How's Yer Willy? (Part Eight): It is far too long since I had a proper tug on my tackle

Thoughts On a Night Watch


March 28


My watch tonight is 3 am to 6 am. Personally, I like it. I get to see the dawn. The moon has set by 3am presently so it is very dark with brilliant stars. When you look up on our left hand side, it looks as though some very thin clouds are obscuring the sky. Then you realise that they are not clouds and that you are looking at the Milky Way. Literally billions of other stars just like our sun that make up the galaxy we live in. I have an app on my phone that helps you find planets and stars. One of the things you can see is Andromeda. Andromeda, is the closest other galaxy to us and can be seen by the naked eye. It is as big as our Milky Way by itself and there are billions of other galaxies out there also. When you think about that, it makes our little planet seem special. Just like this boat is special to me right now.The full moon nights are something else I am looking forward to.

Everyone else is fast asleep so the boat is very quiet and dark. We are in the doldrums so there is not much wind. The waves are making a sort of sloshing gurgling noise and the previous watch keeper reported hearing dolphins playing around the boat. We still have hundreds of miles to go in any direction to reach land. I have been listening to my i-phone music. I tend to make different choices and experiment. Guggenheim is still right up there Trevor and , sorry Chris and St John, so is Leonard Cohen. However, a few others are starting to make the list. The Snowman wouldn’t seem to fit the temperature but all the flying about in the sky fits well with the vista of the stars. David Bowie’s Space Oddity and Starman are also two that I don’t seem to tire of. It may be though, that the best music is the stuff that goes on in your head when you just sit still, look, listen and try to take it all in. The picture doesn’t do justice to the sunrise, but you get the idea.

It is the same day and I have just finished my 5 to 9 pm stint. It has been a fairly happy boat all round today. I wangled a fried breakfast. With all the rocking about it is not possible to weigh myself accurately, even though there are scales aboard. I have been estimating the erosion of my one pack by which belt hole I have been using. Things are headed in the right direction, I think, and on that topic my sunburn has been getting better. We were much better at putting up all the various poles and sails today. We still made a few goofs although nothing serious. The generator and the water maker both worked as advertised and our water reserve is back up to around 800 litres from 580. For some reason, I have been appointed as the water minister and water police. My big idea, which has actually worked, was simply to do the first pass at the washing up in sea water and just rinse with fresh. Water consumption is probably down to a total of about 25 litres a day from 70. I dread to think how much we use at home by comparison. Living on a boat is a fairly ‘green’ affair.
On the downside there are two issues. We have been going for 6 days now since leaving the Las Perlas islands. We made great progress at first but we are now firmly in the grip of the doldrums. We have about another 250 miles to run to our anchorage in the Galapagos. In decent wind that is two days at an average of 5 knots. Today we have spent long hours coaxing the boat along at 1 or 2 knots. At that speed 250 miles could take another 5 to 10 days. We don’t want to motor because the fuel in the Galapagos is both expensive and of dubious quality which could lead to engine and generator issues further down the line. Patience is a virtue. On that topic, fishing has not been going well. It is far too long since I had a proper tug on my tackle. I noticed a small fish called a ballyhoo today right beside the boat. It jumped out of the water twice and as it entered again there was a big splash and no more ballyhoo. It had been trying to escape a predator but didn’t make it. The fish are there but I think we are not trolling our lures fast enough to fool them. Anyhow, tomorrow is another day but. Are just about out of red snapper and I want something fresh to have a Sushi party as we cross the Equator.

More later…

It All Started Out Perfectly Normally...


March 30

As a team we are settling down and beginning to ‘norm’ in the framework of ‘forming, norming and storming’. As minister for communications and water, I have introduced the concept of an ‘aggravation meter’ . This has been remarkably well received. Aggravation on a boat is the ‘dead elephant in the room’. It lies there festering until, after a while, it erupts. In a small place, it can be unpleasant. We are relatively aggravation free, especially now that I have dealt with the ‘snoring police’. My snoring is now talked about affectionately in some quarters. ‘Careful now with the aggravation meter’ has been heard on occasion , with a corresponding decrease in tension. 

I did the 6 to 9 shift this morning and commenced fishing operations early with much futile expectation. In desperation I dug out Jeremy’s lure he brought me safely from its own personal circumnavigation. It consists of an imitation squid being chased by an imitation fish. You can get the idea from the picture.

It might not look out of place on a Christmas tree and it would probably catch as many fish there. Whilst I was drowning his lure, I decided to rig my biggest brightest squid imitation. Being as though there isn’t much to do on a boat in the doldrums , this attracted quite a crowd and various comments on my dexterity and general technical ability in this department. I burst the bubble by explaining that I had learnt it all on You Tube a week or two before I left. There was much, ‘small but perfectly formed’, stainless steel shackle envy. They don’t have any as small as mine on the boat but they come in useful. One of mine has already been purloined to repair something on the dinghy. Anyhow, feeling generous, I donated the said lure to the owner’s wife who insists on fishing with a cut up washing up glove called ‘ Marigold’. Unfortunately,bloody Marigold has outfished all my expensive hi tech lures with a trolling score of 1 – 0 to date. Hence my secret desire to level the playing field. Owner’s wife is suspicious, but having accepted my newly christened offering called ‘Daffoldil’ she felt obliged to give it a go. Result. The opposition’s main striker was off the field for most of the afternoon. Enjoy the rest Marigold.

By this time the sun was above the yard arm and cold beer was summoned with a few freshly made drop scones plus canned cherries ( for my gout ) for lunch. It is pretty sweaty here in the doldrums and my German crew mate ( he is the hygiene minister) was commenting on my slightly smelly travel towel. The water minister has taken it as a serious duty to set an example to the hygiene minister on general conservation of water by not washing much and drying sweat off with said towel. In fairness, the towel was a bit off. Anyhow, feeling industrious, I set about doing some hand washing. You get a bucket, fill it with sea water chuck in some powder and either dance on it ,if the bucket is big enough ,or pound it with a stick. I think it is something they used to do in the old days but has died out now. Then you give it several rinses in more sea water before a final rinse in precious fresh water. Towards the end of this process, I came over all funny. My lips became hugely swollen to the point it was difficult to speak and then I broke out in unbelievably itchy hives all over my body. I was allergic to the washing powder. I knew there was a reason I avoided that department at home and this was clearly why. I took 4 antihistamine , had a shower and lay down and am pleased to say that I am now back to normal. Tomorrow, I am going to put the clothes I washed into a net and tow them behind the boat to get rid of any residue before a final rinse and a new fragrant me.

I am sailing the boat as I write this. She is being nursed along at a sprightly 4.7 knots in just 9 knots of wind, in the pitch dark broken by a beautiful moon. We will cross the equator tomorrow with wind and luck and Galapagos by Sunday or Monday.

More later …..

Big red snapper

Moving On Through the Las Perlas Islands


April 2

We are on the move again. If you want to track our current position you can find an updated position if you go to www.pangolin.nz . When you get to that page look on the left hand side for a button that says, ‘ Reporting Boats’ . Click on that and scroll down to EIJJ4. Then click on the link on the right of EIJJ4. That should take you to our current position.

Speaking of current position, I have included a picture of my bunk which is surrounded by onions that attack me in the night when I get up in the dark to find the head.( The head is the toilet for the non-nautical amongst us.) Every time I bounce off them a little shower of onion flakes descends into my bed. Everything has an upside so I am hoping that smelling like an onion will keep the mosquitoes off me.

My bed

The one key item of equipment that we have yet to check out is the water maker which magically turns sea water into fresh water. We havn’t checked it yet because the water around Panama is too polluted. We will check it when we are about 100 miles offshore. We carry about 1000 litres of fresh water in a large tank but we are using 70 litres per day and are currently down to 700 litres. It could take about 10 more days to get to the Galapagos so we need the water maker to work to supplement our supplies. There is a move to cut down usage.

We left Isla Contadora today and sailed to Isla Canas. It was about a 25 mile day sail with light following winds. On the way we virtually stopped to pole out the genoa. One of the fishing lines was out about 100 meters behind the boat and we suspect that the lure sank virtually to the bottom which was only about 100 feet deep where we were. As we started up again, I suspect that the lure came up off the bottom and the biggest and best Red Snapper I have ever seen grabbed it. I think we were pretty lucky and it really was a fish of a lifetime. It was not my lure so I am 0-1 in the marigold glove versus hi tech fishing lures competition.

They are not called Red Snappers for nothing because as I was in the process of cleaning and filleting him, he snapped me, putting his teeth clean through my thumbnail and the fleshy part of the other side of my thumb. I had the last say, as the Sushi in the picture below where my thumb is bandaged in yellow was made with tasty red snapper as was our fish dinner tonight.