TransAtlantic Day3: Champagne Sailing and Squiddy Redemption

Today’s weather has been ideal and idyllic. A gentle 16 -19 knots easing in over our stern quarter with very low seas, sunshine warming my pale chicken legs, and sails set on the poles and preventers so my job is simply to enjoy the ride. Nice.

As we warmed ourselves on the aft deck in the sun, sharing a glass of white wine, we understood why they call this Champagne sailing. I know, we should all be on dry boats for passage, so I guess what we had was “white not-wine”, wink wink, nudge nudge, say no more!

The entire moment was made that much sweeter because we had successfully replaced the Tri-Light switch just this morning, through the bathroom ceiling. Somehow, and this remains a complete mystery to me, it happened without either discovering or causing three more problems that couldn’t possibly be fixed in where-ever-you-are for another two weeks.

Sailors know this is a minor miracle. Hallelujah!

And now that we had a functional red/green/white light on top, passing ships would be only slightly less likely to bash into us in the night.

Enjoying our accomplishments of the day over our theoretical glass of not-wine, the fishing reel started whizzing. “Fish On!”

Ironically I had just been talking bad about my lure. She was a little green squiddy with a couple of silver strands in her skirt. I wasn’t a fan of the extra bling in the skirt, you know, as if she were just trying too hard.

It’s like when your teenage daughter wants to go the mall with some troglodyte name Fred or whatever, and you look at her outfit and say, oh no [head waggling side to side], you are SO not going out in public sporting that little ensemble, Missy.

But greenie went in anyway, and had been out all day long and most of the day before, all with zero results. Nothing. Nada. Zilch.

So sure, I was grumpy and trash talking about her over not-wine on the aft deck.

“Nary a nibble? Like, what’s she doing out there? What a lame lure! I’m so benching this poor excuse for a squiddy if she doesn’t just do her job, okay?”

And then as if she heard me, and to validate her fishy come-hither prowess, the reel zinged, leaving me with a lovely Mahi on the other end.

Of course there were mea culpas. Thank you for landing this awesome Mahi, sweet greenie. I didn’t mean it. You’re a great lure! Nice skirt, too.

I pulled the fish in as Dottie brought out the Vodka, which does not deduct points from our “dry boat” because you have to pour a dram in their gills to help ease their passing, and a dram for the fisherman because, well, it’s out anyway.

Although not as a punishment, I did give Greenie a breather on the bench after pulling in the Mahi. She was replaced by an absurdly large pink squiddy with what looks like a butcher’s meat hook dangling within her sexy pink tentacles. I was told by the oh so earnest man in Las Palmas that this lure would score me the tuna of my dreams.

Really? Hm, okay then I guess I can go ahead and plan the meal then. Mahi tonight, sushi tomorrow! Go Pinky Go!

I do realize that this is pure cockiness. Hubris sailing on endorphin seas. Greenie brings me one medium-sized Mahi and now I’m going after Moby Tuna? And any tuna that takes a hook that size … well we’ll just see how this goes.

Tales of a Galley Slave

What was going to be sausages, roasted baby red potatoes, with blistered tomatoes over lemon curried yogurt. But after greenie’s very productive day, obviously the sausages would just have to wait for breakfast.

Amari is fully inflicted with Mahi madness and we’re all just so torqued to get this lovely fish on the table. The preparation of the fish must be minimal, so I very simply seared it quickly it in a pan. I want the fresh flavor of the meat to speak for itself. And I’m definitely looking forward to what it has to say.

The blistered cherry tomatoes with the lemon yogurt sauce is a staple now, and turned out to be spot-on perfect for the fish as well.

Yum!