Walkabout - Day 14 - It's WAHOO kind of day

S7:29 W121:31

Not quite sure what happened but the rod and line went back in the water yesterday!

Since leaving St Lucia on this epic journey, it has become a bit of a tradition that fish only bite when we have multiple things going on! No sooner had we made a sail change to the G1 to increase our boat speed for the last few hours of daylight, dinner was being prepped down in the galley, when we all heard the fishing reel whistle notifying us that we have something on the hook!

We all quickly made our way to the cockpit, Andrew picks up the rod and begins to reel it in, Tom and I furl the G1 to slow the boat down and give Andrew the best possible chance of reeling our catch in, we also turned slightly to windward to de-power the mainsail and so at 4 knots boat speed Tom takes over the rod and manages to reel in a beautiful wahoo!

She was a beauty! 98cm in length and Tom’s first wahoo. Long and thin and a pure fighting machine with razor sharp tiny teeth that will slice through your skin like a knife through butter, we all had to be very careful.

I’m not 100% sure it was unanimously agreed to start fishing again despite still having a fridge freezer full of food that may or may not last until our arrival in Hiva Oa but, we now have two enormous fillets which have been sliced into portions and a section we will enjoy today as sashimi with pickled ginger, soy and wasabi for lunch.

Tom has now caught the big three fish, Yellow Fin Tuna, Mahi Mahi and now Wahoo. His job is done! ;)

It has been a very relaxing day with full mainsail and Genoa flying in 13-15 knots of true wind and an average boat speed of 6-7 knots heading directly for Hiva Oa. The wind began to drop off slightly so we decided to fly our big blue G1 light wind sail for a few hours before reverting to white sails again for a comfortable and relaxed overnight.

It was also a day to catch up on sleep as the sea was calmer and the boat reasonably flat and steady.

We also did a little planning of how and where to spend our time while in French Polynesia. What islands to visit, where to explore, hike and snorkel, where can Tom finalise his Padi course and where to go diving. There are so many islands and atolls that we have to select a few as our time is limited between arriving, welcome and prize giving evenings, plus Bron’s flight in to Tahiti and our flight out and back and having to be in Bora Bora ready for skippers briefing and departure for our next leg! Its all go you know!!

One of the many clubs and society’s on board Walkabout is the Arts and Crafts Club. It has three members but today only one member showed up as the other two were in their beds fast asleep! While the sleeping beauties slept, Andrew produced two very good ’soft shackles’ that will be used to put a space between the main sheet shackles that are attached to the underside of the boom. This will reduce any rub and noise too.

The galley produced some lovely wholemeal rolls to finish off the coronation chicken for lunch and Jamie Oliver’s burgers were enjoyed for dinner with sliced tomato and cheese, tomato sauce (Heinz of course) and mayonnaise. A slice of pineapple fruit cake to finish off and its off to bed to begin the night shifts.

Another day in paradise! Well - slightly more than a day, as at 12noon we put the clocks back by one hour again. “Walkabout Time” is now UTC-8. Making us 9 hours behind the UK.

We also realised that we will ‘lose’ a day when we cross the date line (just like Philious Fogg) - need to factor that into our planning. Can someone please tell us the actual longitude of the date line wherever it is near Tonga/Fiji?? We can’t seem to find anything on board with that info. We presume it is 180 deg Long, but it does wiggle about, and it would be good to know!

Thank you all for your emails, we love receiving them and are a huge part of our day discussing who they are from and what was said. It keeps us grounded and attached to you all as we sail across this vast open sea towards a new land!

Lots of love from us all
T,A&T xxx