Wednesday, June 2, 1993

Well, Roy was really proud and happy catching that big barracuda, and he put a lot of work into cleaning and filleting it, and it tasted great. Unfortunately, it made him miserably sick. Barracuda is notorious for that. He threw up several times during the night. By daybreak, he felt quite a bit better, but weak and certainly not 100% well, so the rest of the fish got deep-sixed. As the day went on, Roy gradually improved and was able to eat lightly.
Another beautiful day, but calmer and hotter than yesterday. Had to use the engine all day.
I've got a stupid cough that's driving me nuts.
We're more than halfway to Key West! Should get there early Friday morning.
About 6:30 p.m., I was sleeping in preparation for my next watch. The sound of male voices woke me up. At first, I was bewildered. Who's talking? Are we at a marina? Impossible. Is there another boat next to us? Then I realized the voices must be on the VHF. Finally, I recognized one of the voices as Roy's. It occurred to me that maybe we were being boarded by the Coast Guard, so I went up to the cockpit. It was the Coast Guard, but they weren't attempting to board. Their boat was about a hundred yards away, and they were talking to Roy on the VHF. Roy turned the mike over to me, so he could finish putting fuel in the tank from a jerry can. The Coast Guardsman was very courteous and nice. He asked a lot of questions, such as our last port of call, our next port, our registration number, and the skipper's name and birth date. I asked him for tomorrow's weather forecast, and he said it should be similar to today. He wished us a good trip and took off.
Towards midnight, when Roy was on watch, he saw a boat four or five miles away that had a lot of red lights. It seemed to be sending out signals that messed up our radar screen. We assumed it was some sort of Coast Guard surveillance boat.