19:36.28 N 43:26.94 W

California Blue
Mark Bashforth / Jayson Bashforth
Wed 5 Dec 2007 21:58
 Blog nr.10 from California Blue - Whales, whales and more whales!!!!!!!!!!!  5/12-07
 
Hello Everyone,
 
It's hard to believe that today is our 10th day at sea. This is the longest any of us have been on a ocean passage with the exception of Vic who holds the record at 24 days.
 
We have now covered over 1630 nm and have about 1070 nm to go.
 
Crew and ship are fine. We have been able to shower with some regularity thanks to our water maker and in such small quarters there is a limit to how much mess you can make. Elliott and Spencer are challenging that theory however.
 
Nightwatches last night were fairly uneventful. Jayson and the boys saw another cargo ship. Still no sighting of any other ARC yachts. I think we are about 25 nm from the closet boat. The lack of wind continues to disappoint us. We went back to the Parasailor this morning after our wind angle changed and we are now getting winds from a more E-SE direction. They are only 8-12 knots in strength however and we were expecting twice that so we are having difficulty catching up to the other boats and improving our overall position until that changes. Since 13:00 UTC we have averaged about 7 knots. Yesterday we had a run of about 162 nm.
 
Sunrise is now quite late around 09:30 UTC and sunset is around 20:30 UTC.
 
In between keeping an eye on the helm the boys read their books for school. The rest of us did some odd jobs and got on with our daily routines of feeding the crew and cleaning up afterwards. Spencer's head is still a mess and we have shut it down till we get to St. Maarten. At least it's not overflowing anymore.
 
Shortly before dinner (chili by the way) this evening we were approached and entertained by a group of whales. We are not sure what kind or how many but our best guess is there were between 4-6 of them about 7 meters or so in length. At first we were a bit alarmed having heard about whale and sailboat confrontations before. But these guys just entertained us surfing up and down waves, circling around the boat and diving under countless times. We captured this on video and have a picture (photo credit: Spencer) attached. This was amazing experience that captivated all of us. Interestingly enough we were playing the Red Hot Chili Peppers at the time. This is the same music that we played when we were encountered the pod of dolphins at the beginning of our trip. So our scientific conclusion is that sea mammals like the Red Hot Chili Peppers! Who would have thought!
 
The galley is nice and tidy and Jayson is just getting ready to start his nightwatch with the boys. Hopefully we will get a little more wind tonight and tomorrow.
 
Until tomorrow.
 
Take care,
 
Mark and the crew of California Blue

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