Blog post from Gavin

Sometime a good meal makes everything better

For the past couple days the wind has been depressingly light.  Too light to sail effectively, so we've been motoring a lot lately.  It's boring, loud and the diesel exhaust is not an accompaniment I'd choose for our daily activities.  Today especially, we put up the spinnaker in anticipation of building wind, but the breeze died almost completely when we got the sail up.  Two hours later we were swimming in a mess of lines in the cockpit.  Defeated by both the lack of wind and the hot sun.  I was seriously feeling like home was impossibly far away, as our schedule slipped by days.  Sunburnt, tired and unhappy was not how I wanted to spend the rest of this voyage.  However, while serendipity can't solve all problems, it has a way of giving just enough encouragement when it's needed most.  This evening we celebrated our half-way point, having passed the mark sometime last night.  Yesterday I'd never thought that we'd have fresh sashimi for the occasion.  Gautam and I had the early morning shift, and most of it was spent trying to pass the time as we motored through the night.  At 4:30 am, as dawn was just lighting the sky once again, I dropped the fishing line behind us.  I didn't expect much, but it was at least something to do.  Less than 15 minutes later the tell-tale whizzzz of line feeding out heralded that we had a strike.  We throttled back to slow a bit, and I began to play the line.  The fish fought like a devil, but inexorably he was reeled in, Gautam and I wrestled it aboard, and just then, Jared, our resident professional fisherman climbed out of the boat.  His timing was perfect, and he kindly dispatched and cleaned our catch.  It was a tuna, a blue-fin we think, and it was exactly what we'd been hoping for.  I'd always wanted to try sashimi from a fresh-caught tuna like that, and it was better than I'd hoped.  From a previous trip, the boat was already stocked with soy sauce, wasabi paste, and nori in hopes of fish that weren't caught before.  I owe whoever stocked those items my deepest gratitude, because they were absolutely perfect.  I might be the world's worst sushi chef, but it didn't matter -- the fish, however you cut it, was sublime. I don't think anything could have made me happier than to have the proper ingredients on hand.  The rest, was cut into steaks and seared on the barbecue.  Fresh carrot salad, corn and mashed potatoes, then the luxury of all luxuries: chilled chardonay.  Everyone was in high spirits for the occasion, we talked and laughed and relaxed in general contentment. A meal like that can salvage even the worst day.  So while not everything is amazing all the time out here, there's enough of a balance.  You've got to learn to take the not-so-good in stride, and really savor the wonderful moments.
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