Position: 21 degrees, 50 minutes south; 179 degrees, 07 minutes west

I was startled awake to the shout of; “FISH ON!” coming from somewhere in my dreams. As I shook myself into semi-consciousness I was vaguely aware that I was on a boat somewhere and someone was shouting about fish. As I became more fully awake it occurred to me it was us that were about to catch a fish! OK, time to get some shoes on and get out there.

Now I’m awake and heading up the companionway where Ann, with a grin from ear to ear is pulling the handline in. “I set the hook and it’s a Mahi!” Ann takes her fish and fishing seriously. Anyway, she pulled it in and we successfully boated it. A nice but not too big Mahi. All trimmed out it made four meals for the two of us, three of which are now in the refrigerator and one of which made a great dinner. Lightly marinated in some soy sauce, seared with Lemon Pepper and a tablespoon of olive oil, then steamed in it’s own juices.

Last night we motored for a while. We haven’t started the engine in eight days, but the wind completely quit so it was either just bounce around – the waves didn’t lay down – or make some distance. We ended up motoring from about 0130 until 0630 when the wind filled in again. Except it didn’t. I hoisted the sails and we sailed for a while, then a squall hit and we shortened sail, then the wind quit and I shook out the reefs. Back and forth, back and forth. The afternoon has been pleasant though with 18-20 on a close reach with jib, stays’l and double reefed main. In SF Bay I wouldn’t have a double reef with such relatively modest wind, but out here the winds are unpredictable from moment to moment and every cloud has the potential to kick the wind suddenly up to 30 knots for 10 or 20 minutes. So, we sacrifice a little speed for a lot of comfort by leaving the two reefs in for the gusts.

We’re 300 miles out of Savusavu today. We expect landfall on Monday as long as we can keep our speed up. The forecast is fairly good, but shows some convergence zone activity on Sunday – meaning rainy and possibly squally weather. As if we haven’t had enough of that already. Oh well, it’s all part of the adventure (I guess).