Day 115 Whales and fishes

S 19º21 W 159º47 @0830
The wind and waves were still pretty ferocious today and Southern Star was being tossed about. We are on a consistent port tack meaning that the wind is coming from our left and the boat is leaning to the right. Everything that can be thrown out of the shelves and cabinets on the port (left) side of the boat is in a chaotic pile on the floor.
Nonetheless, we decided we had to get back into the fishing competition since Eiao reported they had caught 3 tuna, a bonito and a 4'6" dorado that took over an hour to land. The secret they say is to go fast, particularly for dorado (mahi mahi).
We put a new red imitation squid on the line and trolled it so that it skims the water every time it goes down a wave. A few hours later, the reel began to sing and Mark settled in to land the fish. For the first 15 minutes the fish took line off the reel and it looked like we would run out before Mark could begin reeling him in. Finally, the fish began to tire (along with Mark). After 40 minutes, we could see the bright iridescent yellow-green sides of a dorado under the surface. I was steering, Andy was ready with the gaff and Mark had him right next to the boat when with one mighty twist, he broke the leader and was gone - along with our new lure. We won't know if that was the biggest or not but Mark's arms attest to the fact that "a big one got away". We put the lines in the water again but finally took them out as was really too rough to try to land anything that we might have caught.
Three months ago when we left Mexico we were treated to a marine show as whales breached and jumped out of the water. Since then, the word whale has not been mentioned on Southern Star. Yesterday, Mark was in search of a new book to read and came upon Moby Dick in the stack over Kurt's bed. This afternoon, out of the blue he said, "Gee, we haven't seen any whales out here". (What prompted that I cannot imagine unless it was Herman Melvill).
About a half hour later, Mark got up and announce he was going to "take a walk around". A walk-around inspection has been a common occurrence throughout the trip but with the extremely rough sea he has not done it in a few days. No sooner did he reach the bow than three whales breached a few hundred yard in front of the boat. There have been very few times that he has moved so fast to get back into the cockpit. Whales have been known to land on small boats and that would not be a good thing for Southern Star here with nothing but horizon around us. Mark started the engine as that is supposed to scare off the whales and we saw only one more breaching display far away before they were gone. Hey, there are whales here after all. By the way, as big as these whales might have been, they were dwarfed by the waves on either side.
On the 1900 net we heard that Liahona had reached Aitutaki and determined that the anchorage was not safe so they were diverting directly to Roratonga. As a result, we changed course to head a much South as we could considering the wind and set a new course for Roratonga. Since sailboats can go a maximum of 45º against the wind, we angled Southward with the hope that the trade winds would eventually overcome the winds from the passing front and blow again from the East.
The night was very rough again with squall winds and rain plus the continuing heavy seas.