Maiden Mahi Mahi!

1400 AST June 2 11 2114N 6600W winds NE 12-14 knots Speed 6.4 under full sail.
In life there are moments that get burned hard into memory, and so it was today with Jim the trout-stream fisherman. The rod tweaked but the line did not zing, and so I called Jim up from belowdecks and told him I thought we might have caught some weed. He donned the fishing belt while I luffed up to slow us down. The weed was hard to reel in. Very hard. Then something was splashing on the surface...and I said we had probably snagged a piece of flotsam. Jim worked the rod and reeled in the line two feet at a time. When "it" was 100 feeet astern, Jim said "I think it's a plastic bag." and then, THEN we saw the green emerald flash. Ten minutes later we had a perfect sized Mahi Mahi in the cockpit. Twenty minutes later I had it cut and bagged it into the freezer, and Jim had the cockpit clean as a whistle. So it was ceviche for lunch, and Jim and I relished our third shares of it with cucumber, olives and LA Ceviche Secret Sauce. Then we woke up Nancy, who had slept soundly through the whole adventure! Imagine her surprise when she surfaced to find Ceviche a la LA waiting on deck for lunch! All that was fun, but the sail has been just superb: enough wind for six plus knots, gentle seas, dry decks and hatches open; some sun, and some welcome cloud to shade us. These conditions are why I call this trip from the Caribbean to Bermuda "The Milk Run". Those who are following our lat. and lon. positions will see that we are West of our direct route to Bermuda: we are throwing the dice and believing the wx forecast (silly I know) and so we have come West a bit to steer clear of the worst of the 'doldrum no wind hole' that lies in ambush out to the East of us. We will see how it works out, but so far, so good: we did 151 nm in our first 24 hours. It has been an outstanding start for Jim's maiden offshore passage. With no moon and some cloud cover last night, it was pretty dark, and Jim was surprised how fast it seemed we were dashing through the water...so we had to remind him that this is a doddle: and that if he wants real excitement we need to find him 25 knot winds, 15 foot seas, rain and pitch dark! He says he'll take this instead!
JFK with Jim and Nancy ...now aiming true North at a half-way point of 25N 66W.