Day 6: 14 November 2016

We were treated to very mellow, but very steady trade winds today. We had about 12 knots of wind from the East with almost no variation in speed or direction. Again, we did not touch the sails or autopilot for most of the day. The waves were small, but there was still some swell that caused the boat to roll, so we had to hold on tight most of the day when walking around or when cooking.

We started fishing today, but we didn’t catch anything. That is not entirely true; we caught several flying fish on deck each night. One fish landed in the cockpit during the night when Robyn was on watch. Unfortunately, by the time we find the fish in the morning, they are dead (well dehydrated).

We often marvel at the very low chances that a fish would get stuck on the boat. Out of the entire ocean for flying, it would have to have the very bad fortune to fly in the vicinity of our boat. Beyond that, it would need to jump high enough to clear the decks. Even beyond that, it would need to aim so carefully as to fit in the narrow gaps between the child netting surrounding the decks. Angela even wrote a story about the experience of an unlucky fish during our Pacific crossing in 2003. A diligent blog reader might be able to find that story on the Pacific Crossing section of our former blog on http://www.ourdotcom.com.

So, with these unlikely chances in mind, one flying fish last night had even worse luck. He had the misfortune to fly in the vicinity of the boat, clear the decks *and* clear the child netting. He somehow landed in the very narrow area of a section of the bow locker that always contains about one inch of seawater. This is analogous to scoring a random basket in the middle of the ocean. The poor fish must have thought “wow, I cleared the lifelines to hit the boat, but somehow I landed back in the sea”… only to find out that it was nearly impossible for him to jump out of the bow locker back into the sea. Unfortunately, by the time we found this fish, it too, had perished.

We used the opportunity of the delightful conditions to, of course, cook more good food, and do several activities with the kids. The menu consisted of Laridae’s Famous Veggie Chilli with homemade cornbread. The kids made cool bracelets from a kit that Robyn brought. We spent hours playing the game Memory with pairs of cards of flags from various countries. They also started rehearsing for a performance that we will record based on the Hamilton musical. If you know the Siegel kids, you will know that they love performances! If there was to be a soundtrack from this trip, it would most certainly be Hamilton!

The lighter winds contributed to a slower day, but we still managed to log a daily run of 136 miles in the direction of Barbados.