Panama City with all its shopping malls, nightlife and activities disappeared behind us and we set course for Ecuador. The fishing rod came out straight away and after an hour we had hooked 4 Spanish mackerel, none of them deemed big enough for dinner so they won their freedom.
The wild ones set course 190 degrees true and after battling for "real state" with some very big cargo ships in the southern approaches to the panama canal we had a very calm Pacific Ocean in front of us, I guess that's why it's called the pacific...
This morning (Tuesday) started with a strike on the fishing rod and the "temporary swede" (not Sofia...) landed a 1,29 m long, 13kg (26lbs for non metric readers) Dorado which promptly became 2 nice fillets. At lunchtime we had another strike, an appr. 6' sailfish decided to take the bate and fortunately managed to unhook himself right behind the boat, because we didn't want that monster on deck...
Apart from fishing, reading and eating, everybody seems to have adopted Mr. N's philosophy... "stay shady"... Temperature is way above 30 degrees C (86F) and the equatorial sun is cooking us badly...
As I wrote this, Heidi managed to reel in another monster Dorado, this one 1,32m and 13kg (26lbs), unfortunately the hook was so far down we couldn't unhook her, so she's being filleted as we speak, Heidi's only comment was "I'm speechless". According to reliable sources it is the biggest fish she ever caught (I guess she doesn't count Casey then...).
The conclusion is: al is well with the wild ones, we're motoring along with a light breeze aft of the beam, and a nice 1 knot current from behind, we have 337 nautical miles to the Equator where according to rumours, King Neptune is lurking....
Pos. 17.00 (local time)
05 dgr 30' North
80 dgr West
480 nm to Salinas Ecuador...
Posted by JL
a.k.a "the temporary swede"
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unique visits since 2010-02-17