waves of yesterday, and the current, we only covered 115 miles in 24 hours, instead of our normal 150++ mile per day average.  This is a bit of a bummer, since we still have a long way to go, but the current is supposed to shift, and actually start pushing us in the right direction. 

It is interesting looking at the currents in the Pacific Ocean.  The graphic image looks more like a Van Gough painting than something you would use for navigation!  See the screen shot below.

You can see the representation of our boat in the bottom middle of the photo.  The colors represent the speed of the current and the white wisps the direction.  Blue is almost no current, green is .5 knots, yellow about 1 knot and red is 2 to 3 knots.  It is a bit difficult to decipher!

Tomorrow will be a day of some big milestones.  We will pass the 1,000-mile mark.  Which sounds like a lot, but still the Marquesas is the closest land by A LOT! The next closest land is Baja Mexico at nearly 2,000 miles away! YIKES!

Everyone on board continues to do well.  We spend our days talking, reading books, standing watch, sleeping and eating.  This little boat is our world. Literally in the middle of nowhere….