100 miles to go
Piccolo
Andrew Yates
Sun 24 May 2009 12:58
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Well the last 24 hours have been very eventful
wildlife wise.......obviously the vast number of Dolphins appearing to play off
our bow has continued but as well as that we have seen four turtles float
by...... some very old with lots of barnacles on their shells...... but.....to
top that, Mathew and I had just got all sails up and turned off the engine when
we heard a big whoosh....we turned to look behind the boat and saw a huge whale
less than 50 feet away. After shouting Whale......f***ing huge whale
a few times, Sam quickly rose from his pit with camera in tow. We timed
their dives to be about 5 mins and as they were doing about 3.5 knots on a
steady course we quickly got in the headsail and put the motor back
on. Sure enough our calculations were correct and the Whale
reappeared about 70 feet off the port side...with the sun shining on the water
we could see its white underbelly and were able to identify it as a Fin
Whale.... I think if not mistaken that they are the 2nd largest mammal on the
planet.... size - bigger than the boat for sure ... text book says between 18
and 22 metres! So for 45 minutes (all this time we had not managed
to alert Katie...despite engine revs altering rapidly, my banging on her
cabin window and my hysterical screaming each time this monster appeared close
to the boat) we stayed with what we think was three of
them....amazing...Katie did get up and popped her head up just as the whale came
up before diving for the last time....lucky!
Last night as the sun set we all donned our pirate
outfits and with canapes and a very weak rum punch we had a party....
evenwithout the alcohol it got a bit roudy when Katie decided to do the Can Can
dance on the seat in the cockpit.... with the boat rolling it was not too
successful but got a lot of laughs.
Should be on dry land this time tommorow....good
chance we will be in the pub!
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