Sailing Gib to Madeira catch up
Salamander
Sun 20 Sep 2009 12:20
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1st afternoon leaving the Straits, flying fish, sun
fish bouncing out of the water. Larger bottle nose dolphins put on a magnificent
flying display. Helen was soaked by a blowhole splume. One of the dolphins did
some superb back flips accompanied by much oohing and aahing from the crew (but
no pics :-( ).
Crossing where the ships pass between shipping
chanels a cruise ship actually gave way to us.
WIth darkness falling Murray tried to pass a
trawler laying down nets, with no lights and no consistent direction. We ran
over the net, but thankfully Helen shouted a warning, we cut the engine
and somehow didn't get tangled! For the next 3 1/2 hours Caz and
Hellie traversed a multitude of tunny nets. The lights from the net
markers turned the sky orange.
As we slipped further out of sight of land, no
boats, no nets to be seen for two days. Day 3 we were all ill, Hellie on
painkillers, Muz with sickness (bands worked until they broke - must get some
more!) Caz with wheat allergy suffering severe headaches, temperature and
vomiting worked out she can just manage to hold the wheel and feed the fish at
the same time. Muz and Hellie insisted on splitting Caz's shift (cos she was the
only one likely to get better with rest!) and after 5 hours sleep she was
somewhat recovered, but took another day to be well.
On day 4 Muz got excited over seeing a
sea bird (must get out more!)
A small land bird (tit size, unknown make/model)
landed on the boat for a rest, before continuing on for Africa.
Last day, nearing Madeira, several turtles feebling
swimming on the surface towards the nature reserves around Madeira, every so
often lifting their heads for air - finally we have found something slower and
smaller than us!
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