Day 14 - Passage to St Helena;
Misterx
Wed 19 Mar 2025 21:31
19/03/25
8:30 pm
Day 14
Atlantic Ocean
DTD : 60 NM
I was greeted this morning by a loud squawking... i definitely was not expecting that!
A paille en queue, only know the name in Mauritian French, that white slender bird with a very long thin tail, was circling around us at dawn. The most beautiful bird with the most unattractive call! He stayed with us for a bit and then disappeared, towards land! And i know where land is because we are aiming at it, have been for days. Almost a biblical picture, the sun rays slowly fighting their way through the cloud, and this lonely bird high in the sky, circling around the mast, squawking loudly!
We have not seen a bird for many days now. the skies have been empty of any living creature. So have the seas for that matter. It is one of the thing that really amazes me, with the amount of time we have spent staring at the sea, how little wild life we have seen... on the high sea anyway. The birds tend to stay with us for a few days and then vanished. On this passage, apart for a small shoal of tuna having a jumping competition, and the customary squadrons of flying fishes, with a couple of them stranded on deck every morning, we have seen nothing else.
We have been doing really well all day, with the computer expecting us to arrive in the early morning tomorrow and then, as night fell the wind dropped again... with us going at 3.5/4 knots, our arrival time is now midday. As long as we arrive in daylight, it doesn't make a great deal of difference. One thing we do not want is to find a anchoring place in the dark, in a mooring field which is, by all account, already full. The anchoring conditions are also a bit edgy, we have to anchor in 20m, which is quite a lot of depth for us. We usually anchor in 8 to 5m usually. Here you have no choice, the island is pretty steep in and out of the water. Added to this the 20m shelf is also quite narrow, it drops down very sharply, so you do not want to be too close to that edge. So it should be interesting all round.
Can't wait for daylight, we should be seeing land by sunrise. Always a special moment, first sighting of land after any passage really. You can see the cloud first, not moving. The cloud over the land usually gives the game away. And then there is the smell, every island has got it's own smell. Make sense really, given that they will have different trees and plants growing on it. Mauritius smelt very sweet, of cinnamon and spices. New Zealand was sage brush and far more earthy... of course Ian is looking at me blank when I mention the smell of the island!! He does the same thing, when i talk about red wine tasting of raspberry and elderberry! some of us are not blessed with very powerful 5 senses! Although I can confirm there is nothing wrong with his sense of taste, just not working too well when it is too subtle!
So we will plod along for the night, not too long before day break, and our first sight of St Helena!
M