Alone in the universe …. With tuna

Early in the trip, I spoke about being on night watch without a moon. The way this trip unfolded, it began and will end with the new moon phase (aka no moon). I am admittedly not a huge star person, but the stars on this leg have been remarkable. Yesterday, we had Venus on the low horizon. It’s crazy red stood out so distinctly from all the other stars.

Epic.

As our point of sail has changed and we are more into the waves, something else has changed: salt. When running downwind, we did not have much sea spray, but into the waves, there is a continuous mist of spray, which put a fine coat of salt on everything. This vessel has so much sea salt on it that I could easily begin another business: selling salt. Business name: REIMAGINED SALT.

With the return of the epic heat, today kicked off slowly. We all can see the Spice Isle on our sites. It was hot AF and salty. We bounced along today, peeling off nm after nm. It was a pretty straightforward day.

But almost every day on REIMAGINED, something happens.

About four o’clock, I looked out the starboard and saw several tuna in the waves beside the boat. Riding the waves in the way dolphins do

I will say right up front we did not catch a fish. But that is not the point

Immediately, I pointed the tuna out to folks and the adventure began. In front of us, beside us, everywhere, small groups of fish were jumping, and the tuna were in a feeding frenzy. There were hundreds of tuna around the boat.

We aggressively steered the boat towards the feeding fish. We quickly changed the lures on the lines; I grabbed my action5 (waterproof video thingy) to capture it. We had a joint mission working as a team, one steering towards the unfolding tuna feeding spots, one working the lines, and me trying to spot and capture. A moment that could only happen right there in the middle of the Atlantic after a long day. Laughing and cheering as we tried to navigate to and to catch a fish

We did not catch a fish, but over that hour, I was reminded of one of the reasons I adventure. Only out there in the remoteness can moments like that unfold. You can not plan them. You can only bump into them on the journey—a team with a shared mission, clear roles, and a great time.

Writing about it is almost as much fun as I had experienced it.

By the way, tomorrow, I will try to move these posts to a blog site to share more pictures and videos.

Stay tuned.

Back to the night watch. Squall approaching