Melon Headed Whale!
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4/12/10
14 44N 37 39W Saturday Day 14, Awoke to shouts from Jody
calling for the children on deck, a large fish had been sighted, it was alone
and looked at first like a very big dolphin but it moved differently and
had a rounded dorsal fin, and in
total was 3-4m long. Aston later identified it as a ‘Melon headed whale’. It
kept surfacing just behind the boat and then coming alongside the hull nearly
touching us, I was worried that it may be alerting it’s friends to attack but it
peacefully left us after around 10 minutes. At last this must be it, sunshine, a
sparkling turquoise sea and northerly winds of 1-15 knots giving us a steady 8-9
knots boat speed. We hear that there is deep snow in London and -4 degrees in
Cowes, we contemplate this as we apply more sun screen and break out another
round of cold drinks. We started recalculating arrival times and spent a
pleasant day hand steering making some great distance with now just over 1200
miles to go. All had a pleasant day except Ashley perhaps who spent most of the
day working on the generator trying to fix the air which seems to be getting
into the fuel supply and causing a ‘surging’ of the generator..this is most
annoying as it effects the Nintendo Wii and can re-set a game as the voltage
drops! Saturday is cleaning day aboard Nakesa (be warned you potential visitors,
no-one escapes) and despite a little illness in the crew this morning and a
heaving deck we set about a thorough clean including a deck wash, the boat
looked much better by mid day and Phaedra, Jody and I sat down to a celebratory
beer...Ashley could not spare the time and kept working, a very committed crew
member. Cocktails, classical music and sunset as normal, the leg of ham is now
getting much more difficult to carve but the taste gets even better, dinner by
me, covering for Ashley, well he had had a very hard day! We still will have to
wait to sample his first meal. We have already made plans for Sunday lunch if we
are in, a good restaurant with a view and Lobster Thermidor with chilled white
wine. Its a good image to look forward to but actually no-one is yearning for
land..not even A&A who are now half way through the first series of ‘Lost’
and loving life at sea. The ARC Rally control have changed the welcome drinks
party on Wednesday 8th December to an ‘Early Arrivals’ party and the
welcome party by the Mayor of St Lucia has been moved to Saturday the
11th, so this is now our target, it will mean an average speed of
over 7 knots but averaging over 8 today so it may be possible as stronger wind
is forecast. Our best run today, 195 miles, still haven’t broken the magic 200
this trip but getting there. As I write a flying fish has just landed at the
bottom of the companionway steps, we have had a least one aboard every day so
far. This is the second day with no other yachts in sight, it seems we are alone
at last and only just before we all re-converge on St Lucia, our ‘Yellow Brick’
is obviously not transmitting as the ARC only have a 2 day old position for us,
it will be interesting to see tomorrow how we are doing if it gets updated, it
better as we are now shown as 96th and that will just not do! |