In paradise, that is.

Position: 10 degress, 18 minutes North; 117 degrees, 14 minutes West

Came on the morning watch just before sunrise and as the sun came up on one side of Charisma, the moon was on the other and a pod of a dozen or so dolphins came over to play. Pretty nice way to start the day, watching dolphins speed under the bow and leap out of the water on the other side with the sun just peeking up over the horizon.

Mostly today was more of the same trade wind sailing. Make 145 miles in the last 24 hours. A solid 15 knots of wind, 6 foot seas and blue, blue water. The only frustrating aspect is lack of fish. I’m going through all my lures but so far no luck. There’s flying fish all over the place (including on the deck in the mornings), but we’re not catching. I even saw a Mahi chase a flying fish through the air, so I know they are out here. I did get a “hit” of sorts this morning just after sunrise. I was lowering the hand-line lure into the water (I’m using a cedar plug on the hand-line and a succession of squid-like lures on the pole off the other side of the boat) off the stern and to my shock and surprise something very large hit it. Big commotion in the water, twice, but it didn’t take the hook. I’ll be more alert tomorrow to the fact that something might be lurking down there following us. I was actually worried because I didn’t have any gloves on, not thinking there would actually be a fish following us. I wouldn’t have been able to hang on without doing some serious damage to my hands.

That’s about it for today. We’re into our second week now and are about done with most of the fresh veggies. There’re still a couple papayas, apples, oranges and limes, but stuff like green beans, broccoli, etc has been consumed. Now it’s on to the root vegetables (potatoes, carrots, jicama, yams) a few last tomatoes and the cabbages. After that, it’s down to the canned veggies unless we get to the islands first.

I almost forgot, today we launched the first Charisma Oceanographic Duck. Through the use of this advanced technology we’ll be able to chart the world’s ocean currents and maybe even discover new people. What is it, how does it work (you may be asking)? Well, at the West Marine party in San Diego we caught four rubber duckies that they throw into the crowd. These four duckies are now our primary research vehicles. I have written the url of our blog on each and numbered it. As we toss them over the side at intervals along the way, I’m charting the Lat/Lon of the point of deployment. When someone finds one (New Guinea tribesmen maybe? You never know!) they will log on to our research site and note the number of the duckie and the location of discovery. We’ll then have detailed proprietary data of the ocean currents and possibly a new market for our booby guano aphrodisiac product. By the way, we need a catchy name for the guano/aphrodisiac stuff. Any ideas would be much appreciated and the reward is indeed worth the effort.

And a final note to Camanoe Dave; We found some cheddar cheese in the fridge and made quesadillas! Yum!