Things that go bump in the night !! 37.26:66N 19.31:07W
Tioram 4
Tina & Tony
Sun 6 Jun 2010 23:25
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6th June
Hi Everyone,
We have just completed 420 miles of the 1000n
miles to Albufeira, Portugal. The sea is calm and we have light winds
which is making the trip slow but we are really happy. Tony has been checking
the weather and so far it looks to be continuing. We expect to pick up some
stronger winds as we near the Portuguese coast so we should gain some time
there. At the moment the winds are really light and we have had the spinnaker up
and then the cruising shute. Malte is excellent with the sails so Tony and he
are enjoying trimming.
On our previous blog we mentioned that
we narrowly missed a whale 2 mornings ago and then unfortunately last
night we hit something. We were motoring quite slowly fortunately which
usually allows whales to hear you--- and therefore we guess it
probably wasn't a whale. We also looked behind with torches and didn't see
anything moving in the water. It was a bit hairy as there was a loud dounk
on the starboard side hull towards the stern and what felt like quite
a bump under the helm position. We were worried about being holed or the prop or
rudder being damaged but immediately disengaged the prop and auto pilot
and gently turned the rudder--- all seemed ok----we kept a good check
for an hour and thankfully found no damage.
A few hours later in daylight a large plastic drum passed
us closely, so we think that there may have been others from a ship with debris
possibly drifting in the same direction which would explain the kind of
noise we heard last night.
Then today at 1pm Tony was helming and heard a whale
breath / spurt to our left/port side at the front of the boat, we both
then saw a very large---40 to 50 ft turquoise shape in the water about 6ft down
moving left to right in front of us---Tony hung a quick left, thankfully sail's
allowing and missed it as it then dived to our right and re surfaced behind
us. We are now on whale watch ahead and travelling slowly--------needless to say
our nerves are a bit shot!!! Really should have bought a camper van and
married a scout camp leader ---would have been a simpler life !!!
Despite the whale watching we are very relaxed and
enjoying ourselves.
This evening the wind has kicked in from the north and we are now beam
reaching in 14 knots true wind ---full main /genoa making 6.5 knots SOG ( speed
over ground ).
Love to families and friends,
Tina, Tony, Malte--------Tioram x x
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