Day 10: Visitors
Catacaos
Graham Shaw
Mon 19 Jan 2009 18:54
Hi all. We (I) was lucky enough to have a rather large visitor this
morning. At about 0700 ships time, 1000 GMT a smallish whale surfaced about
50ft in front of the boat. It only appeared once, much to my disappointment
and the rest of the crew still think I'm making it up. It was probably about
30ft long with a very small dorsal fin - could have been a minkie (no, not a
monkey for all you Peter Sellers fans). Anyway, it made a rather enjoyable
watch (sunrise, music, fair wind, good progress, rolling swell etc) a
fantastic watch.
Then during Lorraine's watch (yes, she has the pleasure of relieving me at
the end of my watches) a large ship appeared right behind us. Lorraine has
obviously got to know me fairly well as it took a lot of convincing there
was actually a ship bearing down on us. She wouldn't even look until I bet
her £1,000 pounds that there was a ship behind us. We have lots of
technology on board that shows us ships, land etc but these all require
power to run and as amps are in limited supply we don't tend to have the
radar or radio on unless there is a specific reason (like an enormous ship).
We still rely on a lookout to keep us safe. Having not seen any other vessel
for about a week, we then have one come within 2 miles of us. Couldn't quite
tell what sort of ship it was at that range and its name wasn't included in
its AIS info, nor could we make it out through the bins, but his MMSI number
was 310540000.
Life is wonderful onboard, amazing how quickly one forgets the inconvenience
of a little bad weather. We gybed yesterday morning and since have been
averaging a little under 7kts towards Barbados. When I suggested running a
sweepstake for our arrival time, Lorraine immediately commented that it was
open to abuse thinking that I would deliberately be sailing away from
Barbados just to increase my chances of winning with a later arrival time. I
think the attraction of copious amounts of cold beer and Mount Gay Rum would
out weigh winning the sweepstake!!
Thought I should include a picture of the view from our 'office', hope your
view is similarly pleasant!
Regards to all,
Gareth.
P.S. I can't believe I have been on this boat for over a month and I only
find out now via the blog that there are showers onboard!
