Burial at sea

We're only a couple of days away from New Caledonia and the weather still feels distinctly sub-tropical - overcast skies and chilly easterly winds. We've been making good speed under sail all day, progressively reefing as the wind has built and we're currently speeding towards New Caledonia with heavily reefed sails. So far the weather has behaved more or less as predicted prior to our departure with the exception of a low pressure area south of New Caledonia which appeared on the weather charts a couple of days ago. It looks like we could be in for unpredicted head-winds on our final day.

Charlotta appears to have conquered her sea-sickness and managed to cook the promised Janson's Temptation - delicious.

Janson's preparation

As we recovered from that Scandinavian culinary treat, the fishing line screamed out. Eventually we got the line under control and enacted a leisurely fish-drill (Revision II (c) 2005), only to loose a decent size mahimahi during a failed photo-session close to the boat. The change of lure has brought results; we're planning to feast on fish tomorrow.

Remember the small bird (fan tail?) I saw resting on the boat a couple of days ago. Today we found its final resting place, in one of the cockpit lockers. We were mending flags at the time so gave it a flag wrapped burial at sea.

Wind: E 25+knots
Distance to New Caledonia: 262
Position @ 20:05: S26°18.2' E168°46.4'