Close Encounters of the Cetacean Kind
Blue Sky's Voyage
George & Michael
Fri 8 Dec 2006 12:37
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Hello Friends
"18:57.122N
45:15.685W"
Are we glad to be blogging with you
this morning !
We had the most exciting incident yet
last night. As we were enjoying Happy Hour, Ruud noticed a fin and blow in the
water 20 metres away off the starboard quarter. We watched in interest and some
concern for a quarter of an hour as the thing was sighted on either side,
sometimes only a few metres away. Barnie saw it swimming along by the bow as it
dived under the boat, almost touching the hull.
Sometimes it seemed like a dark brown
shape and sometimes almost white. We agreed that it was a killer whale about 4
to 5 metres long and it followed us for an hour or so until light failed. Most
of the time we sighted it 3 to 4 metres away on either side. Judging by the
depth sounder, it was playing around under the boat as well.
Despite the camera being ready
initially, we have no pics, the delay in digital photography was confounded by a
brief surfacing. But soon, cameras were stowed and lifejackets donned as we
considered the implications. Ben has just finished reading "Survive the Savage
Seas" by Dougal Robertson - which follows a survival story after a yacht was
s*nk following a killer whale attack.
We turned off the instruments -
including the pinging echo sounder - and disabled the wind generator, that makes
quite a noise. I decided against standing on the transom to haul in the towed
generator !
I did call Falmouth CG for advice
though sadly had the office number and got the answerphone (how annoying is
that?). A further conversation with a very helpful Falmouth CG this morning has
obtained the right number for 24 access and closed their incident
record.
Fortunately the beastie got bored and
went away so all we had for night-time entertainment was some very strong
squalls (45 knots plus) and torrential rain. Needless to say, Barnie was on
watch at the time of the most severe cloudburst, but we've put him out in the
sun this morning and he's beginning to dry out.
All has now settled down again and
we're bowling along toward Antigua at between 7 and 8 knots.
Finally, if you've noticed that we're
going rather far south, we took a 7 day wind forecast and found that the great
strong easterlies are due to die away early next week. The wind will fall and
back so we are tending for a bit of south so that we have a better angle on the
wind in the final approach to Antigua. We have had a fantastic strong E wind for
most of the crossing though, must be beginners luck?
Best Wishes
George, Michael and the
crew
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