2214 miles to go ;)

Hi all...Dave reporting from about 780 miles offshore!

We are at latitude 02 degrees and 39 minutes south and 102 degrees and 36 minutes west. Wind 

is a pleasant 11 to 13 knots and we are doing about 8 knots with almost a 2 knot current from

 behind!!!! We have the spinnaker up only and current sea state is ok.....All this as of 9.30pm

 local time on Friday night June 24th.

Well it's been a while since I wrote as we have had an eventful last two days and nights!!! 

Today was our first somewhat normal day that we all managed to catch up and rest and start to 

all feel a bit better.

Two nights ago I was on night shift and at around 3am I started hearing a strange humming sound

. It was dark and as I looked around the boat and went past the port transom I saw a line 

coming from under the boat and going out behind us into the darkness! I went back to the helm

 station to get a flashlight and noticed our speed had dropped from 6 knots to 3 knots in 

12 knots of wind and when I returned I could see a float attached to the rope and a long 

nylon line extending out as far as I could see into the darkness. We were dragging some kind 

of fishing line or net!!!!

I woke up Adrian to help me try and free it. We clipped ourselves onto safety lines and both

 on the back swim platform tried to lift it out the water to cut it loose. There was huge 

strain on the line and it was extremely difficult to pull it out the water with a boat hook. 

Eventually we managed to get it close to the surface and Adrian manage to cut the line. 

A huge twang noise shocked both of us and showed how much strain the line was under as we cut

 it. Guds was also up behind us and the 3 of us were surprised by the noise. By this time it

 was about 4 a.m. and we went to sleep but Guds stayed on watch. 

At around 5.45am I was awoken by Guds shouting...Dave...Dave. I knew this was not good from the

 sounds of her shout and came racing out my cabin up to the helm station. It was still dark as

 she pointed to a small panga fishing boat racing down towards us with just a white light and

 no running navigation lights. I shouted for her to get Adrian and Garrick up on deck. By this

 time the boat with two rough looking guys on it was just off our port transom! They headed for

 the starboard side and came within 10ft of our side. They just spoke Spanish and seemed to be

 checking our transom....maybe looking for their fishing line or net? Then asked for cigarettes

 and gas. I motioned...no...no.....and after being forceful and motioned for them to push up 

with my flashlight they sped off. They were over 400 miles offshore in a small boat maybe 20ft

 long with a 30 horsepower outboard fed gas from a 20 gallon drum. I believe they were a scout

 fishing boat from a mothership fishing boat, but obviously piracy crosses your mind.

So a fun start to yesterday.....It gets more intense.

So the seas got pretty nas ty and confused and I wanted to check we did not have any line left

 on the rudder or saildrive after cutting it earlier that morning. When the seas are rough 

enough you can sometimes look through the glass escape hatches as they get covered with water 

and you can see the boat keels like looking through a glass bottom boat. So that's what I did 

and looked back at the port rudder underwater. To my shock it looked bent sideways and I just 

imagined the strain of the fishing net pulling it and bending it before we could cut it 

loose!!! My heart sank.....could this be or was it an optical illusion from looking so far 

back underwater?

As we were doing about 7 knots there was no way to jump in and check so I decided to stick 

the go-pro camera over the stern to see if we could video any potential damage. I sat down at

 the helm with Garrick and as he and I were discussing how we would do this.....BANG....a load 

cracking noise. As we looked up we saw our spinnaker falling into the water in front of the 

boat!!!!!!

The spinnaker halyard had just broken!!!!! Everyone jumped into action and luckily Garrick 

had the sense to think to free the windward sheet which allowed the spinnaker to go around the 

starboard outer hull and not get dragged under the boat. I ran to the bow to free the remaining

 lines while trying to hold one of them. It was under such strain it pulled straight through my

 hand and burnt my fingers and part of my palm. Adrian came rushing up in his pyjamas and we 

all eventually managed to get the soaking spinnaker dragged back on board.

After we recouped for a few minutes we began to investigate what had happened. It appears the

 swivel block pop rivets we had installed for the spare spinnaker halyard in Cayman Islands 

came loose and with nothing to hold the halyard close to the mast it moves around at the top of

 the mast unrestricted and likely chafed through very quickly after the rivets came loose. The

 halyard then broke und er strain once chafed through. At least the spinnaker was not torn but

 a pulley used to pull down the snuffing bag was damaged.

Fun fun fun :) 

While Adrian and Garrick worked on getting the spinnaker ready again and replaced the broken 

pulley I set to work again on videoing the rudder for damage or remaining line. Long story 

short the video showed all looked ok and what I had seen was an optical illusion.....yay!!!

While the spinnaker was being repaired we deployed "puff" our trusty geneker to keep us sailing

. Within about 2 hours we redeployed the spinnaker on the second halyard and were back in 

business....less a broken halyard that will have to be fixed in Tahiti.

After all this Guds found the Will power to bake a loaf of banana bread and cooked us dinner!!!

Well sadly that's not the end......

At around 7.30pm I suddenly (as I was not paying attention) noticed a "mothership " fishing 

vessel trailing just off o ur stern about 2 miles and running what appeared to be a parallel 

course. It was about a 80ft boat is my guess....commercial fishing boat. No AIS signal was 

coming from him. Sadly all the commercial boats we have discovered since leaving Galapagos 

have no AIS as required by international law on any commercial vessel big or small....So you 

get no warning as they approach. So this boat gets closer and closer!!!!

We are over 500 miles offshore in the MASSIVE Pacific ocean and this guy decides to run right 

next to us and cut 1/2 mile in front of us once he went past us. Well it's pitch dark as all 

this is going down!!!! Still unsettled by the morning encounter with the small fishing boat....plus we cut his fishing line....my suspicious mind starts thinking this mother ship is coming for revenge or piracy!!!!

I woke up the crew and we watched and watched as he got closer and closer and eventually cut 

across in front of us. We got all our anti piracy defenses re ady and by this time tension was

 high! Eventually he carried on in front of us for about an hour and eventually slowly pulled 

further away. Likely just innocent but we don't know why he came so close with such a massive 

ocean available to fish in. I could not sleep after that so stayed up till 11.30pm and then 

poor Garrick did his and Guds nightshit from 2am till 7am.

Well it was a good rehearsal in what to do and we discussed learning today and had a good few 

laughs. Poor Garrick caught a bug as we left Galapagos and has battled to shake it so last 

night was the last thing he needed after a tough day. 

Thankfully today was a much better day :) We ran the generator for 3 hours to charge batteries

 as we have had little Sun and took the opportunity to also do 2 loads of laundry and make 3 

hours of water. By noon we recorded our best 24hr run of this leg of the journey...176 Miles 

covered since yesterday at noon.

Other than that.....We are all doing well today as the seas finally settled a bit and we all 

start to feel a little more settled.....still not 100 percent but a big improvement today after

 an exhausting last 48 hours.

Thanks for everyone's well wishes, notes, comments and emails!!! We love them.

All the best from aboard Cool Runnings!


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