(no subject)

Banner day - 154 NM in the last 24 hours. Good sailing by any standard.

And, the sea sent me a fish. As I stood at the pushpit rail and watched her struggele to get free from my hand line, I promised her if she let me catch her I would honour her with my life. You see, today is day four, and I have remembered to surrender to this place. Sending me a fish,is the world's way of saying you are welcome. She did not come without a struggle, perhaps I am less worthy. But come in the end she did. Her brilliant green sides flashed in the sunlight - she was a Mahi Mahi -- as I dragged out of her element and aboard. I ended her suffering with a single blow from the winch handle and a said out loud "Thank you, I am sorry". The colour drained from her flesh with her life. Over to you, Cresswell. So I have done my best. She was a shasimi lunch, she'll be a garlic and leek fry up for dinner and she'll be a fish broth for lunch tomorrow. I am doing my best.

It was a long night last night, leading to my surrender. I was up and down and up and down changing sails, reefing sails and putting sails back up as each squall rolled through in varying intensities. By 4 am I was pooped. I was also down to main sail only, and so it stayed while I slept an hour and a half till dawn, and then, you guessed it, I got up and put full sail back on.

After the moon went down around 1 am, it was fully clouded over, so it was very dark. Over the next two hours I passed within two miles of a two different fishing trawlers, skulking by them with no lights on. I want to be invisible out here. I want to remain alone. I am relying on the radar alarm to alert me to traffic while I sleep and it works well, except I experience about 10 false alarms to every boat. I can see why after a while, skippers just turn the damn thing off and take their chances in the dark. The whole thing is a calculated risk anyhow.

I am in and out of dream land dream land so many times a night, you think I would be getting used to it. It's a weird couple of seconds between waking in the cockpit and figuring out where I am! But now I remember, perhaps tonight will be different.
Cresswell