May 2012
We caught our first fish today – a skipjack over 30cm long! (Sorry, but it sounds so much better in centimeters. If you must know how long it was in feet, type this into your Google search box, without the quotes: “30cm in feet”.) OK, so now you’re not so impressed, are you? Yea, it was small, but it was good. We had fish and eggs for breakfast. It all went in one meal.
It didn’t take long to catch. Today was our first serious attempt at fishing on this passage. I put the lines out this morning after the sun came up and had a fish within a half an hour. Not bad. We caught this on a bare cedar plug. I’m really starting to like those.
It’s been a little down hill the rest of the day. There is a swell from several directions and light winds again today. The combination is making for an uncomfortable ride. It’s been overcast all day but it’s a really nice temperature. Not too hot, not too cold. (You know me, I’ll whine about the temperature given the slightest cause.)
We’re making slower progress the past few days. Yesterday we made 100 miles and the day before that just 114 miles. We’d like to average 120 miles a day. We have 1185 miles to go right now to get to the equator or about 10 days at 120 miles a day. We may slow down quite a bit when we hit the unsettled winds around the equator, called the inter-tropical convergence zone or ITCZ. It’s an area where the northeast trade winds in the northern hemisphere meet the southeast trade winds of the southern hemisphere. Their conflict can bring thunder storms and light winds and squalls. It’ll be interesting.
In general, all’s well aboard Legacy, with the boat and with her crew. We’re having a nice time out here. The days are starting to pass magically and we’re settling into life at sea. We hope all’s well with our shoreside family.
