Atlantic Crossing - Shark Waters
Stargazer of Southampton
Susie and Adam (both think they are skipper)
Fri 31 Dec 2010 10:07
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31:12.10, 15:31.520N 28:50.393W
Good progress being made, not always in the exact
direction we want to go, but we're pretty much where we hoped to be by day
2. John and Alex set off on Freespirit about an hour before us and have
been in sight up until the middle of last night and we're in radio contact with
a couple of yachts.
Much excitement at sunrise yesterday morning, it
was my watch so I was sat at the helm seat at the back of the boat, nothing much
was happening - then the duogen (metal pole with a propellor on it that we trail
in the water just behind the boat to generate power) jerked violently a couple
of times, I assumed it was a wave coming side on and catching it. . . .
then it did it again. . . and again. . . I turned around to check that the
bolts that allow it to pivot were set ok - and at that point saw the reason for
the strange duo-gen behaviour, a large shark appeared out of the blue and bumped
it again a couple of times, it must have been trying to work out if it was
edible. It usually takes me about 5 attempts to lift the duogen out of the
water as it is heavy so had to call for Adam to get it out as I didn't really
want the shark trying to find out what else was edible on Stargazer - he
hoisted it out (without a shark attached to it) - it is missing a bit of
paint and the connector that allows you to stop it pivoting has broken -
not sure if that is directly shark related or not!!
That's the main news, the usual dolphins and
flying fish have been about in numbers. Sea is a bit choppy today
but we're making good speed - we covered almost 100 miles over night last
night.
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