It’s Monday morning and we are about 80 miles from the entrance to the St Mary’s River in GA. We are powering along on seas so calm you’d think that we were in LI Sound on a windless August afternoon. At our current speed, we should arrive in the mouth of the river around 10pm tonight to begin our run up the river and the town of St Mary’s.
Our plan is to head up and drop the anchor and spend the day in the river prior to heading over to have Pandora hauled in a nearby yard.
Yesterday we saw a few dolphins but none stayed near the boat long enough to get pictures. However, this morning, we were treated to a visit that lasted nearly a half hour during which several dolphins swam in front of our bow for quite a while. At the peak, we had a dozen jockeying for position in front of us , darting in all directions and sometimes jumping clear of the water.
The water here is so clear that we could see their every movement as they darted around our bow. I was able to get some terrific videos of their antics and will put an edited version on YouTube when I get home. What a treat.
Speaking of treats, last night I cooked half of the tuna we caught yesterday. I have to say that you haven’t tasted tuna unless you’ve had it cooked within an hour or so of being caught. The flesh was a deep red and was nearly as firm as a good filet minion but when you take a bite, it melts in your mouth. Amazing. They say that everything tastes better aboard so Imagine the best tuna ever, on a boat. Ambrosia.
I sautéed a mess of onion, set that aside and then seared the tuna only enough to cook it about ¼ through and get it warm in the center. Then, I set that aside and reduced some teriyaki sauce that I had in the pantry as a glaze. Jim and I had our fill, along with a nice salad. I will spare you a photo of the dish as my son Rob is so sick of “photos of friend’s meals on FaceBook” that he only looks at it once a week. Now that I have him looking at my blog, sometimes at least, I don’t want to do anything that will drive him away.
“Rob, it was great but you’ll just have to imagine what it looked like”. Yum…
As is so often the case when I am making an offshore run, we were visited by a little bird for a while yesterday afternoon. He/she landed in the cockpit and flitted (I guess that’s an apt description of what he did) from place to place aboard, including a brief visit down below. Fearing that he’d poop everywhere, which he sort of did, I scooped him up gently in my hand and put him back out in the cockpit, where he stayed for a while before heading who knows where.
At one point he landed on Jim’s leg and looked around. Interestingly, it seems that every bird that lands aboard is of the same species. Last spring we had a visitor overnight that expired and had to be given a burial at sea. Fortunately, yesterday’s visitor left prior to meeting an untimely end, if he did. I hope that he made it “home” wherever that is.
Well, Pandora’s engine continues to drone along as it has now for over 24 hours as there isn’t any wind at all. Did I say that the water is very calm? Thought so.
Today’s sunrise was a spectacular show on the glass calm ocean.
We decided to fish again. I hope that we catch another tuna but hopefully, nothing too big. Small or large, they bleed a LOT and a small bleeder is certainly better than a BIG BLEEDER. Wish us luck.
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