Day 4, Passage to Puerto Montt

2000Z 25SEP19, Day 4, Easter Island to Puerto Montt, Chile. It has been another slow progress kind of day. We continued making more southward progress until we turned on the engine this morning because the winds were around 5 knots and the seas were big and confused making it difficult to catch or hold enough wind and very uncomfortable —Jon had simply had enough. We motored directly towards Chile for a few hours, then just before noon local we shook out the sails and went back to slowly sailing on a good course.

Current Position: 32 16S / 103 08W
24 hour progress: 98nm, 4.1kts avg SOG, almost 5 hours motor sailing
Overall progress for the passage is 498nm with approximately 1500nm to the entrance canal to get to Puerto Montt. The gray, drizzly weather continued through this morning. The skies did open up to show off the stars for a few hours last night and then cleared again for a sunny, pleasant afternoon. We are currently close hauled, port tack, with all sail up. Winds are currently about 10kts true and the seas remain big and confused.

The crew are all well. There has been extra sleep and the boys are back to doing watches so everyone is back in the groove and feeling a bit more rested. Megan even got her shower in the afternoon sun, though the breeze was rather cold! It may be quite some time before a deck shower is braved again.

This morning we put in the fishing line with the cedar plug. Megan was watching 4 or so decent sized dark sea birds, likely white chined petrels, circling the boat (we love the Merlin Bird ID app to which Russ introduced us— thanks again Russ!). She just started wondering if perhaps we should bring in the line since we really don't want to catch a bird (our lures are all surface trolling) when she saw a fish strike. We landed a nice sized tuna; it was an iridescent blue and was definitely not a skip jack or yellow-finned and was perhaps a very young blue finned tuna. This one should provide 2-3 meals. Any recommendations on a good fish ID app or book for the Southern oceans? (We also need a whale ID app or book and would happily take recommendations there too!) After catching the fish we had quite an audience with 2 albatrosses joining the petrels, likely black browed albatrosses. They joined us yesterday for awhile and were back again this morning for fish scraps. The petrels are nice to watch soaring about, but the albatrosses are on another level. Their wingspan is impressive and they are such adept fliers. Hopefully all our bird followers enjoyed some of the scraps we returned to the giving sea.

In other fish related news, Poseidon finally decided he was interested in raw fish! He has been on a bit of a diet and is looking like he's at a nice weight. He has been more playful and more cuddly - though we wonder if really he's just thinking about how he might be able to eat us. Well, when Megan was prepping the fish he got rather interested so we gave him some and he ate a bit! Athena stayed curled up in her spot and turned up her nose.