Having safely passed it, though, Elaine decided to wake Roy slightly earlier than the start of his and Paul’s watch because another vessel was sitting in front of us, across our course line and she was concerned that we couldn’t see its lights either.
Once Roy was on deck, we switched on the steaming light to illuminate our sails and continued on our course. Soon thereafter Roy experienced the same situation as Elaine and Justine had, only this time the suspicions vessel moved to our starboard side and was less than half a nautical mile from us, without a single navigation light visible.
Having experienced this situation in the South Pacific, we realised we had inadvertently sailed into an illegal Chinese fishing fleet, only we didn’t realise just how large it was at the time until after Roy was left on watch with Paul.
Hearing the engines starting, then footsteps on deck as the preventer was removed and the mainsail centred to provide greater manoeuvrability, it became apparent that something else had materialised. Back up to check that Roy didn’t need Elaine’s help, she was informed that the fleet continued for miles and that the best course of action was to change course and head due south to get out of the area entirely.
A short time later, after hearing sails being set again and the engines turned off, Roy had forgotten to fold the propellers, creating the usual whining noise and forcing Elaine back up on deck one more time to ask him to fold them. By now, however, it was long passed the end of Elaine’s watch and she hadn’t slept a wink. It didn’t help matters that she had taken her methotrexate medication and only had one and a half hours left to try get some sleep before she was due back on watch with Justine.
When Elaine surfaced at around 0700, two hours passed her scheduled watch time, she found the wind had died, the headsail had been furled, the mainsail had been centred, the starboard engine was on and Justine was sitting at the navigation station, followed shortly by Roy popping out of his cabin, where he had taken a nap to stave off the sleep deprivation; Justine had essentially successfully completed two hours of a watch on her own, with Roy checking on her from time to time. They had decided to let Elaine sleep rather than wake her, a gesture so very much appreciated, especially being a methotrexate day.
With the wind starting to kick back in, although light, and a swell coming from three different directions, Elaine and Roy then spent the next hour trying to come up with a sail configuration that would allow us to sail and sail with the most comfort relative to the different swells; first the main was to port and the headsail to starboard, then both sails were switched, then the headsail was put on the same side as the main to try sail on a broad reach rather than wing-on-wing , all essentially unsuccessful without the option of a first reef in the mainsail and the fact that we’d decided a while back, for safety reasons, not to put the chicken chute up again, following the consequences that had materialised when we’d first hoisted it, including the risk of injury.
That meant the first reef had to be fixed, but definitely not under the best conditions in very lumpy seas. Fortunately Roy managed to get it fixed, but not before the lazyjack was released inadvertently, dropping the back end of the mainsail onto the cockpit roof and damaging the wiring on two of the solar panels. However, after rectifying the mishap and having the first reefing line functional again, the sails were set wing-on-wing and we’ve been sailing since, although we now have two solar panels to fix. Oh the joys!
Roy’s other duties of the day included running the generator and the watermaker before he returned to bed for some much needed sleep and Justine decided to explore the other side of the cockpit, leaving Elaine on watch with two able helpers for the remainder of the morning.
Soon after Roy surfaced around noon, Paul hooked a fish; a mahi mahi. So, leaving Justine to keep watch and the boys to deal with the fish, Elaine headed to bed, but couldn’t sleep at all, instead accepting that a rest was better than nothing. When she decided to get up around 1500, she found Roy filleting the fish to make ceviche and received the news that, although it was her turn, Paul would be cooking dinner instead, another gesture she was extremely grateful for. At the same time, since everyone was up and about, Captain Roy took the opportunity to reiterate the safety rules onboard, particularly the use of lifejackets and not going forward under any circumstances unless requested to do so by him, all of which were being flaunted. He was clearly looking to avoid a mutiny. In addition, he explained that no other sails would be used for the remainder of the passage for safety reasons, the consequences of which could be a possible impact on our arrival time or more motoring, but hopefully not.
On the upside Paw Paw had been sailing comfortably in anything from 10-15 Kts of wind, at times reaching 18 Kts out of the northeast to east-northeast since 1100 this morning, giving us an average SOG (Speed Over Ground) of 6.6 Kts, a far cry from the 3.5 Kts earlier in the day. Additional, we only had 77NM to go until we reached the halfway mark and we’d enjoyed Captain’s music hour again accompanied by a delicious dinner, thanks to Paul, with help from Justine. A team effort had got us through a rather strained day.
