Today was a real BLOODBATH.
If you are squeamish about blood stop reading now!
We had a nice easy sail last night wing on wing. All Kim and I had to do was hit the auto
steering button a couple of times to make small course corrections for slight
wind shifts. We did see the glow of
lights over Puerto Rico and six cruise ships passed us throughout the
night. At dawn we shook the reef out of
the main and set the fishing lines.
Nothing...nothing and then about noon...FISH ON! Finn can hear the scream of the reels from
anywhere in the boat and today like most days he is generally the first person
to scream "Fish on". I saw
this one jump on its first run and I knew we were into a nice Mahi Mahi. Anna came running. She is so into reading these days we hardly
know she is on the boat, but she likes catching fish.
Kim and I furled the genoa to slow ourselves down and I
got the fish turned and Anna into reeling position. Then it was the old "lift up...reel
down...let her run" for the next 15
minutes. Kimberly our gaff master, or
master gaffer if you will, did not falter and after a swing or two we had the
fish over the side. This is where it got
interesting.
Not sure how many gallons of blood a Mahi Mahi can hold
or what kind of artery Kim hit but the fish went absolutely berzerk (sp?) and
spewed forth an endless spray of crimson glue.
The fish was big and strong and neither Kim nor I could do anything
but hold on the best we could and let it play out. When this fish finally came to rest the stern
of the boat and Kim, Anna and I looked like something out of a scene from
"A Texas Chainsaw Massacre".
There was even blood on the top of the dodger 10 feet away. We spent the next two hours cleaning the
fish, the boat and ourselves the best we could.
We are just going to have to let mother nature take care of it the best she
can because we were only marginally effective.
The fish was big, just a bit shorter than Anna and our
fridge is now loaded. We were sure to
eat a big pile of Mahi nuggets for lunch and she was delicious. We need our friend Mark from Amicus II back
to help us eat it all. We have not reset
the lines.
We did manage to take movie footage of the ordeal with
our GoPro camera. It will be very
interesting to see how that plays out. I
wonder if anyone shut it off before the whole family stripped down to nothing to
clean themselves and the bloody decks?
 |
| All that was left after cleanup, but you can tell how big it was! |
Our progress is slow but comfortable. The winds are only 10-12 knots at best. We are running the generator to charge the
batteries. No one wants to run the main
engine because it is already so hot inside.
We will probably be a half day late to Mayaguana but we don't care about
rushing on this passage.
I just looked at the chart and noted that we are entering
the Puerto Rico Trench. The water depth
here is over 26,000 feet deep, that's like 5 miles deep! I have a lot of memories of this area. I sailed here in 1992 on a 135' Brigantine
schooner with the SEA Semester program.
I remember we hit a rogue wave near the Mona Passage just to our
south...we won't be heading through there on this trip. I have seen enough giant waves.
Tomorrow we should be approaching/crossing Navidad Bank and there may still be some humpback whales that come there to calve in the winter.
Current Position:
5:00 P.M. EST
19 º 27.346 N
67 º 03.289 W
Speed 4 kts
Course 262 Degrees
Sailing wing on wing, full main and genoa poled out.
Plan to jybe shortly to head a little more northwest.
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