13:50.40N 40:17.12W
Lbb
Sat 4 Dec 2010 15:48
It was and amazing moment seeing all these beautiful creatures in their own habitat this close up....So I did what any self respecting man would, who's fridge is stocked for 16 days at sea and we are already 13 days in! I ran and got my gun! I stood there on the flybridge like a crazed, fat and unloved american teenager on top of a library waiting for his "friends" to come out of school! Tuna and crew scattered as I fired round after round into the school of tuna. I have it on good authority that I scored a direct hit on one as he had a hole though his fin and oily stuff was coming out, but in fairness that was about it. It just seemed to piss them off a bit, nothing more. So, I holstered my weapon and let the guys have their fun swimming with the now, slightly more wary Tuna!
They were swimming a good 50m from the boat when the cry went out from Mark, "What are those little dark fish down there?" And then as his brain processed the complexities of perspective and that small was perhaps large and deep, the next words were, "Sharks! they're sharks, I'm not kidding you.... Jez, have a look!" And sure enough Jez did have a look and sure enough they were sharks! Many of them... and big buggers too! Whilst Mark and Jeremy stared for what seemed like a lifetime but was probably only 5 seconds or so, Andy took his chance to stealthily start to swim back to the boat at some considerable speed and this started the trend for the next minute or so. The water turned into a frothing mess as we watched these 3 'Iron Men' lose all semblance of form in the water and it became a lesson in back to basics, just beat the guy next to you.
I picked up my rifle and sighted it just behind Jeremy, not trying to show any favouritism but just realistically knowing who pays my wages every month! I know what you're thinking, James, what could you possibly have done with an air rifle in case of a shark attack? Perhaps a lucky pot shot in the eye of Jaws? Or shoot out his teeth one by one?...... But you'd be missing the point! You see Mark was just behind Jeremy, and in case it got messy, all I had to do was slow Mark down enough and maybe even make a little blood pool around him to distract old Jaws from biting my boss!
Anyway, all things said and done, they all got back in one piece although the Tuna didn't fair so well as one of the sharks took it to the cleaners and chomped him up right good! I think it may have been the one I weakened with my sporadic fire!
After this we settled in for a great night of breeze and sailing. We went passed 2 other yachts in the night and just as we passed the second one we also passed our 1000Nm to go point, so at 0315 this morning, we all had a glass of wine and turned on all of our lights on the boat and danced and whooped like lunatics........ It was our moment for our achievement, but I'm pretty sure that the other boat thought we were gloating and whooping at the fact that we had just sailed right through them as we were only 50 yards away! Oops! They then put their engines on and continued to track us all night. I think we may not have made a friend last night, Oh well. Hey ho!
One last thing. Our Gennaker blew off its halyard connecting line this morning and proceeded to whip 60 metres of white hot spinnaker halyard through my hands ripping my gloves to shreds and then getting stuck into my hands! I couldn't let go quick enough, but as I did, it attacked me from behind and wrapped around my legs as I hopped from one foot to the other trying to stay free of it so it didn't drag my leg into a jammer!!! It didnt, but it burnt me reeeaaal good! Still, worse things happen at sea;-) and its our first injury on the trip so far so not bad, but it was a timely reminder for us all how fatigued we are and that we need to step up concentration just for 1 more week or so.
Love to all from all aboard
A slightly beaten up Captain and Crew of Lady Boubou!!
xxxx