Sunday  17  November 2013,  Indian Ocean,  23 53.9S 50.34.5E 

Today's Blog by David (Time zone UTC +4.0)

Wither the trade winds?  We have a light 6-12 knot wind from the NE and we are travelling SW, so it ( the wind, for the avoidance of doubt)  is basically ‘up our chuff’. But it is not so far up it as to make us move at any pace; for the last two days we have struggled to maintain boat speed above 6 knots,  more often struggling to stay  above 5 knots, until our patience runs out and we take desperate measures.

Yesterday was day two from La Reunion and so we were still keen enough. We:

·         Set the poled out head sail,

·         Gybed it,

·         Struck the headsail and flew  the cruising chute from the prodder,

·         Took it down when the wind died (and then spend 30 minutes working our why it knotted up when we tried to take it down),

·         Set the poled out head sail,

·         Motored for a bit then

·         Put the chute back up,  and then

·         Took it down towards nightfall (and then spent another 30 minutes working our why it knotted up when we tried to take it down) and finally

·         Set the poled out head sail

 We were exhausted. 

We managed to sail for most of the night (only through the patience of the watch keepers) .   Confident in having sorted out the cruising chute’s problems yesterday, optimistically we set the chute again this morning only to watch the wind die as a couple of squalls approached. 

We are now motoring again – against a one knot current when there is supposed to be a current in our favour here.  The wind is promised to fill in before dark and so I have agreed with Terry and Peter that we will only set the Chute again today if I can PROMISE that their life will be better as a consequence.  So we are still motoring. ……..

Because we are motoring down wind, the apparent wind in the cockpit is only a gentle drift breeze – perhaps 5 knots at best. And so console yourselves that it is also close to unbearably hot.  No hiding from the sun anywhere  - so hot and sticky we long for rain or shade or ..... something. If there were a rain cloud in sight we would motor straight at it ……… right now, no stopping!

But today’s  inactivity does give us time to  engage in  some extracurricular activities.  Reading,  cooking, puzzles, games and some fishing.

If you asked an angler or a golfer about the similarities between angling and golf, I expect your answer might well be a blank stare. The intelligent might observe that they are both sports (if you can call angling a “sport”) which pitch a single person’s skills and choice of equipment against the elements and, to some extent,  that might be true.  Our recent experiences lead me to speculate that there may be another similarity.

It is fair to say that since we left Indonesia we have hooked about 10 fish.   One we got to the’ sugar scoop’, a fine male Dorado, before the line broke;  well before we identified them, the others also all took varying amounts of tackle with them,  streaming from their mouths in their wake.   It is the case that it is always the newest and most shiny tackle that we lose;  this morning, we lost a brand new sexy lure literally within 5 minutes of having put the line out.

That led me to wonder whether things would even out in the end  - as they do in golf.   A bad golf shot often costs you (well me)  a lost ball. But whilst vainly searching the undergrowth for the miscreant orb, one often comes across another ball lost by earlier wayward golfers, quite often in better nick than the one whose loss  you are in the midst of confirming. Thus, your tackle count is maintained and possibly improved -  even if it costs ‘stoke and distance’ to achieve it.

That led me to speculate whether under -  the law of averages -  we soon ought to start catching fish with someone else’s tackle already streaming from their mouths thus replenishing (our diminishing) tackle supplies.  That  assumes that:

1                     There are others as inept as us/me at fishing

2                     with tackle as unsuitable as ours  and

3                     doing so, i.e. fishing – and losing fish – in the same area of ocean as I am fishing.

It further assumes that life as a self-respecting Tuna or dorado is worth living  with old bits of fishing tackle streaming from their mouths in their wake - and indeed that it is possible for them to feed and live in that state rather than being preyed upon by something bigger fish (one which presumably  can discern between the flesh and the lumpy bits – else it will find that it now has my tackle streaming from their mouths in their wake etc. etc……..)

On balance, some new fishing tackle is moving inexorably onto the South Africa shopping list!!

All well here otherwise!