Day 5 Evening from Al (and Matt)

Ahoy, Kotuku passed the 1/3 distance traveled today almost exactly at the four day mark.  At almost the same time we caught our first fish, a small 3 lb. bonito, that was expertly cleaned by Matt, and prepared poke style with guidance from Graeme, and served up as a happy hour appetizer for all, delicious.  Saw our first two race boats today (after the first day) with both California Condor and Medusa sliding by slightly to leeward.  I also had the first sea shower on the transom after gutting the fish, water not too bad at 68 degrees.  No takers from the rest of the crew.  Air temp and water temp are almost the same out here, with water turning that deep sea blue.  Still not that many birds though.  The Sharks went on attack today with a 14.3 knot max and 32.3 four hour run that puts them firmly in the lead for watches.  Graeme and Alex are still negotiating some kind of reward for fishes caught though, and there is still 2/3's of the race still to go.  Al

I asked Al about what sort of information they receive re: standings since, of course, we all want to tell them how well they're doing. Here's his response:

Janna, we get a daily position update at 1000 via ssb that includes all the boats 0800 positions but not fleet standings.  Only 10 or so boats are reporting positions via SSB, the vast majority being email or satphone but those are read off by Valis, the comms boat.  Then sometime in the early afternoon the race committee sends an email that has all the boats positions, class and fleet standings, along with distance to finish.  The exact time of the email posting varies so we never know when to try the radio/sailmail thing.  So far it has been before 1500.  Al

So it sounds like they're getting the same update we see on the Daily Standings. Phew. Also a snippet from Matt that I stole from his email to Katy (this is a party line after all):

We are having a wonderful time out here going super fast and enjoying the weather getting warmer, sunnier, and windier by the day.  We caught our first fish(bonita) today which I got to fillet for poke for the crew.  Everyone is very happy with the food, though I'm finding that I got way too much, for which I get a lot of grief from Graeme for having too much weight on the boat, but too much is definitely better than too little. Send my love to everyone...wish us some breeze!

I should also mention that Graeme is writing great updates for Light My Fire's adventure blog here.


Happy fishing, eating, and racing!
-Janna