20 Years Ago Today -- April 26, 1996 -- Day 18

Fri. 96-04-26 - Day 18 - 4° 56' N  126° 28' W  Log: 1,553nm

Up at 1730Z; had a bowl of granola with milk. Reading some more of Silent Treatment. We have a visitor this afternoon -- a white-tipped shark about 4' long, cruising lazily behind the boat.

Lottery: John: 10 miles off; Dave: 14 miles.  Day's run: 85 miles.  1:3.

John cooked up refried beans and some sausage we bought in Puerto Vallarta, but I really didn't like either. Unfortunately, there's some sausage left. Also coleslaw.

The shark left us after a couple of hours. We must have been going too slow for it. We motored about 4 hours this afternoon, as well as 2 this morning, and finally got a light breeze in late PM. Still squally, but the only rain we got today had no wind with it -- bummer.

On my second night watch, I caught a 34" long Wahoo on a small purple/white hoochie. It seemed so small, I eventually let it go, after having spent 15 minutes looking through the fish book to identify it. It's hard to recognize a fish in the dark. The moon had set and it was overcast, so it was hard to get a good look at him. Although quite long, it was so skinny, I couldn't believe we'd get a meal out of it -- ~2.5" in diameter, I think. Later I realized we could have had a nice meal of it, with pasta to fill us up if he wasn't big enough. I guess I just wasn't in a killing mood.

Finished reading Silent Treatment on my night watch, and read some more of the South Pacific Handbook. Silent Treatment was pretty good -- too bad he staged a climax chase scene in the boiler room, as the same was done in the other book of his I had read lately.