Willie's Adventures Sailing and Fishing

Sad sad news today. My Dad had a heart attack and after a short time in hospital died around 11.30 UK time on Monday 23rd of April aged 93. RIP.. By the magic of satellite phone I managed a few words with him around 1000. I will miss him and remember him as he was. The attached photo captures a lot of the essence of him.

Dad. You will be sadly missed.

It is quicker to get back from the moon, than from where I am now, so I shall miss his funeral. Thanks to Sarah and the kids for representing me and thanks to the rest of the family for organising things. Dad wanted me to do this trip and enjoyed hearing what it was like when I phoned him from the satellite phone. He had a long and happy life and died relatively peacefully. We will all miss him.

We are 10 days into our passage now and still making very good time. As I write, we have 1765 of our 3055 miles left to do. The good news is that, although we are not half way by distance , we are more or less half way by time because the first couple of days did not take us towards our destination, but towards the wind that would get us to our destination. Since picking up the wind we have averaged about 175 miles per day and latest estimates get us there around 2nd or 3rd of May, which is on time with my master plan of catching a flight home on 21st June. After this big jump, all the sailing to Tahiti will be a maximum of a couple of days between stops. We are continuing now to catch fish. They have all been Mahi Mahi, so we are pretty Mahi Mahi’ ed out. Since leaving the Galapagos we have only cooked two meals that have not been fish we caught. I took a picture today of one of the flying fish we find every day. They are the most amazing of creatures. Tomorrow we will pass the half way point. I am planning to release a message in a bottle.

Launching the Message in a Bottle

As an incentive to any finder, I am putting $5 in with the message with an incentive of another $50 if the finder sends me back the original message with some extra info. For the record this is what it says: Congratulations on finding this message and enjoy your $5 as a gift from me. My name is Willie Kirkpatrick. I released this message in the Pacific Ocean halfway between the Galapagos Islands and the Marquesas Islands. You can contact me by phone on +441494 680702 or +44 7778613923, or e-mail on w.kirkpatrick549@ btinternet.com or by letter at Wilconnel House, Finch Lane, Beaconsfield, Bucks, HP 9 2 TL. Tell me , who you are, where you live, where and when you found my message and I will send you another $50. Greetings from me and I look forward to hearing from you. Willie. By the way Trevor, and all the rest of you looking for a quick $50, there is a secret mark at the bottom of the note that you will need to describe to get the $50. Sorry!

We had a rough night last night Saturday 21st. The wind picked up to 35 knots at times in rain squalls and the seas are 2.5 to 3 meter swells. The boat is fantastic however. With just a heavily reefed headsail and a tiny scrap of mizzen, we ran on a broad reach and maintained about 7.5 knots over the ground. You need to hang on and chips are off the menu. We have radar on the boat which is very useful for seeing the squalls in the dark and gives the opportunity to alter course to avoid the worst of them. My watch was 3am to 6 am and I actually spotted another ship 5 miles away which I could confirm and track by radar. Boys toys and all that. We have proper cooked breakfast on Sunday, which is settling as I write.

I have just finished a great night watch. The boat is sailing brilliantly on a beam reach at 7.5 kts, we are making great progress towards the Marquesas where we expect to arrive in the first few days of May. We currently have about 2000 miles left to run to get there. I am pleased to report that fishing operations are on the up. I was allowed to play center forward yesterday whilst Marigold was rested after her exploits of the day before. We have a surfeit of Mahi Mahi. I was feeling despondent come 6 pm. Nothing, not even any flying fish to be seen. Then, just to save the day a Mahi Mahi jumped on my line. Today, roles reversed. Marigold was launched early in the center forward position 150 meters behind the boat and I took up position in a tangle free zone about 15 meters behind the boat. Well, lo and behold, two obliging Mahi Mahi decided to attack my lure and will make an appearance in the fish curry tomorrow. Sadly, Marigold failed to attract any attention, despite poaching in the penalty box all day. There is a strong rumour that she is being retired for a younger ‘ Marigold mark 3’ version to be constructed tomorrow.

Ours was that size, too small for me to want to be in the picture

Life on the boat is currently good. Time passes without boredom, at the expense of lengthy debate. The recent one got going when I pointed out that we had made a further 15 degrees of longditude. This should mean that we have crossed a time zone and alter ship’s time by putting the clock back one hour. I had a small ulterior motive. Ship’s rules allow two cans of beer a day plus a glass of wine with dinner. This is very civilised and very welcome. A sub rule is that the first beer can’t be taken until the sun is above the yard arm, i.e. after 12 noon. By altering ship’s time, that would mean that we could legitimately argue that 1200 was the same as 1100 and have the beer at 1100. This proposal encountered what I would classify as a religious objection from one member of the crew who doesn’t drink beer and who is sometimes referred to as ‘the Admiral’. To defend this undefendable position, the Admiral pointed out that when you go on your holidays, you only alter your watch 15 minutes before you land and by that reasoning we should alter ship’s time 15 minutes before we get off in the Marquesas. I built on this suggestion by reasoning that you may as well not change ship’s time until the end of the circumnavigation and ignore the International date line into the bargain. After a minor impasse, the issue was resolved by agreeing to alter ship’s time at 1300 back to 1200, so beer was delayed one hour today giving satisfaction to the Admiral. Every other day the beer comes an hour earlier. Honours even? We have one more time alteration before the Marquesas.

We organise ourselves and the work of sailing the boat around what is called a ‘watch’ system. There are four of us so we take turns at being in charge. When we are on passage like this, the boat never stops and needs to be sailed 24×7. Our watch system starts at 0900 till 1300, 1300 to 1700, 1700 to 2100. At 2100 we change to 3 hour watches for the hours of darkness so it goes 2100 to 0000, 0000 to 0300, 0300 to 0600 and 0600 to 0900. That means each one of us does a night watch and we each lose as little sleep as possible. Because there are only 3 four hour day watches, you don’t end up doing the same watch every day.

Last night I had the 2100 to midnight watch. Normally the boat sails itself. In fact, the boat doesn’t know that it is dark. It gets trickier when things don’t stay stable. Last night nothing stayed stable. The wind was from nothing to 20 kts and the direction from east round to southwest. Add to that no moon and torrential rain. The net effect is that you can’t see a thing, are getting soaked and the boat won’t stay doing what you want it to do. Fortunately it is a very clever boat and now that I have gotten used to it, putting up and down the sails and making them larger or smaller is genuinely just the press of a button. No more Hosey knots. It all reminds me of night flying where you couldn’t see anything and just had to trust that you knew what you were doing. At least night flying the aeroplane didn’t pitch and buck about, which is he other small problem. Anyhow, I am on 0000 to 0300 tonight. Let’s hope for an easier time!

Well today we had a very happy boat. The wind behaved very well last night and my watch was a lot simpler. I listened to music and tried to phone home on the satellite phone. No one picking up but granny , who is coming to live with us. The winds continued to be kind today and not only have we made very good progress, but we have also caught fish, which is a certain morale booster. On the progress front, my i- pad tells me that we are averaging about 8.2 knots . This is very good and the wind is forecast to stay about the same. We are pointed more or less where we want to go so in 24 hours we will cover 8.2 x 24 nautical miles which is about 196 nm. That is very fast and will bring us to Hiva Oa well before my previous estimate of 10 th May. We are showing 2444 nm to run which comes out as a further 12.5 days meaning we arrive on 30th April 10 days earlier than previous estimates. All in all I expect we will arrive somewhere between the two having taken around 24 days from leaving the Galapagos on 12th April.

On to the fishing. Marigold is getting a bit annoying. We are not really set up properly to troll two lines, so like a good crew, I rig up Marigold and let her fish where she wants to and I then fit in , depending on the conditions, where I think that I can avoid any tangles. This is akin to wanting to score goals but having to play as the goalkeeper. Today has been the first day that there have been fish around. Marigold caught 3 and lost one mahi mahi. I am the idiot standing on the transom at the back with the gaff, swinging wildly on my lifeline trying to get the fish in and not fall in or hook myself. So far a 100% record. I caught a mahi mahi too which happened to be hanging around my goal area. As I reeled it in, it took a dive and then something else much heavier grabbed it, bust my line and took my lure. Not a happy Willie. To add further insult to injury, I am doing the washing up in the galley after a not to be beaten dinner of lightly battered mahi mahi and fried potatoes. The galley has a small porthole which was open. A suicidal 6 inch long flying fish, flew through the window and clunked me on the head. I had no idea what had hit me until I heard flapping at my feet. This was the luckiest flying fish as I chucked him back overboard. His wingman missed the window and died of head injuries on the deck.

A flying fish like the one that hit me on the head while I was cooking

My watch tonight is 3 am to 6am so fishing operations will commence early ahead of Marigold who undergoes some sort of secret fish attracting ritual in the back cabin each day. Ceviche for lunch tomorrow. Mahi mahi marinated in lemon juice with garlic onion and ginger, served with chopped tomatoes and anything else green we can find. P.s. we are eating a lot of potatoes because they are going off. Headline…. Potato famine on paddy boat crossing pacific.

Today is 20th April and it is a special day because it is Sarah’s birthday. For the strangers out there Sarah is my wife. I couldn’t be having this great experience without Sarah’s support and I want to take this opportunity to publicly thank her and the rest of my family. Have a really happy birthday Sarah and I am looking forward to getting back home to you.Thanks also to those of you who are supporting Sarah and keeping her involved while I am gone.

more later …