Wednesday 30 November  2022

15^o 02.8N  38^o 37.6 W

Today's Blog by David  (Time zone: UTC -2)

We are at last past the halfway point!! Our destination is nearer than our departure point. Sadly,  however, Brazil is still the closest land – c.950 miles from us – and is likely to remain closest for a few days yet!   We are still making good progress: 170-180 miles per day and if we maintain that speed over the remaining 1,300 or so miles we will be “there” possibly overnight 7^th/8^th ……  IF we can maintain that speed ……

Fishing report

Jenna turned Friday’s Mahi Mahi into a fine Kolkoda salad that evening.  [That is a South Pacific take on ceviche, combined with chilli peppers  and coconut milk and served on a bed of lettuce]. It was delicious and so we refrained from fishing again until yesterday, when we trailed a lure speculatively at 8-9 knots for an hours or so before admitting that even if we did hook anything we would struggle to land it (or “boat it”,  I suppose) at that speed!  

This morning, conditions were less lively so we trailed a lure until after lunch.  You don’t get bites in the middle of the day (Dunno why, you just don’t! It’s normally early morning and late afternoon) and so we were just about to bring it in …. FISH! FISH! FISH!  The product of our labour was this rather fine “Horse Eyed Jack”:

The “Horse Eyed” bit refers to the way the eyes bulge out, a bit like a cartoon frogs eyes

It is shorter but rather stockier than the Dorado and so this too is about 500 gr of meat.  Jenna is on chef duty tonight – yum yum!

The Hole – a moral dilemma

I mentioned “The Hole” a couple of days ago.  Today’s weather forecast predicts it to be rather wider and deeper than we feared.

This is a schematic representation of the area between our boat (in yellow, middle right)  as of this morning.

The light smudges represent the wind direction, the strength of which is shown depicted in colours  (bottom left) . 

Green is ideal (~20kts);

Red is not ideal (> 50 kts),

Neither is blue (<10kts).

Here is the forecast for Dec 4^th – Peter’s Big Birthday! The predicted position of the boat is the green icon  in the bottom middle below “Planning”

A bit of a blow – No Blow!

The software has a plan to route us through by sailing in light airs with all sorts of changes in sails and  in direction – inc. gybes pretty much every 4-6 hours; it predicts arrival at our destination late  on 10^th December ……  (Note –the available forecast data is not accurate enough at the level of detail that would be necessary to do this – AND ANYWAY …..  even our best racing gybe takes 30+ minutes L) .

The alternative is to tough it out, wait for the wind, and get-there-when-we-get-there (just like the Good Old Days)  ……

- or …………….. turn the engine on  and blast through it – adding contribution to  global warming – but be sure of getting there in the morning of December 9^th

What would you do?

And Finally ….

We are now sailing past the straggling 15m yachts in the ARC fleet.