31:22.72N 11:45.42W 14th November on Turtle watch
The Snark on The ARC
Ben Little
Sat 14 Nov 2009 19:41
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What a fun day!!
Remember that scene from finding Nemo where the
Papa fish is hunting for his son Nemo and he runs into a swarm of turtles (not
sure about the collective here) all swimming in a line down the ocean
current? Well now we know where he was, it was the North Atlantic around
250 miles North of the Canaries. It was a truly bizarre phenomenon, we were sitting contemplating the lack of wind
after an excellent lunch (no tuna so far today so salad with some rather
excellent Spanish sausages), when we spotted some sort of debris in the water
which looked like some sort of floating seed pod, we got side tracked into a
discussion based on the coco de mere coconut which seemed like the same size and
shape as the item we had seen. Dugald then regaled us with the tale of how
he tried to polish his nuts with some power tools from B&Q.
Meanwhile we passed another and then another so we decided to take a detour to
take a look. Imagine our surprise when the supposed coconut started
swimming off in the opposite direction. Naturally we gave chase but the
creature dived beneath the crystal clear Atlantic waters and was
gone.
We set off again slightly disappointed that we had
not had more time with the Turtle but happy that we managed to snap a picture of
it. We need not have worried though, the couple of nuts we noticed were
not alone, we saw another and another in pretty much a straight line (spookily
the same line we are following from Gibraltar to Las Palmas). I am not sure how
many in total we noticed but it was a dozen or so and they were quite small and
easy to miss in the large ocean rollers we have here. Eager to see more I
launched myself into the North Atlantic on the first go I got within about 3
metres but he was beneath me by then and diving deep. On my second go I
managed to get much closer and followed it for a short while. Dugald and
Chris also braved the oceans and in fact managed to swim right up and touch the
animal before it got spooked. I attach one photo taken by Dug, it is a
really beauty.
So what is the story behind these creatures
are the lining up for some reason? is there really as in Nemo, a stream of
turtles in the North Atlantic and what possible reason is there for this?
Or perhaps even more spookily were there only around 3 turtles who were tracking
our boat for some even more strange reason? Any answers (no postcards
email please). We also saw dolphins at a short
distance (Dugald is still awaiting his first bow wave surf) and last night in
the early hours of the morning I saw something off the stern of the boat and the
what sounded like a whale vacating it's blow hole around 3 or 4 m behind the
boat. I heard this twice only and did not see anything clearly so hard to
call it a sighting but still all this wildlife is very exciting.
Back to now more important matters,
FOOD, we ate Tuna again for supper, this time we cooked it or we cooked
some of it. We had a sashimi appetizer, Followed by pan seared fillets
with fried rice. The rice cooker is really coming into its' own though we
do need to get some better quality sushi rice and vinegar etc to do it
properly.
On the less inspiring side, though we did get some
sailing today the wind has been very patchy and we are in danger of running down
out fuel supply. We will be OK but it may end up taking us a little
longer. If we get stuck we are still sailing within sight of the good
ship Epic Fanny and her husband and wife crew who we met face to face this
morning to exchange chit chat and a promise to exchange photos in
las Palmas, I can just see their lights on the Horizon.
Some good news I hope, one of the sail makers says
he thinks he can find the time to repair our busted sail which will be a great
bonus for downwind especially if we have light wind conditions. The weather
report is not hopeful, however while it is quite accurate within a 24 hour
period it seems to change 24 -48 hours out so I hope the 72 hour picture comes
forward and we have some good northerlies for the home stretch.
Bye for now need to check the wind status and our
track.
look forward to hearing from any blog fans with a
message for the crew (some clue about the turtles) find us via
Ben, Dugald and Chris
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