Current Position: 15 57.155’S 142 19.120W; Local Timezone: UTC-10; HDG: N/A; COG: N/A; SOG: N/A; Distance to Waypoint (Raroia): At Anchor; Total Miles Sailed: 3885 nm;
Comments: The tuna is now five-day-old-fish and has been stored in a fridge I cannot cook all the time. I had a double portion last night, but I could already tell it is going off, so I am some as crab bait in a trap I just placed. The good news is the sun finally came out. The bad news is it is 16:40, a half hour before sunset. I’m at 96%, but ran the engine for another 30m mainly so I could cool the fridge a little more before shutting everything off for the night. I pulled the trap up after about 2h, and something had eaten through it and gotten the bait. There are a lot of things with sharp teeth here. It is sunset and the weather seems to have passed. I can see patches of blue sky. The location is mystic. You can hear the ocean raging on the other side of the reef, although your view is obscured by the coconut trees. On this side it is tranquil, like a swimming pool. The sea life takes refuge in the lagoon just like I have, and it is abundant. I have been in many tropical waters, but this is different. It is an aquarium. I dropped the crab cage again. It was down 15m and I noticed the line was taunt. I brought it up. Not only was the bait gone, but the bet cage was gone! All that was left was the wire frame. I looked down in the water and deep I could see dozens of sharks. Plan B will be a chunk of meat on a hook. Blacktip shark is supposed to be tasty. In the middle of the night, there was a small rain shower, as I had hoped for. I climbed the mast this morning to work on the wind instruments. I forgot how easy it is to get up there when the boat isn’t pitching. The WS310 unit is wired via a single NEMA2000 connector at the top of the mast. I was able to monitor whether the unit was working at the top of the mast using my iPhone connected to the Cortex system. I unplugged the unit (no evidence of corrosion) and reseated the plug. It still did not work. I brought the unit down with me and plugged it directly into the dongle on the network (bypassing the cable that goes up the mast, but it still did not work. Figuring I had nothing to loose, I removed the four screw that hold a plate on the unit, but found everything inside was encased in epoxy. It was not designed to be serviced. Just to be certain, I unplugged the dongle and moved the whole unit to the beginning of the network, but it still did not work. Either the dongle or the wind instrument is defective. I turned on the Starlink for the first time since leaving Mexico. I still have service until the 8th, but by turning it on I assume I am starting the clock on the “two month rule.” I ordered replacement wind instruments and had them sent to my brother David in Tucson. I am still not sure how I will get them. Tahiti required that I use a customs agent, which costs at least $250. Also, there is no guarantee the part would arrive/clear in time for me to get it in Tahiti. I am looking into having it shipped to the Cook Islands because I do not plan to spend much time in Tahiti … it is a zoo and they don’t make it easy on transient sailors. While in the Internet, I also looked into more details regarding anchoring in Tahiti (rules are changing all the time) and I ordered the Navionics maps for the South Pacific islands. Another small shower passed through at 14:00. No wind to speak of, just a gentle rain. I left the dive gear out to be rinsed, but took all the dry ropes, etc. in out of the rain. At 14:00, I also tossed a line out with a chunk of six-day-old-tuna. Five minutes later, I had a four-foot blacktop shark on the line. It moved deliberately and cut the line on what I believe was the boat’s prop. I had been using the spinning rod. I moved to the open reel and put on a heave steel leader before trying again. Within a couple of minutes I had another strike … not a shark, it seemed like some sort of large reef fish, but the hook did not set. I went to look for my gaff and could not find it. I fear I left it on the deck when I caught the tuna and it got washed overboard. Since it was dark, I might not even noticed. At 14:30, just 30 minutes after starting, I had my second four-foot blacktip shark on the line. I fought it about 10 minutes and had it by the side of the boat when it bit clean through the steel leader. I fabricated a leader out of stainless steel wire and will try one last time. Within a minute there was a strike. By the time I got it to the surface, it was just a head. I had caught a good-sized reef fish, some sort of bass, but the sharks had made short work of it. By now the sharks were in a frenzy. I threw what was left of my fish in the water and they caught over it, some leaping out of the water. It was time to call it a day. I’ll try tomorrow when things settle down.
