of Fish and Furler

We've enjoyed more fresh fish off the hook the last couple of nights. Both times dorado. Danny has a stubby pole that travels well, a good reel, and a set of colorful lures. He installed a pole holder on the stern rail and trolls parts of most days. The excitement starts when the reel starts to sing. Everyone yells: fish on! Danny then goes into his fish fighting subroutine: set the hook, reel, pause, reel, explicative, repeat until fish netted, flopping on deck. It's a routine he executes well. Then he kills the fish, filets it, discards the detritus into the sea and hoses the deck down with the saltwater pump.

Two days ago we had ceviche with scrabble. Last nigh's catch was baked in a pesto sauce. A large fish goes pretty quickly. We lack a good quality filet knife so good meat inevitably gets discarded.

Today we have the pole out sailing downwind with moderate wind and seas that we'll probably have for days. The pole usually comes in at night but otherwise we're likely to keep this sail configuration until we arrive in Oahu. It's comfortable and the wind vane handles it well.

We had an issue a couple of days ago that for a few moments looked like it might be serious. The main sail refused to furl. While working at the mast to resolve the problem, I discovered that a spare halyard had been drawn into the furled main sail, jamming the furler with too much bulk to continue turning.

Thankfully the issue was quickly resolved by working the halyard free from the sail without sending anyone up the mast. We were so thankful it was an easy fix. Furling the main sail is pretty essential.