Marshalls to Alaska Day 13: Back to Sea

Greetings,

The wind turned back on today - our mid-passage holiday is over.

We started sailing again during my night watch last night, and by morning, the wind and seas had built as if there had never been a week of calm weather. Thankfully, we are running with this wind on a broad reach, because it would be no fun bashing into these short wind-waves, mixed with an ocean swell from the west. The winds are strong enough, and we are making enough speed with our genoa and reefed main, that we will delay attempting to put the spinnaker sock on our old spinnaker. We are calling our light spinnaker our Marathon sail, as just like the first Marathon runner, it did its job, reached the finish line, and collapsed :)

I noticed a contact on AIS early in my watch last night called 'NET FISHING. It was about 35 nm away, and moving at about 0.6 kts. This was only our fifth contact since leaving Majuro, so it was noteworthy in and of itself. At the watch change, there was no sign of the contact on AIS, but I let Max know to look for it. By daylight, the contact had finally reappeared, along with another Net Fishing and two buoys with a spread of 20nm across our track. Try as he might to see a vessel with the binos or radar, or to hail anyone on VHF by voice or DSC, there was nothing. With no desire to divert 10 nm under sail, especially since we were already broad reaching and would have to gybe twice, Max crossed the line as slowly as possible. After they thought they were past the line between the contacts, he and Johnathan could make out a row of tiny fishing floats that they sailed between and breathed a sigh of relief when nothing fouled our prop. It seems that we had come across an abandoned, weighted, fishing net just floating in the ocean.

We wonder if they meant to say "Fishing Net" ?

Oops, we sailed over the fishing line but did not snag it.

This is the AIS details for one of the contacts.  It appears to be a buoy rather than a ship

Cooking was a little more interesting today, especially when my menu choice was liquidy split pea soup. With the swell on the stern, the boat was moving vigourously from side to side, with an extra rolly motion thrown in every few cycles. Nothing stayed in place. I lashed the soup pot to the stove, and set it to cook at pressure for 17 minutes. On the bright side, I didn't really have to stir it! Normally, I put cooked food in an open container on the counter to cool before putting it into the fridge. The soup lasted about 10 seconds before slopping onto the counter, so tonight I cooled it with a lid on.

Cooking is always a challenge at sea.

With the change in the wind came a change in the weather. Gone were the clear blue skies and high wispy clouds, and in their place was an amorphous grey blanket whose thickness fluctuated throughout the day, but whose presence was constant. Our temperatures have begun to drop noticeably, with the sea temperature now around 23.4 deg C. Even Max was glad of a fleece this afternoon.

The games continue tucked in behind a lee cloth.

Max seems to be the magnet for creature encounters. This morning, shortly after he saw the fishing net, a pod of big dolphins came by. They were busy (fishing?) and did not come to the boat for a play. A few seconds later, the first school of tuna that we have seen congregated by the boat. He and Johnathan wondered if they were hiding in the shade from the dolphins, but it might have been a coincidence.

and one of these tuna jumped onto one of our hooks (Fun we are both wearing shirts from Mexico: the Banderas Bay regatta and the Baja Ha Ha)

and is heading to the fridge.

Unlike the last few days, which demanded numerous changes to the sail configuration, I haven't had to touch the sails on this watch. We are galloping along in the low 7s, and for once, the current is not entirely against us, giving us speeds over the ground into the high 7s.

Ever since well before we left Majuro, Max has been downloading weather routing for the passage, to gain an understanding of the conditions we would likely face. He initially had to do the routing in two segments, as the longest forecast is 14 days: he would artificially put a second 'start point' midway along our track. Our routing forecasts are now beginning to show Fluenta arriving in Dutch Harbor within the 14-day window. We haven't celebrated with chips, as we are not there until we get there, but this seems like its own kind of milestone. We are getting closer.

Love to all,
Elizabeth
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At 2019-07-01 1:47 AM (utc) SV Fluenta's position was 36°02.80'N 168°13.70'E

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