Day 31 – 1 Month complete

31 Mar, 07 – 21.30    
18.0402N,32.5371W
24 hr progress: 14.3 Nautical Miles

A spot of relative good news anyway. Been experimenting all night to find a solution to the NW drift while the boat is not being rowed. After a lot of trial and error and GPS watching, I've managed to find a solution. I've turned the boat beam on into the wind and shifting some of the weight to the stern. I've put out two large fenders as well on the port quarter to increase drag on that side, to prevent the boat swinging around. If the wind stays the same, this will buy some time 'til I have completed my work on the rudder.
A slow news day on the progress front, but I've manged to correct course again and am heading in the right direction. I've dropped the idea of trying to use the drogue after yesterday's failed experiments and instead focusing on modifying the existing rudder. Changing the hinges and locking nuts, sawing a part off to reduce surface area, putting some foam padding into the hinges to absorbed some of the vibration and adding additional lines to hold it. Having additional lines to adjust the height of the rudder in the water depending on the wave conditions would be a “nice to have” feature that I will try and add on.
By comparison, quite an active day on the wildlife front. Was greeted this morning by an array of dead flying fish on deck, that must have landed sometime during the night. During the day, one can never get tired of watching these fish jump around 4 feet into the air to escape a pair of hungry jaws chasing it. But as with everything, from time to time, things go wrong and they end up flopping around on the deck of a boat.
Just as I was getting my sleep in before my next rowing session, I was woken up by a massive noise underneath the boat with what sounded like people knocking on the underside of the boat. I went on deck, to find the boat in a whirlpool of water, with just hundreds of Doradas circling the hull at top speed. Hundreds of huge silver fish, at least about a meter and a half each, jumping out of the water and racing around the hull and inadvertently slamming into the hull.
I can only guess that they must be being chased by a shark or some other predator in the vicinity for a few seconds underneath the boat that woke me up in the evening as I was getting my sleep. Dorada's that have been accompanying me over the past few days went crazy as I was having my coffee in the evening. Probably being chased by a shark or a dolphin. Could not see any fins in the water so I jumped in to get a few quick underwater photos of them.
In alternate onboard activity, I had a bit of a food hunt and discovered a small treasure of a few packs of olives left, 3 tins of peaches and a jar of Nutella. As I had whipped my way thru the tinned food the past month (in order to lighten the boat), I had resigned myself to eating monotonous freeze dried ration packs of food. So this find was much welcomed.
Will post my 1 month recap here shortly.
Thanks for the messages, they make a big difference,
B

Flying fish taken a wrong turn

Doradas under the boat

More Doradas being chased