02° 27.058' S
094° 59.855' W
Two things are NOT true. Firstly, when crossing the Pacific, one sets their sails at the beginning and there they stay. Nonsense! We put up the main, take it down, put up the gennaker, take it down, put up the staysail and genoa, take them down, put up the gennaker again, nope, it must come down and so on and so on.
Secondly, the Pacific is the best fishing ground in the world. Rubbish! There are five of us out here and apart from one boat catching a tiny tuna, no one has caught a thing and it certainly isn't for want of trying. We were told that as this year is an El Niño year, the waters are warmer than the norm, therefore, the fish tend to stay down in the cooler temperatures. I guess we'll all just have to go with that excuse. However, in the meantime, we are in a serious sushi and sashimi decline and the freezer is not receiving any fresh provisions.
Apart from this, Calypso is trundling along with a slight positive current but not much wind. We are trying to get a bit further south in the hopes of catching some but so far, not much. Out of the five boats, the only one that had found anything today is still way back and we also had a day and a half of excellent sailing back there. We seem to be in a bit of a hole at the moment.
So far, we've sighted two enormous whales swimming in tandem right next to us and this morning, a school of at least fifty dolphins came to play. Otto on Vagabond says he lost a few good lures to sharks around him and claimed: fish 3, Vagabond 0, on the score sheet. We may not have caught anything yet but, fortunately, we haven't lost any lures either. (Shouldn't have said that; that's tempting fate).
On the afternoon of our first day, we lost our SSB radio hence no emails at that stage. Captain Paul managed to get in there and clean a few contacts so we are back in communication again. We would hate to lose that, it is our only means of sending and receiving information for both personal contact and for weather reports. It also means we can be in contact with the others even if they are out of VHF radio range.
As the crow flies, we still have another 2,312 nautical miles to go. Sounds awesome but we'll get there. Just got to find that elusive wind!
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