39:50.966 S 073:19.074 W
Spindrift
David Hersey
Tue 1 Apr 2008 22:02
1/4/08 00:30
The wind picks up to 30 knots and the sea becomes very confused causing
the yacht to roll about putting a lot of strain on our fragile skeg and
rudder
01:20
In an attempt to slow the yacht up and stop the rolling motion we are now
trailing a pair of 100 metre mooring warps behind us, this seems to be
working very well and the rolling has greatly reduced.
02:15
There was a huge jolt that woke everyone up and the boat speed was down to
less than 2 knots with one of the warps under a lot of tension. We
quickly dropped the sails and put the yacht into reverse while Steve
pulled in the one slack line so as not to wrap it on the propeller. We
heard a lot of thrashing at the end of the other but it was too dark to
see anything. Slowly the warp was wound in until with the aid of a torch
we could see the most unexpected thing. There no more than 20 metres
behind the yacht was a huge Blue Whale with our mooring warp trapped
between its teeth like a giant piece of dental floss! We can only presume
that it mistook the warp for a squid which can form part of their diet. We
had to cut the line as close to him as possible and he turned away
seemingly far less perturbed than we were.
04:30
On my watch ,I wake to a clear sky with a bright quarter moon smiling down
on us. We are motoring gently in a Southerly Force 3-4 and only 40 miles
out.
9:45
Arrived in Marina Alwoplast which is in a very beautiful location the
middle of nowhere. Niko has logged 9521 miles since Gran Canaria and Nick
1048 since Puerto Natales. We hire a car and check out the very charming
town with a wonderful fresh food and fish market. Valdivia has made a
very nice first impression.