Wednesday, July 02, 2008

July 1, 2008 - Darwin Dash, Day 4

This morning we shook both reefs out of the main sail, dislodging our extra crew member "Stinky McStink." Once shaken from his hiding place, Stinky tried to hitch a ride on top of the bimini, but we weren't having any of that. So off he went, into the deep. After lunch Sten was cleaning up the cockpit. He was sorting through the various detritus that gathers in the pockets on the inside of the dodger - candy wrappers, chip bags, old plastic bags, clothes pins - when he came across another flying fish. This one was much smaller than Stinky, and completely desiccated. He must have been in there since our run from New Zealand. No wonder we've been a fly magnet for the past six weeks! The big news of the day is that we caught a lunch sized yellow fin tuna - one of our favorite sushi fish. It has been 13 months since the last time we landed one, just as we were leaving the Galapagos.

We rolled along in light air for the rest of the day, averaging between 5.5 and 6 knots. At 8pm tonight, we still had 800 miles to go to the Great Barrier Reef and another 1000 or so from there to Darwin. At this rate, this is going to be a very long passage. We're hoping for more wind tomorrow.

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