Another hundred miles
Fleck
Fri 20 Jun 2014 16:00
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Friday, 20th June 2014
Position 35:52N 52:21.5W
We roll, pitch, and ship a green one on one side or
the other from time to time, but the horizon doesn't seem to change much: it
remains stubbornly about 15 miles away. Actually today is a little different
from yesterday: some haze and more wind make it distinctly chilly in the cockpit
without light foulies on, but it is still warm below, though I have started to
get cold feet at night. Is this the sort of detail that you are looking
for?
Good speeds, surfing down the waves at up to 8
knots, then you dig into the trough and grind up the back of the next wave
at 4.5 knots. A light howl in the rigging tells me when the wind exceeds 20
knots, which it did all last night, but as usual it calms down in the afternoon
a bit. Hope to ride this system for another 24 hours, then, according
to yesterdays chart it looks very quiet, we shall see.
Vicky and I are emailing each other boat to boat,
such that I have had a tutorial in Whaleology from her! 'My' two whales had
distincly vertical leading edges to their dorsal fins, and one of them at least
certainly wasn't hanging about, speed of a fast dolphin: so maybe Orca's after
all. Three of four days ago I am sure that I saw some pilot whales, about 6 of
them, about half a mile off. Indeed, they dont move around so quickly: which at
that distance, in the absence of scale, immediately tells you that
they are not dolphins. No more sightings today, but you would be right in
thinking that they would have to come in down the companionway to be sure of my
spotting them!
This trip I have resolved to try to use up some of
the 8 years worth of accumulated tins of food that lurk in the forecabin. Mostly
labelled, but you never know what you are going to find in a tin of Malaysian
chicken: bones and feathers certainly, but what about that grey stuff? I have a
low threshold for consigning such things to the deep. It is the end of my first
week at sea, and I don't need to keep a diary to be sure of this, as the last of
my preserved fresh bread has now gone mouldy: it is a reliable marker. Tomorrow
is baking day then, but where to put the dough to rise? Wish I was back in the
tropics!! Cabbage and onions good, potatoes and tomatoes fair, pears need to be
eaten up, apples good for now. After that it's back to the bones and
feathers.
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