LTY UPDATE: Saturday, October 6th, 2012
Day #8 of passage from Vanuatu to Marshall Islands LTY time: 17:00 (Marshall Islands time = UTC +12)
Location: 940nm NNE of Luganville, Espiritu Santo Island, Vanuatu
Distance to go Majuro: about 505nm
Position: 00 49.259 S, 171 08.006 E (you can cut & past this into Google Earth to see on map)
SOG: 6.4 kts (under sail) (SOG = Speed over Ground)
COG: 010 degrees (COG = Course over Ground)
Wind: 15kts out of SE
Seas/Swell: 2.5m @ 6 seconds SE
Weather: Mostly clear skies, small scattered cloud, not more storm clouds in sight
Air temp: 92 F 33C
Sea temp: 96 F 36 C
Barometer: 1017nm RAINBOWS & TUNA As I commented previously, IMHO everything in life is relative and that means that we can only appreciate and know as much of the positive as we have of the negative. I think about it as plotting it out on a XY graph or oscilloscope screen for happiness and joy, and it seems to me that the number on the positive axis can only be as high as the number on the negative axis. Just one of my many weird thoughts and images. My point here being that thanks to having spent the past few days having to mostly motor through the dark and stormy SPCZ (South Pacific Convergence Zone) I was able to experience that frisson of joy when this morning the sun came up and treated me to a double rainbow and proceeded to burn off the rim of clouds around all horizons and overhead. By 8am it was a beautiful sunny day and I was enjoying it to the max. The only thing missing was wind! There had not been a breath of wind since we passed through the last storm cell in the wee hours this morning and so I was still having to motor rather than sail. Learnativity is purpose built for this though and so we were making great progress and able to point due north on a direct course to Majuro at about 6.4 knots. I’ll explain the details behind the title of today’s post in a pieces. Last night I as I would go out on deck to scan the horizon for the lights of any ships and to see the cloud and storm patterns around me I started to pick out the very faint glow of light coming off two spots down to the south west of me. These were just over the horizon and showed up as very faint light refracting off the cloud cover. This light was extremely faint and the kind that you can only see by NOT looking at it. I suspect most of you know what I’m talking about and I’ve long been fascinated by this phenomena that results from the way our eyes are constructed. As I understand it we have a “blind spot” right at the very spot where the light falls from whatever we are looking directly at because this is where the optic nerve is attached. We don’t normally noticed this because we have two eyes with a distance between them so we see a slightly different portions through each eye and most of all because we move our head and eyes rather constantly and our brains run all this data through our phenomenal simulation software to create the model of what we think we are seeing. I most often point this out to people as we are looking up at the starry starry night and you notice that if you pay attention to what is just off center of a star you are looking directly at you will see a LOT of other stars and that whole hazy light filled area of galaxies. If you’ve not tried this, check it out tonight or next time you can get a good view of a clear night sky. Ooops! I’ve been off riding my favorite horse “Tangent” haven’t I?! OK, meanwhile back on Learnativity last night I was using this same optical phenomena as I always do to scan the far night horizons. By “watching” what I’m seeing off to the side rather than what I’m looking directly at, I am able to catch very small faint bits of light and that’s how I picked up on these two faint bits of light radiating upward off to the SW. I knew that I am a LONG ways from any form of land so this could not be from an island, plus out here most islands don’t even have electricity or if they do it is a small generator they run for a few hours each day so they are hardly throwing up any amount of big lights into the sky! Had to be from a large ship, most likely part of the big tuna fishing fleet that is based out of Majuro. Couldn’t see them on radar yet of course because they were below the horizon, but eventually they did pop up over the horizon and I could then just make out the bright lights of these huge tuna (and other) net boats. If you go back and look at some of the photos from when I was in Majuro the first time back in Oct 2010 through May 2011 you will see some pictures of these boats when I had the opportunity to go onboard for a full tour. So I kept an eye on these all through the night and must have passed about six of them all together. This is surprisingly unusual from my sailing experience for the past five years as I’ve probably seen less than ten boats in that whole time other than when I get near a big port or marina. Mostly of course this is due to the fact that I’m taking the routes less travelled both by other cruisers and way off any commercial shipping or trade routes. The last one was early this morning just at sun rise and was quite spectacular and another part of today’s title. As I mentioned at the outset here, Mother Nature and Mr. Sun treated me to a double rainbow this morning as the sun was just starting his journey out of the watery eastern horizon. What I didn’t mention was that as I was out on deck enjoying that great sight one of these large tuna boats was heading south and was only about 4nm away from me. This one was gleaming white and the sun was like a spot light and all the booms and extensions bristling off the tuna boat were lit up like a sparkler on a birthday cake as it proceeded to pass right through the ends of both rainbows! It was a vision to behold and much better than any pot of gold for me! After taking it all in I did go get the camera and took a shot but not sure how well it will turn out. I’ll post it up on the LTY blog when I get to Majuro and have some bandwidth. After that great start to my day, it all continued to go well as I revelled in feeling the sun on my skin and all that Vitamin D and serotonin flowing through me. However still no wind to caress my skin and sails, literally not a breath. Not to worry, we motored merrily along in the still big seas which were running up to three meters out of the SE now. Then all of a sudden Mum Nature switched on the fan and we instantly had 15 knots of wind out of the SE. PERFECT! I had the main sail and genoa up in record time, once again enjoyed the felicity of the moment when you kill the diesel engines and are plunged into the serene sounds of sea and sails, and we are off like a rocket doing over six knots. Now that the wind was finally back to coming out of the SE I was able to maintain just the heading I wanted to aim for Majuro and we’ve been making great time all day. The final part of what’s behind today’s title is that I finally put a lure in the water to see if there were any tuna out there that the big nets missed. Sure enough a few hours later I heard that zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz as the line peeled off the fishing reel. I let it run for a bit and was just about to put on some tension when it stopped and he was gone. I guess he was just taste testing my lure. About an hour later it happened again, this time I got to start reeling him in but again it soon stopped and he was gone. Oh well, I’m not dependent upon fish to eat as I’ve got a well-stocked freezer, but still …….. So Left the rod out and went back to reading, making notes and tending to boat work. Time for my afternoon shower and you guessed it, just as I was all lathered up out on the aft deck zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr went the rod and this guy was off to the races! Well, no time to rinse off, need to tend to this fish first so you can picture the scene; Learnativity sailing along full tilt, heeled over nicely in the 18 knot wind with me standing out on the aft deck on this glorious sunny day, wearing nothing but a whole lot of soap and shampoo and busy reeling in this fish. No, I do NOT have a picture of that, lucky you! He didn’t fight too much and I feel a bit bad for these guys as they end up just kind of planning the surface as I reel them in. Occasionally they manage to duck under the surface and try to make a run, but with the boat doing almost seven knots and me reeling them in, they end up on their side skipping over the surface of the water like a skim board. Not much fun when this is all happening with a big hook in your mouth I’m sure! So I get him up to the side of the boat and sure enough it is a beautiful blue tuna and as I bring him up out of the water the sun which is now low in the western sky hits him and just radiates the most wonderful rainbow spectrum of colours off his scales. Almost too beautiful to keep, but not quite as he was just the perfect size for me, about 50cm/20 inches. Tuna are quite different shape than most other fish it seems to me and have that thick barrel shape with a quadrant type of bone structure so there is a LOT of meat per inch. The challenge I usually have with fishing out here is that I catch fish that are too big for me to eat so I often have to let them go as I don’t want to waste too much. Even with the ability to freeze them, one this size creates at least eight to ten very full meals and lots of sashimi. Unfortunately I’m not much of a fisherman and so I have him hauled up out of the water just a foot or so out of the water with the reel in the rod holder so I can go grab my gaff which is on the other side (of course!) and my spritzer of alcohol to knock him out and bring him on board. I know, I know, stupid me! He of course is wriggling like mad and with his full weight no on the hook he manages to rip it out and I dash back to the rod to find that he’s gone and my lure is dangling in the wind! Drat! I was already tasting that sashimi! Oh well, I did feel pretty bad about catching such a beautiful creature and he will sure have a great story to tell his mates tonight! As you can see then, my day started and ended with rainbows of colour and tuna, hence the title of today’s post. Hope you enjoyed it! Right now the setting sun is coruscating off the swells of sea water off my port quarter and calling my name very loudly so I need to go attend to that important quotidian duty. Poor me. That’s all for tonight folks, back tomorrow with more and this time from the northern hemisphere as we will be crossing the equator in the wee hours this morning by the looks of our speed right now.
Day #8 of passage from Vanuatu to Marshall Islands LTY time: 17:00 (Marshall Islands time = UTC +12)
Location: 940nm NNE of Luganville, Espiritu Santo Island, Vanuatu
Distance to go Majuro: about 505nm
Position: 00 49.259 S, 171 08.006 E (you can cut & past this into Google Earth to see on map)
SOG: 6.4 kts (under sail) (SOG = Speed over Ground)
COG: 010 degrees (COG = Course over Ground)
Wind: 15kts out of SE
Seas/Swell: 2.5m @ 6 seconds SE
Weather: Mostly clear skies, small scattered cloud, not more storm clouds in sight
Air temp: 92 F 33C
Sea temp: 96 F 36 C
Barometer: 1017nm RAINBOWS & TUNA As I commented previously, IMHO everything in life is relative and that means that we can only appreciate and know as much of the positive as we have of the negative. I think about it as plotting it out on a XY graph or oscilloscope screen for happiness and joy, and it seems to me that the number on the positive axis can only be as high as the number on the negative axis. Just one of my many weird thoughts and images. My point here being that thanks to having spent the past few days having to mostly motor through the dark and stormy SPCZ (South Pacific Convergence Zone) I was able to experience that frisson of joy when this morning the sun came up and treated me to a double rainbow and proceeded to burn off the rim of clouds around all horizons and overhead. By 8am it was a beautiful sunny day and I was enjoying it to the max. The only thing missing was wind! There had not been a breath of wind since we passed through the last storm cell in the wee hours this morning and so I was still having to motor rather than sail. Learnativity is purpose built for this though and so we were making great progress and able to point due north on a direct course to Majuro at about 6.4 knots. I’ll explain the details behind the title of today’s post in a pieces. Last night I as I would go out on deck to scan the horizon for the lights of any ships and to see the cloud and storm patterns around me I started to pick out the very faint glow of light coming off two spots down to the south west of me. These were just over the horizon and showed up as very faint light refracting off the cloud cover. This light was extremely faint and the kind that you can only see by NOT looking at it. I suspect most of you know what I’m talking about and I’ve long been fascinated by this phenomena that results from the way our eyes are constructed. As I understand it we have a “blind spot” right at the very spot where the light falls from whatever we are looking directly at because this is where the optic nerve is attached. We don’t normally noticed this because we have two eyes with a distance between them so we see a slightly different portions through each eye and most of all because we move our head and eyes rather constantly and our brains run all this data through our phenomenal simulation software to create the model of what we think we are seeing. I most often point this out to people as we are looking up at the starry starry night and you notice that if you pay attention to what is just off center of a star you are looking directly at you will see a LOT of other stars and that whole hazy light filled area of galaxies. If you’ve not tried this, check it out tonight or next time you can get a good view of a clear night sky. Ooops! I’ve been off riding my favorite horse “Tangent” haven’t I?! OK, meanwhile back on Learnativity last night I was using this same optical phenomena as I always do to scan the far night horizons. By “watching” what I’m seeing off to the side rather than what I’m looking directly at, I am able to catch very small faint bits of light and that’s how I picked up on these two faint bits of light radiating upward off to the SW. I knew that I am a LONG ways from any form of land so this could not be from an island, plus out here most islands don’t even have electricity or if they do it is a small generator they run for a few hours each day so they are hardly throwing up any amount of big lights into the sky! Had to be from a large ship, most likely part of the big tuna fishing fleet that is based out of Majuro. Couldn’t see them on radar yet of course because they were below the horizon, but eventually they did pop up over the horizon and I could then just make out the bright lights of these huge tuna (and other) net boats. If you go back and look at some of the photos from when I was in Majuro the first time back in Oct 2010 through May 2011 you will see some pictures of these boats when I had the opportunity to go onboard for a full tour. So I kept an eye on these all through the night and must have passed about six of them all together. This is surprisingly unusual from my sailing experience for the past five years as I’ve probably seen less than ten boats in that whole time other than when I get near a big port or marina. Mostly of course this is due to the fact that I’m taking the routes less travelled both by other cruisers and way off any commercial shipping or trade routes. The last one was early this morning just at sun rise and was quite spectacular and another part of today’s title. As I mentioned at the outset here, Mother Nature and Mr. Sun treated me to a double rainbow this morning as the sun was just starting his journey out of the watery eastern horizon. What I didn’t mention was that as I was out on deck enjoying that great sight one of these large tuna boats was heading south and was only about 4nm away from me. This one was gleaming white and the sun was like a spot light and all the booms and extensions bristling off the tuna boat were lit up like a sparkler on a birthday cake as it proceeded to pass right through the ends of both rainbows! It was a vision to behold and much better than any pot of gold for me! After taking it all in I did go get the camera and took a shot but not sure how well it will turn out. I’ll post it up on the LTY blog when I get to Majuro and have some bandwidth. After that great start to my day, it all continued to go well as I revelled in feeling the sun on my skin and all that Vitamin D and serotonin flowing through me. However still no wind to caress my skin and sails, literally not a breath. Not to worry, we motored merrily along in the still big seas which were running up to three meters out of the SE now. Then all of a sudden Mum Nature switched on the fan and we instantly had 15 knots of wind out of the SE. PERFECT! I had the main sail and genoa up in record time, once again enjoyed the felicity of the moment when you kill the diesel engines and are plunged into the serene sounds of sea and sails, and we are off like a rocket doing over six knots. Now that the wind was finally back to coming out of the SE I was able to maintain just the heading I wanted to aim for Majuro and we’ve been making great time all day. The final part of what’s behind today’s title is that I finally put a lure in the water to see if there were any tuna out there that the big nets missed. Sure enough a few hours later I heard that zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz as the line peeled off the fishing reel. I let it run for a bit and was just about to put on some tension when it stopped and he was gone. I guess he was just taste testing my lure. About an hour later it happened again, this time I got to start reeling him in but again it soon stopped and he was gone. Oh well, I’m not dependent upon fish to eat as I’ve got a well-stocked freezer, but still …….. So Left the rod out and went back to reading, making notes and tending to boat work. Time for my afternoon shower and you guessed it, just as I was all lathered up out on the aft deck zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr went the rod and this guy was off to the races! Well, no time to rinse off, need to tend to this fish first so you can picture the scene; Learnativity sailing along full tilt, heeled over nicely in the 18 knot wind with me standing out on the aft deck on this glorious sunny day, wearing nothing but a whole lot of soap and shampoo and busy reeling in this fish. No, I do NOT have a picture of that, lucky you! He didn’t fight too much and I feel a bit bad for these guys as they end up just kind of planning the surface as I reel them in. Occasionally they manage to duck under the surface and try to make a run, but with the boat doing almost seven knots and me reeling them in, they end up on their side skipping over the surface of the water like a skim board. Not much fun when this is all happening with a big hook in your mouth I’m sure! So I get him up to the side of the boat and sure enough it is a beautiful blue tuna and as I bring him up out of the water the sun which is now low in the western sky hits him and just radiates the most wonderful rainbow spectrum of colours off his scales. Almost too beautiful to keep, but not quite as he was just the perfect size for me, about 50cm/20 inches. Tuna are quite different shape than most other fish it seems to me and have that thick barrel shape with a quadrant type of bone structure so there is a LOT of meat per inch. The challenge I usually have with fishing out here is that I catch fish that are too big for me to eat so I often have to let them go as I don’t want to waste too much. Even with the ability to freeze them, one this size creates at least eight to ten very full meals and lots of sashimi. Unfortunately I’m not much of a fisherman and so I have him hauled up out of the water just a foot or so out of the water with the reel in the rod holder so I can go grab my gaff which is on the other side (of course!) and my spritzer of alcohol to knock him out and bring him on board. I know, I know, stupid me! He of course is wriggling like mad and with his full weight no on the hook he manages to rip it out and I dash back to the rod to find that he’s gone and my lure is dangling in the wind! Drat! I was already tasting that sashimi! Oh well, I did feel pretty bad about catching such a beautiful creature and he will sure have a great story to tell his mates tonight! As you can see then, my day started and ended with rainbows of colour and tuna, hence the title of today’s post. Hope you enjoyed it! Right now the setting sun is coruscating off the swells of sea water off my port quarter and calling my name very loudly so I need to go attend to that important quotidian duty. Poor me. That’s all for tonight folks, back tomorrow with more and this time from the northern hemisphere as we will be crossing the equator in the wee hours this morning by the looks of our speed right now.
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