Passage Panama to French Polynesia, day 11, Thursday 30-March: A fishy day.
The outstanding feature of today is marine wildlife. The sailing itself is same-old, same-old. Moving nicely along at 7-8kts in 10-13kts of beam-reach winds, heading WSW to the trade winds, using full mainsail and genoa. Wonderful sailing. Now ~600nm WSW of Galapagos, and firmly in the wide-open expanse of the Pacific Ocean.
On my morning deck walk, I find at least 5 large flying fish and dozens of small squid randomly over the deck. All dead, silly things! I can understand how flying fish get onto the decks, but these little squid would need to be making a high jumps of olympic proportions to do the same. And what provoked them to jump so high out the water we wonder?
Some are still soft, others are totally dried out and firmly stuck to the deck. By the time I’ve cleared them all, my hands are quite fishy! I just hope none had managed to land themselves into any of our dorade air vents. If they have, we will certainly be smelling them in the coming days!
Then late morning, eagle-eyed Oana spots a whale spout. Sure enough, up ahead lies a pod of what looks like sperm whales gently swimming on the surface, randomly spouting high into the air as they exhale. Hence the ancient whaler’s exclamation: “there she blows!”
We hurriedly furl away the genoa to slow down, but we still quickly pass them on our starboard side. One whale does a characteristic arched-back dive with tail out the water – but a little too far away to capture on camera.
After the news of a yacht sinking around this area a couple of weeks back, after it had hit a whale, it’s a tad worrying to see these huge creatures in our path. On the other hand, it’s also a spectacle and great to know their numbers are steadily increasing again.
When we’d visited the Nantucket Whaling Museum while cruising New England, we learned how whaling ships from that area would sail off for a voyage all around Cape Horn (against the wind!) and come to this area in the Pacific for whaling. Each trip would last several years (longest was 11 years!!) only returning to NE USA when their whale-oil tanks were completely full. It would take dozens of whales kills to achieve that. The ships would set off from New England, complete with a brick furnace built on deck to boil the oil out of the whale blubber. And before returning the furness would be broken up and thrown overboard to reduce weight. The sailors, and particularly the captain, would return rich men. It was after all the oil business of its day. And for food, for all those years, they would regularly pop back to Galápagos Islands to restock. They discovered that giant tortoises could be stacked 10-high on the whaling ship and stay alive for months like that, so giving fresh meat to the crew. Can you image, poor things.
Now that we’ve eaten all our recent catches (like fish every night!) we decide to put the line out again with the lure designed for mahi-mahi. No bites for an hour or two, then a gentle buzzzzz on from the reel apparently indicating a relatively small fish. But as soon as I start reeling it in, it turns into a fighting monster like I’ve never had on the line before. It took me a full 1/2 hour to reel it in, and constantly thinking the line will break at any moment.
By the time it was next to the boat both the fish and me were worn out. It clearly wasn’t a mahi-mahi, no golden yellow colour. Instead, we see a long silver body and vivid blue top. Then we spot the characteristic pointed nose and sail-fin all the way along its back. It’s a beautiful sailfish! A first for us.
Usually, I manage to hoist the fish on deck with rod and line, but not this one. For the first time we have to get out the gaff (sharp pointed hook on a pole) to lift it out.
Once on deck we marvel at the fish’s beauty. The sailfish are reputed to be the fastest swimming fish in the sea. Hence a prized in game fishing. And we can see why. It’s tail and blue-silver body are clearly built for performance. No prey can outrun it. We identify its specific type as a longbill spear fish and quickly Google if it’s any good for eating. Apparently, it’s a very fishy fish but cooked correctly with some taste killing sauce or marinade, it’s quite palatable. Some Asian cultures also eat it as sashimi. As I dress two big fillet steaks from it, Oana and I do have a nibble at the raw flesh. Hmmm, yes, actually pretty good!
As we’ve had fish for lunch for the last 3 days the steaks go in the fridge for tomorrow, and what’s left of Mr. Sailfish goes back in sea for some of its prey to have a revengeful feast!
That’s the highlights from the good-ship Cloudy Bay for today. Unlike most perceptions, it’s actually a rare day at sea when there is nothing worth reporting on.
