We finally got our Westerly wind shift we’ve been waiting for and had a great day of sailing! So good in fact that we were right on our course and covered as many miles in one day as we did in the previous two. The sea state really improved and Delos was skipping along with the waves instead of crashing through them. Much more comfortable! We were seeing speeds of 8-9 knots until after dinner where things started to die down.
We put out the fishing lines and hooked two Mahi-Mahi (AKA Dorado). Brady reeled one in and Paul got the next one. Paul’s was a little bigger (and stronger) and got away from him flopping it’s way across the deck before we could grab it again. Unfortunately both were to small and not keepers so we threw them back. Darren has been working on his sextant sightings and has gotten within 20 miles a few times so awesome improvement there. The rest of us passed the time by reading, listening to random music, and taking lots of naps. We had a meat pie with tomato sauce and fries for dinner and passed the late afternoon time watching clips from Dirty Dancing, the entire Back to the Beach movie, and the first episode of Gilligans Island. Oh the things you will watch to occupy yourself in the middle of the ocean!
In other news Darren and Paul got promoted and thus are capable of doing their own watches now. That means 3 hours on and 9 hours of luxury sleeping time with 4 watch keepers!
We’re currently about 700 miles from Fiji and 350 miles from Minerva reef. We’re considering stopping at Minerva Reef to check out the diving but heard that the Fiji Coast Guard is patrolling there and kicking people out if they find you. Strange since there’s nothing there but a reef (no land) and it’s 350 miles from Fiji. Apparently Fiji and Tonga are having a little battle over this remote reef in the middle of the ocean. There’s supposed to be good fishing and lobstering there so that’s probably why. Anyway if the weather is right we’re thinking of giving it a shot just to check it out.
The wind is supposed to completely die sometime tonight so I expect we’ll be motoring again. The GRIB file shows about a 60 mile wide patch with light to variable winds, but on the other side Southerly winds are predicted. If we can get through that we may even have some downwind sailing in our future!