Day 7: Puff is Dead

4/23/2010, Friday, 1700 Zulu, Lat. 20 22.8 N, Long. 084 54.8 W, Day 7

It was an eventful 24 hours since my last entry. The wind continued to build throughout the night and into this morning at dawn up to 20 knots. Montie was driving and kept Living Water at a good clip holding at an average of 7 knots. Terry and I were most pleased. My noon sight put me 7 nm off the GPS fix. It was not as good as the day before due to the boat rolling more at this point of sail.

Ships when at sea are like planes, they move and rotate on all three axes: vertical, horizontal, and lateral and produce motion called pitch, yaw and roll. Being going further down wind, makes taking sights with sextant much more challenging. Our bodies can attest to that as we have bumps and bruises to prove it.

Remember my bird story yesterday? Puff aptly named by Skipper Terry (he takes the naming rights on his boat very seriously), left without saying good bye…..well unfortunately, there is a sequel to that story. At 1300 yesterday while I was rummaging for food to make lunch and looked into the wire fruit basket for an apple, upon which I discovered this little yellow feather ball, all curled up on the bottom. It was Puff. I was right about him leaving without saying good bye. He had indeed departed. PUFF IS DEAD to our horror. I tried mouth-to-beak resuscitation without avail. And we both genuinely felt sorry for the little guy who flew all the way from Mexico to rest on our boat. Terry, being a prudent skipper, started to ask questions being I was the last one to see Puff alive. Remember I was taking pictures of him right before he left (so I thought). Upon further questioning Terry has established my flash photography might have dazed our little friend and caused him to plunge to the bottom of the basket and broke his neck. What a horrible thought! What an unjust accusation! He is thinking to open a Formal Court of Inquiry to look into this matter. I might have to face court martial in Galveston. As I said, he takes this ship captain stuff very seriously.

I immediately offered to stuff the bird and roast it in the oven for lunch or make bird’s nest soup for dinner. He would accept neither offer. This was the first time he has turned down my cooking. Our ethnic differences cannot be more evident. All he wanted to do was to put Puff in the freezer and have it autopsied at Galveston to determine the actual cause of death. I threatened him with no dinner for the next 24 hours and he yielded and we settled on giving Puff a proper sea burial instead, but he put down on the log book that the cause of death of Puff was “Killed by paparazzi”. Anyway….that is the rest of that story.

After lunch of cheese and crackers and cut veggies, I saw there was something dragging on the fishing pole. After further investigation, we found a 7 lb. barracuda attached to the hook. Wasn’t sure and had never eaten a barracuda before, we were thinking to toss it back to the water. But, who is brave enough to unhook him while he is still alive with all those razor sharp teeth showing. Terry looked up in his fishing book and found out it is safe to eat barracudas in the deep water. It is only barracudas from the reef that will post a problem due to poisonous algae they eat. We filleted it and will have it for dinner.

My next watch was due in 45 minutes at 1500 and with all the fuss about Puff and the barracuda, I have not had my usual nap to recharge. So I lay down on my bunk and almost immediately fell to sleep. It must have been 5 minutes later that I heard my name was mentioned. You know, on a moving sailboat there are many noises from water rushing by, sails flopping, food and equipment banging around and one will get used to it. I thought I was imagining my name being mentioned and didn’t pay any more attention, but my name kept coming up, and it was getting more desperate….Frank, Frank, Frank! I jumped up and still in my undies to investigate. It was Terry at the fishing pole and he had a big one on the other end. It took off with half of his line. Terry was screaming for help. I had to run to get him some towel to wrap around the end of the pole to give him some cushion. I also had to put on his hat so he wouldn’t get sun burnt and gave him water and oxygen to keep him alive. It took him 30 minutes to tire the fish and brought him alongside. I had to garb the fish to bring it aboard but not until it was dead first. It was a 27 lbs. Dorado or Mahi Mahi (if you are a Pacific Islander). Dorados are prized sport fish and known to put up a big fight and are very good eating. We cleaned and filleted the fish which took another hour and now we have enough fish for dinner for a whole week. We were both exhausted, especially Terry. And trying to hold a sharp knife to fillet a slippery fish on a moving boat was quite a feat. Tomorrow, I will be hiding all Terry’s fishing lures. That’s our fish story.

I got on my watch while Terry took a much needed rest and at 1745, I took to task to cook my first barracuda. Never ate that kind of fish before. So I just sprinkled the five 1 ½ in thick fillets with dill and dipped them in salt and pepper, beaten eggs and rolled them in bread crumbs I found in Terry’s galley cupboard. I then pan fried them in hot cooking oil, 3 minutes on one side and 2 minutes on the other. Sprinkle them with paprika and as Irene will say in her Aussie slang, “Bob is your uncle”. I served them with left over linguine from the night before and found the barracuda was most delicious despite its menacing appearance. The outside crust was golden brown but the inside was firm and moist with a sweet after taste. Guess you can’t judge a fish by its look. It was the best meal by far on this trip.

After dinner, although we were both beat, we had one more task to perform, a proper sea burial for Puff. Terry wrapped him in some good quality paper towel but couldn’t find any weights to weigh it down. I suggested using some coins for weight and Terry found some left over Panamanian Balboa coins as weight. Who knows, Puff might be from Panama after all. I gave Terry a small piece of parsley as a wreath and proceeded to discharge him over board after a few kind words. “May you rest in peace in the deep blue yonder and come back in the next life as a pelican” Something to that effect.

At 2200 Terry got his weather report from Commander’s Weather, a service he subscribes to. For those of you who have been following the on going story of Abby Sunderland, she is the 16 year old girl from Thousand Oaks, CA currently sailing around the world single-handed, non-stop, and unassisted. If she succeeds, she will be the youngest female ever to do so. Commander’s Weather is doing weather for her as well. It was a long and detail report, I won’t bore you with all the details but if you want to find out, log onto Terry’s blog www.svlivingwater.com and click on the logbook button. In short, Commander Weather gave us the green light to cross the Gulf of Mexico in the next 7 days. And we are going for it. The weather will be more challenging and the real sailing will begin. Many of you have suggested for us to stop at various places to take on fuel and sightseeing. But, I forgot to mention this is not a pleasure cruise but a boat delivery trip. For many reasons, we just need to get Living Water back safely in U.S. waters and port so Terry can take on his personal affairs.

We are currently 103 nm from Yucatan Channel. Will be there Saturday morning, after we punch through the channel closer to the Mexican side (we were told current is more favorable) will then proceed northwest to Galveston. That will be another 680 nm. It will take another 4 to 5 days. More on that later….

Thank you again for all your e-mails, from Dick, Dave, Lisa Brown, Bill Brown, Lisa, Ed, Andrew and Xani Bubienko, Carl and Cristina, Alan, Lindsay and Marlies, Joann, Richard, Ed Pascoe, Rich Pitra, Lee and Paula. We love to hear from you and appreciate your prayers and encouragement.

Our 24 hours noon-to-noon is 146 nm. We are cooking.