RAIN, whales, tuna. The coast is getting closer...

Boat time 7:30 pm Aug 11
The pacific doesn't want to let us go that easily. At about 5:30, we started getting more frontal clouds forming behind us with a few heavy showers coming overhead. At 6:45, RAIN started. About the heaviest rain I have ever seen. With the rain was wind . first from in front, then beside… then the other side. The guys are doing their best to sail it, and I am up on deck as often as they ask for it. On my last deck foray, I thought I saw lightning somewhere, so I came down to put all our critical electronics into our "faraday cage" (some call it the oven). With one group off watch, hopefully they get informed to not turn on the oven for anything ;).

And because I know you were concerned about our nourishment….. no fish yet…… so we had pasta for dinner. Probably a better meal with the terrible weather outside.

I think I will pretend to do some navigation down here for a little longer and hope that the weather clears up. Maybe 15-20kts on the beam… then I can pop up and take the wheel for a bit… :).

Boat time 1:00 pm
The wind still hasn't materialized. We did have a fantastic morning of motor sailing in the sun. I napped on the front deck, did some stretching.. general laziness. I earned it…… I caught a 35-40lbs tuna this am, cleaned it and packed it. We put half in the freezer and the other half is for two meals (lunch today and dinner today or tomorrow). We have had two others on the line today, one was brought up to the boat, but was much too small to keep, so we let it go. Mac has just finalized making a new lure and has set it out. Motoring puts us at almost the exact speed we need for tuna, so we are expecting great things.

Lunch was served during the 12 pm shift change and consisted of toro sashimi, and tuna nagiri with wasabi and soya sauce. Everyone seemed to enjoy it and are eagerly looking forward to dinner.

With all the motoring, we have had lots of hot water and as much electricity as we need to make water, so everyone is showering again today. So far the water maker has been working really well and seems to work better if we run it everyday, so water use is being encouraged…… this has included fresh water rinsing of the cockpit daily.

Just after lunch, we saw 8-10 minke whales heading straight for our track. We put the boat into neutral and drifted towards them. At about 100 meters, the whales dove. It was great to see them as we have only seen whales very far off in the distance so far.

Boat time 6:50pm
Dinner is now finished. A bbq tuna steak with rice and mashed yams. Everyone approved. I tried to send in this blog report earlier this evening, but it appears there has been some miss communication with the sat phone provider and I have run out of time on it. Maybe it will get added tomorrow, but by tomorrow evening I expect to have cell coverage, so it might be a bit late.

We have been fishing solid today, and have had a number of bites, but are not having too much success in getting the fish to the boat. The captain did not stock enough hooks, and we are on our last hook…. With no barb, and the tip is getting very dull. We might be finished with the fishing in the am.

During dinner the winds started to build. Better late than never. So we have the engine off, and are sailing along in the 7kts range and timing of arrival is very much the topic of conversation. Everyone appears ready to head off rapidly in their own direction to get home to loved ones and start reprogramming for work Monday. This includes me and the boat. I have a quick stop in Vancouver to make, then off to the sunshine coast. If things go really well, I should be on the coast by Thursday night.

Off to bed now, as I am expecting traffic to increase exponentially over the next hours of sailing and I need to try to bank some sleep.

Until tomorrow… or whenever I get better connectivity.
Turnagain