Position; 07 degrees, 52 minutes South; 136 degrees, 14 minutes West (149 NM)

Mahi!

Flip flop feet.

Our portrait at 21 days.

The GPS just ticked over to 199 nautical miles to go! That puts us in Hiva Oa around midnight tomorrow. Not wanting to go into a fairly primitive area at night, we’ll lay offshore for the night and make landfall after sunrise on Tuesday. Wow, what a trip. No doubt it will take a few days to gain perspective. We’re too close to the rocking and rolling and hanging on right now to think about it much.

Cliff, you’re “good luck fishing in the Southern Hemisphere” statement worked! The Mahi we caught yesterday broke a string of very mediocre fishing. I looked at the pictures today, and the fish was more like 4 feet long than the three feet I reported last night. Definitely a good size fish. I’ve got two big fillets marinating right now in soy, wasabi, ginger sauce. Can’t wait. Fresh fish!

Today’s been a nice windy day. Around 20 knots and 8-12 foot seas are moving us along pretty well. Last night was lots of beautiful stars for my watch. However, Ann got the squally early morning watch (0700-1100) and saw several where she had to reduce sail and close the hatches due to wind and rain. We’ve been working on her sail handling and she now can furl the jib without waking me. She really knows her way around the boat now. She does the Shortwave net call, and has her own net of friends for another social call around 1700 every day, knows the VHF, works the radar, works the GPS, can set the wind vane and adjust it as needed to change course and now can furl the jib and catch fish. Pretty soon if I’m not careful she won’t need me to run the boat and I’ll be demoted to swabbing the decks and gutting the fish. Hey….wait a minute. That’s what I did yesterday! It’s starting to happen!

Just wanted to add that the second squall included a full rainbow arching across the horizon – clearly showing us the way to Hiva Oa!!!