On the Nose Again

Day 13 of the Return Trip

Our pleasure cruise could only last for so long. We had to wake up from that dream yesterday, when the wind swung around and put us on a beat with

25-30 knots from the South-East. It's bumpy, cold, wet and uncomfortable...

HOWEVER,

Being the unflappable optimists that we are, we are not going to discuss this. There have been far more positively memorable happenings in the last little while. So in stead, today, the readers of this blog are going to be treated to Ricardo's recount of the brighter side of Day 13:

"

A wake up to remember

Day 13 mostly just ambled by, slowly the perfect wind of the previous few days swung around and as evening approached we were on a gentle beat.

As with most nights I was taking a pre-night watch nap, resting up to recharge for the evening ahead. Suddenly a very stern shout came from Dave, "Ric!"

This time I was in trouble, I jumped out of bed as quick as possible and my mind raced through the endless possibilities of what was wrong...

I popped my head out the companionway and my eyes immediately fell upon a white-gold tower shooting high into the night sky, as it arced round to the north the immense white glow bloomed into all the colours of the rainbow!

Whoah man, instant euphoria, we could not believe our eyes mother nature had treated us to one of the most rare occurrences in the natural world, a WHITE

(NIGHT) RAINBOW, the moon was full and perfect in the east, the ice-crystals above us refracting in all their glory and the clouds to the west provided the canvass for this beautiful artwork.

The evening went by and non of us could get over what we had seen, spirits on the boat were high as the wind picked up and the gentle beating turned to bouncing around while we made our way to Tristan.

When waking Dave up for the sunrise watch, we were all quick to remind him and Raf to put out the lures. The ocean was consumed by the warm yellows of sunrise when Raf looked back and saw the small hand line going crazy with a big silver splash at the end, "Oke, there is definitely a fish on the small hand line..." Immediately Dave sprung to action and started reeling in our catch a great little 3-4kg tuna. While letting the line back in the water, boom another bite another tuna, this one got half way to the boat before jumping free, but no worries because just as soon as one let go another went for the bait. The early morning kept Dave busy pulling in tuna after tuna, we kept 2 and released what we weren't going to eat.

For lunch we pulled out the soy sauce and wasabi and called upon Dave's sushi chef skills and dinned on the freshest sashimi you could ever ask for. Later in the evening it was my turn to cook the remaining tuna, to be honest I was at a bit of a loss - I haven't really cooked much fresh fish - so I did what any person with a Portuguese Mom would do. I asked myself "What would Mom do?" A pan, olive oil, freshly chopped garlic, a little bit of this a little bit of that and done - delicious pan fried tuna fillets for dinner. We even got Gina to eat a little.

We are now carrying on towards Tristan and wishing you all a very happy Easter.

Love to all

Ric.