After departing Hawaii we quickly entered new territory: squall city.
For the past few days we’ve had a great, strong breeze that’s pushed us upwind toward the high and allowed us to get familiar with Sea Dragon’s sails and reefing system. The weather initially put everyone’s seasickness medicine to the test, but now that we are all on the mend the weather seems to be a bonding point. Yesterday the squalls seemed to take particular interest in Sea Dragon and we frequently found ourselves in the rain. In an attempt to appease the weather gods we started doing anti-rain dances such as the sprinkler and the wave…they didn’t seem to do the trick, and just as we were beginning to loose faith in the power of dance, Jaden yelled “Fish!”. Sure enough we had caught 2 mahi mahis! Anna and Maggie quickly brought the pair on board and filleted them after giving thanks to Neptune and the ocean. The winds eventually subsided and today we enjoyed delicious fish tacos!
There’s not too much to report right now, but hopefully we will reach the great pacific garbage patch in the next day or so and be able to trawl for plastics. Unfortunately we have already started to see an increase in the amount of large debris in the water: everything from ghost nets, to shampoo bottles and buckets. A few of the sailors onboard have more knowledge on plastic pollution in the ocean and will share a blog about what we find in the coming days.
Spirits are still high and everyone is settling into the rhythm of life at sea – lots of reading, resting, chatting, and sailing. 2 weeks until Ensenada!
-Elle