Naked Fishing in the Pacific - Sailing Blogs

What does a sailboat crew do while sailing from Ecuador to the Marquesas?
Fishing naked and other sailing blogs from the yacht crews in the World ARC around the world sailing rally.

 

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Yacht: Andante of Mersey

 

Life aboard - leg four

Well we are now settling in to life on board .Mathew and myself are the new crew, who have never done very long passages before. We are joining skipper Bob Keith and Ann.The Galapogos islands where great fun, swimming with seals, rays, turtles & nemos.The land animals had no fear of humans you could go to within inches of the boobies iguanas and sea lions.We went to the Darwin centre and saw lonesome George the tortoise, he wasnt that lonsome though as he had two lady tortoises with him but at 130 I think he would have preferred a fresh lettuce.The start of the sail was Sunday from Puerta Ayora, we were 3 hrs late due to having two engineers on board fixing the mast. After two days we started having trouble with water maker and still are, also the auto helm wants a long rest every couple of hours.Fishing the score is five nil to the tuna three escaped the line with the bait before we could get them on board.
The 4th we got on board gave it a slug of vodka and it jumped back in (cheap vodka).The 5th tuna got eaten by a shark as as we reeled it in line as well,so we are still living off the canned variety.

Life on board is good

Gordon

 

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Yacht: Cleone

Leg 4 Day 6 - A Perfect Day's Sailing

Twenty four hours of sunshine and stars, and 174 miles on the clock - Cleone's best day yet on this Rally.

If anything, the Trades have freshened and backed slightly. We are now on a broad reach with full plain sails set, less a reef in the Mainsail, and bowling along at an average of about six and a half knots through the water. We've a favourable current of about a knot. All this adds up to great sailing, and for us, great progress. We even managed to survive the Skipper's second bout of cooking, though luckily for Norfy the threatened curry did not materialise. Apart from that; little to report. Sailing in light weather is hard work, but 3-hour bouts of helming and sail trim require concentration, and the wheel is physically quite demanding in these conditions.

But we are all revelling in it, and very happy.

All well and all the best,

James, Chris & Elizabeth
Yacht Cleone
At sea
06.31S 101.53N

 

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Yacht: Ideal

Day 6

We carry on throughout the afternoon and into the night,8 – 9 knots with up to 2 knots current. At sunset we notice more birds all of a sudden, shearwaters and petrels are ducking and diving all around. Annie says that means we’re going to catch a fish soon – the words are barely out her mouth when the can rattles! (the hand-line is rigged with Stewy’s high tech tin can alarm system). Unfortunately the fish is off before we get it in. This same scenario happens again about half an hour later. We decide it will be third time lucky. It’s another beautiful night; the waxing half moon is now up for longer and gives bright light in the sky and on the water. Not a cloud to be seen. Ian enjoys the sunrise at precisely 7.05am on his lone watch. We’ve 2000 miles to go at 7.25am. The wind has now increased to to 15-20 knots and we’re tootling along averaging 8-9 knots SOG. At 10am Stewy and Ronnie decide to change the lures. At 10.30 am the can rattles! Yipee! – this time it’s landed – a 5lb black-fin tuna – perfect size for 4. Stewy does a grand job filleting and skinning,it’s bagged and in the freezer. Sushi or steaks? – we’ll decide as the day goes on. It’s the first fish of our big crossing! Ronnie has a chat with Storyteller to give them advice on their freezer pump problems. We can now see both Southern Princess and Storyteller off our port to SW. It’s going to be another lovely day…

 

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Yacht: Talulah Ruby II

Naked fishing

At last we have wind,we are now romping along at 9 kts let's hope it lasts. We caught a lovely tuna this morning so suchi and cerviche for lunch and fish pie for supper. Brian fell over yesterday and banged his ribs,so was given knock out drops and sent to bed to rest he was also excused night watches, he seems to be in some pain but no major damage except his ego!.Otherwise life on board is great with hot days and balmy moonlit nights.Oh how we long to be stuck on the M 25 in the rain.

 

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Yacht: Storyteller

Day 6

After a wonderful afternoon's sailing yesterday we found that the halyard had almost chaffed through so its no more spinnakers until we get to the Marquesas. However, we still have beautiful sailing conditions and with helpful current we are averaging 8kts. The seas are flat and the boat is comfortable. We estimate that we have now covered 1/3 of the distance. Food and wine supplies are holding well and there is talk of a party to celebrate half way.

Surprisingly we are within 1/2 mile of Southern Princess, and two other boats are nearby. One of them has a refrigeration engineer on board. His wife is joining at the Marquesas and should be able to bring the parts we need. Last evening at cocktail time Jim entertained the homesick Kiwi's on S.Princess by VHF radio with a selection of songs in Maori -- much to their surprise. Also, much to our surprise Tony turned out very tasty bread rolls for lunch.

We are now 1000 miles from the nearest land and it surprising to see birds out here. Each morning we collect up the flying fish and small squid from the deck and I guess that's why the birds are here.

 

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Yacht: Whitbread

Top of the mornin!

its excellent sailing again, its been so long over a month! bloody equator.. bloody engines Over the last 24 hrs we have covered 180 miles , 'not so far' i hear you cry..... only an average of 7.5 kts. But all of it has been done under sail , so good not hearing the engine and feeling the boat move with motion of the paciffic , last night the sky was so clear , even the miky way was dazzling, till the moon came out , she's nearly 2/3 rds full and you could read a book in the cockpit she was so bright. we had our big pink gennaker flying all night starting with light airs and only doing 7 kts. gradually the wind got stronger as we found the trades, and were soon flying along at 11.5 kts!

such a differance from motoring, when crew find the helm boring. Not being on a watch myself means i can help out when the crew need something or dont want to helm anymore, so i normally do my fair share of helming but now i'm having to fight them for it!! Since sunrise the trade winds have been steadier and are now at 18 kts, right on the limit for our gennaker, so since 1 o'clock have had the no1 up and were still doing 10.5 kts. we will easly cover over 200 miles today.We gave our position over the ssb radio today , ( albeit on the higher freq. for yachts far behind!)which made us feel part of the rally again , we missed not being at the start and were gratefull there was another 8 boats left behind aswell. The crew are in fine form.... Marcel from has joined us for this leg and he's a pleasure to have onboard he fits right in with the lads , their all as nutty as squirrel shit !! To add to our list international logs (English, Dutch, German, Swedish and manucian )Marcel wrote his in swiss yesterday.

Because i couldn't read a word of his log i'm not sure if he told you about our marlin? There was never a doubt that we could of landed him with a hand line but just to see a blue marlin leaping out of the water and thrashing around on his tail, knowing thats he's on the end of your line was cool. the line was 115 lbs and on the second jump he was free....the one that got away...

cheers

jeffers

 

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Yacht: Southern Princess

And what do we do all day?

07:07S 106:08W

Managing to keep the days full:

I do breakfast and Irene and Lorraine rotate lunch and dinner and no one is allowed to interfere or make suggestions
about what the others should cook. Someone has a bit of trouble at this! I have taken to reading the odd cooking book so that I can surprise them with something. I tried Irish Soda bread the other day and performed some king of magic trick. I took a pound of flour and 400 mils of milk and a few other bits & pieces which weighed nothing and turned them into a 5lb loaf of bread. Heavy as lead it was!

Maybe tonight I can get the Pisco Sours going!

During the day we have informal watches and at night we start 2 on and 4 off at 8:00pm rotating then each night. Tonight will be good as we have a half moon which will last 2/3rds of the night. The best watch is the 3rd watch midnight to 2:00am. Have dinner, bed at 8:00pm 4 hours sleep then a 2 hour watch and then 4 hours sleep and up at 6:00am to watch the sun rise.

The south east trades are now well established and we are averaging better than 8.5 knots with the wind over the port beam and full main and genoa. Champagne sailing and at these speeds should only be another 10 days.

The last 24 hours noon to noon we completed 205nm.

Cheers

JH

 

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Yacht: Kasuje

Daily log

Hi All,

Another day of blue skies, sunshine and wonderful seas. The winds are blowing as predicted by Bruce our weatherman ( not to be mixed with Bruce our crew member) and we are making good speeds. We have passed our 900 mile mark today and hopefully if we can keep the speeds up we shall arrive in Marquesas on the 25th or 26th March. I have been plotting the boat positions on a graph and it is not only comforting to know there are several boats quite near to us, but also that we are in about sixth or seventh position. However, as Skipper always reminds us..."we are not a racing boat".

There has been great activity in the galley yesterday and today. Clearly everyone, apart from the skipper, is on top form and looking for new ways to pass the time. Skipper, after eating his first large meal for days, has now been put back on short rations after his stomach objected to such a shock of being full again. Yesterday I made a sponge cake for tea which was most popular and soon disappeared. Ruby has been inspired to make bread today and has been putting into practice what she was shown during a provisioning lecture. We are all eagerly awaiting jam sandwiches for tea. Bruce is our chef for today and despite not admitting to like pasta has produced an extremely tasty pasta lunch.

We haven't seen any more turtles today, but we do keep seeing the amazing flying fish. They all seem to fly in formation and then crash into a high wave. The sea must be full of them as we are constantly seeing them, occasionally they land on the boat and are unable to get back into the water.

I hope you are all enjoying our daily log...we certainly enjoy hearing from our family and friends. I had been trying to find out who had won the Gold Cup at the Cheltenham Festival and was delighted that Bruce's Mother included that bit of news in her email today. For those of you who are interested it was Denman.

Best wishes to all

Angela, Skipper Steve and crew

 

 

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Yacht: Kealoha 8

And were off in the Trades and to the races ...

So we are fully in the trades , and ripping along averaging 10knts per hour , of course, with Pinkie up ( she was launched this morning at 08.00) . Radio contact with the rest of the fleet is becoming more challenging as we are so far ahead . but hay ho , tomorrow we will move to another frequency on the SSB -

All are enjoying the wind ..and hot air as we prepare for our St Patrick's day celebrations and Adrian's B'day

Who says we are not racing ..

Imagine our surprise to come across a mid Pacific race track right in the middle of the steeple chase season, thanks to Adrian & Jens we had a " night at the races"- formal attire required - close run thing between Daniel and David for best dressed man - ( Daniel won by a hair on account of the G&H blazer )- best dressed lady went to Jens -

Rosie's horse Shopaholic - looked so close to winning for such along time , it was a shame to see her pipped at the post by O'Donnell's " Millarkey" winning the much coveted - Blue Boobie footwear Prize.

The K8 St Patrick's day quiz is going well, with early irreverent entries received from some of the fleet.

All is well on board, only 1730 miles to go !

 

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Yacht: Asolare

Leg 4, Day 7 to Marquesas

Boeing 747 landed on the yacht!

A Boeing 747 landed on our deck today! Yes really – look at the attached photo!

By the time we had recovered from the shock and retrieved the big blue flying “bird”, the Boeing’s engines were unfortunately dead.

You can see clearly where Boeing’s designers got there design from - and I thought the Americans had designed the 747 from scratch – silly boy!

After all that early excitement we settled down to a more leisurely sail as the wind has reduced in strength and backed a little more making the time to launch our Parasailor a lot closer. By the time of writing tomorrow’s log it should, hopefully, be accompanied with a photo of this beautiful sail!

With this down wind sail, our daily average distances should increase from about 185 to well over 200 – we shall see!

Capt. Peter

 

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Yacht: Lady Kay

Working hard

Today's picture is of the crew working hard to the tune of Jolene by Dolly Parton. We have just 2000 miles to go - only but are a third of the way now and duly celebrated with a glass of wine!

Another night of rolling seas has us yet again picking squid and flying fish off the decks. The sail bag on the trampoline has caught what feels like half a school of flying fish, which given our current poor fishing record may have to be considered for dinner!

 

 

 

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Yacht: Jus'Do It 3

Getting there

In the afternoon we enjoy a very welcome tuna fish lunch – roll on the next one! It’s a non eventful night’s sailing, but comfortable and enjoyable. By the morning the wind and current have dropped. We appear to have approx 0.5 knot tide with us. We decide to alter course 10’ to westward and goosewing for a couple of hours until 12. We’re now only doing 6.5 knots over the ground. There’s lots of flying fish (mostly tiny) on the deck this morning . Stewy finds one that’s big enough to eat and fries it up for his breakfast. We have another sort out of our sacks of fruit and veg. Ian and Annie squeeze what feels like another hundred oranges!

W’ve now been at sea exactly one week.

Distance in last 24 hours; 193 miles

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