Atlantic crossing day 6 : success !!

Atlantic crossing day 6 : success !!

Lat: N10’25”7600
Lon:W36’58”5000
Avg speed day 5: 6,57 kts
Wind : 15 to 24 kts
Waves : 1.5-2.5 meter
Temp : 30c during the day , 27c during the night, not wearing a shirt during the night Distance to Mindelo : 815miles
Distance to go : 978 miles

Today we noticed the tradewinds well and truely set in . Lovely weather, although a bit clouded , but nice temperatures and steady winds from the NE softly blowing us in the right direction. When Joline woke up we had a nice breeze and waves so we decided to give ‘freeing the genoa’ another shot.

First I went to the bow , strapped myself in and stood on the bow , I should have joined the circus as this is quite fun to do while Blue Pearl is moving up amd down and sideways on waves. I managed to free the corner , loosened some lines and asked J to gently but firmly pull … and with a little manual rotation it freed itself !!

What a relief ! , no more chances of sail damage due to flapping and finally be able to sail “melk meisje” sail configuation (for the non sailors and non Dutchies , google “zeilen melkmeisje” and you will see what we mean)

As soon as I rigged the spinaker pole , fixed it and unrolled the genua the speed climbed from 5 to 6.5 knots in a 15-16 knot breeze ! Thats an enormous win , 1.5 knots extra per hour is 3 miles per day extra is 250 miles per week ! , we just shortened the trip by almost 2 days !)

So off we went sailing with the mind boggling speed of 6.5-7 knots !! , ok not really all that fast but its much better than it was .

When we sailed slowly into the afternoon I saw a yellow fin tuna jump out of the water , so I tried my hand at fishing again . And lo and behold after a few minutes we had a strike ! Another beautiful blue and silver Mahi Mahi jumped out of the water 50 meter behind the boat ! I am sure I must have scared it off while it jumped because when it came down in the water again , it just took off.. again.. but this time leaving me with my broken gear the way it was when I started , no extra damage .. except the hooks on the lure were all bent straight. So much for the rapala hooks , rapala straights would have been a much better fitting name .

One of these days I *will* catch a Mahi Mahi and revenge myself

Oh.. all is well onboard and were down 2 apples from the last count 😉  Day 7