Day 27 – It wasn’t kelp!

The day dawned without a cloud in the sky. At sunrise we sighted a large pod of small whales – or were they dolphins? After consultation with Ash, our resident marine biologist, he declared with 100 percent confidence that he wasn’t sure. So we scientifically named them “whalphins” We were satisfied with that.

By 1100 the wind had stirred to a NW 11 knots and we pulled the spinnaker out of the bag and successfully hoisted her without any of our usual antics. We sailed with the spinnaker for the entire afternoon, but the wind did not cooperate and settled at about 8 knots so we made slower progress than we had anticipated.

As our sailing skills were so finely tuned, we decided that we could multitask and set the fishing lines, and sat back to discuss the technicalities of sail trim. Just as we were considering dropping the spinnaker for the day , the fishing line started twitching and within seconds Freddie had the rod in his hand and started to quietly reel the line in, anxious that kelp was again ‘catch of the day’. To his relief he pulled a beautiful dorado on board, which he promptly named Daphne and the crew buried the bully beef for another evening meal.

The dorado fish curry made by Uwe was delicious and to end off a good day Sean and Pat were adamant that they witnessed the elusive ‘green flash’ as the sun dipped below the horizon.