LAT 15 04.2N
LONG 095 48.5W
DTF 1029
ETA 7 May 12
COG 115
SOG 8
WEATHER WIND 270@10kts, Sea Slight, Swell Variable, Cloud 1/8, Baro 1007
Gold Coast Australia’s day began with a fantastic feeding frenzy display of big fish v’s bigger fish. Sharks rounded up a large school of fish and attacked them with vigor as the school of fish jumped, darted, and swam away from their preditors. It was a facinating display of natures pecking orders.
The wind picked up beautifully throughout the day as we raced down wind with out medium weight spinnaker up. Assisted by up to three knots of current at times gave us some fantastic speed over ground towards Panama as we gradually lost De Lage Landen over the horizon and were once again alone on the ocean.
A beautiful sunset took most of the wind away, but the current remains and helps us drive our apparent wind to maintain our boatspeed. Just after watch change a strange sound in our wake attracted our attention and it was not long before I realised that we had snagged a fishing apparatus called a long line. Long lines can be hundreds of metres long and float on the surface with large baited hooks left to drift through the ocean catching sharks, big fish and unfortunately sometimes birds as well. All hands on deck was called to drop the spinnaker and try to deal with the line now trailing behind, and after trying to untangle it from the boat we found that there was no option but to cut the line and re-join it so it did not drift aimlessly around the ocean. The entire process took almost an hour and cost us valuable time. It seems amazing that we have travelled so far around the world, and through so many fishing grounds in Asia and this is only the second line we have caught. We managed to get away this time, but the fish, shark and birds may not be so lucky.