Thursday, April 20 Time: 1200 local
Position: 14’08 N 092’04 W
Course: 315 T Speed:10.8 kts Days run: 285 miles (noon-noon)
Weather: Sunny and humid
News:
Timoneer motored throughout the evening 70 to 80 miles off the coast of
Nicaragua on our North Westerly course towards Mexico. It was a very
uneventful watch and for the 24 hour period we spotted only one fishing boat
and the breeze never rose above 9 knots. The wildlife is pretty
impressive in this stretch of ocean as we have seen many turtles, rays
jumping out of the water, and huge schools of fish with the water boiling
all around. Aboard the boat we took advantage of the light air and calm
seas by systematically unrolling the sails and letting them dry out to avoid
any molding problems that may become a problem with all the rain we had in
Costa Rica. We finished the bolt rope repairs on the mizzen and hoisted
and furled the mizzen half a dozen times adjusting the tack and clew
lashings each time. With the adjustments the sail seems to be rolling up
much better as we had a lot of bunching on the front end of the mandrel
causing problems. On the fishing front we had a billfish attacking the
teasers and leaping out of the water behind the boat, but it refused to bite
any of the lures. As a last resort Penny took some fish out of the freezer
for dinner and like clock work 20 minutes later we caught a 25lb Wahoo.
Needless to say the frozen fish went back in the freezer and we had Wahoo
steaks for dinner.
John
