Post 13

North Atlantic storm - Yaaho! But don’t mess with those tomatoes; and “Fish On!”

If you’ve been keeping up with my updates, you may recall that we were dealing with a low pressure system off of Spain last week making it “a bit sporty” in the galley, while I was trying to cook. While low pressure systems can be troublesome when they are upon you, there are times that they can actually benefit.  

For example, as we continue south to catch the westerly winds off the Sahara Desert, we are monitoring a low pressure system storm in the northern Atlantic showing 986 millibars. 

Once again, Captain Anthony had a plan - “head south another day and gain the benefit of the winds spinning off the south eastern edge of that storm.” In short, Mother Nature is about to give us a push! Those winds are gradually approaching “Just Live” by evidence of the high yet slow rollers that are forming off our starboard aft quarter. 

Anthony and Jerry explain that those rollers are being created by the approaching winds. And once the winds catch up with Just Live, we should have a steady 15+ knots of wind to help us along later today to gradually push us onto a westerly heading, directly into the sunsets for the next few weeks. 

Next few weeks?! Hmm. I am realizing it is getting more difficult to keep track of time out here and we aren’t even halfway yet. I’m not complaining! It’s actually great. But I have been thinking about a better way to keep track the days and weeks as they pass. Remember those tomatoes from an early update about when we opened up the aft salon and had to eat the tomatoes we got in France, to make some room at the table?

Well I am telling you, “don’t mess with tomatoes!” In Madeira, the French tomatoes that remained on board found a way to recruit 3 kilos of fresh Madeira tomatoes plus melons and those reinforcements are now taking up half of the table again. 

So my plan, for keeping track of passing time, is now based on the rate of attrition among the kilos of tomatoes and melons, e.g., if each kilo/box of tomatoes takes a little more than a week to eat, we will be across the Atlantic and heading up along the Caribbean Islands toward the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay when….yup you got it….when all the tomatoes are eaten! Pretty ingenious huh?!  Not really, but let’s see if it works out that way.

And just when I thought I shared sufficient news for this update, guess what happened! I’m pretty sure Steve Mosby, Mule, and Tyler already guessed the answer - FISH ON! 

As I was wrapping up my 2nd pot of chilly for the crew, the trolling line went a buzzing. As line spoiled off the reel, I handed Jerry the rod and the action was on. I had lost one yesterday and that was not gonna happen again. We had a mahi mahi on the line and he was a jumper! Less than 10 minutes later Jerry had him at the boat and I grabbed the leader and landed that sucker hard on the deck. 

I quickly filleted it, cleaned up the mess on the back of the boat, and bagged the two fillets for a future meal. One in the box!

Cheers,

Paul

P.S. Remember, you can click on this tracker link to follow us across the Atlantic on an interactive map via Iridium Go - thanks to Captain Anthony.