This
morning we reached our 1000 Nm to go point so excitement is building on board
about our arrival in about 5 days time. We‘ve had some eventful days since our
last blog, have a look what our lovely Sue has to share:
Well it’s
been a veritable Disney sea life experience here on EH01, over the last couple
of days. On Tuesday morning 3 of our number saw several ..... what looked like
yellow cushions ...... drifting by us. One thought was that they
were jelly fish or possibly sunfish- a slow moving blob that floats along just
under the surface of the water. Definitely one to look up when we get home! Then
a shout went up from our skipper, at about 4pm on Tuesday – he’d spotted a
dolphin- to our port side. An immediate cry to all on board was made as we had
promised to raise everyone from their bunks if significant wildlife appeared. it
was in fact a school of dolphins (we’ve been reviewing our collective nouns!)
who came to show off all around the boat. We estimated their were about 20 of
them, leaping around. To our delight they stayed with us for around half an hour
before the show was over – plenty of time to take photos. But even this display
was put in the shade yesterday at lunchtime when not one but a pod of whales
came to look at us ( maybe around 7 of them) and swim around the boat. There was
some anxiety on board that they may unwittingly bump into the boat, but
their radar was on top form and they stayed near enough for us to get a good
look, which included seeing one mother and baby at quite close quarter, before
heading away. What a highlight of our trip for some of us. However, our skipper
was much more excited in the afternoon, when, after the inevitable spinnaker
lowering and raising session, he spotted that our telltale bungee on our fishing
line was moving, and line was running out. We’d caught a fish. After quite a
long ‘landing’ session – as the fish had pulled out over 200m of line – we
pulled in our second dorado. No boil in the bag supper for us last night, but
fried steaks of fish with risotto, and there was enough left over to have dorado
melt for lunch today – my personal favourite!
We’ve got
plenty of brisk wind speeding us on our way, and have set up a sweepstake –
guessing the date and time of our arrival at the finishing line in St Lucia.
Everyone has one guess, at a cost of 2 US$ each, and then whoever has the
nearest guess collects the pot. No guesses after midnight tonight are accepted.
The windy conditions have meant that we are not experiencing any time for
contemplating or languishing on deck (as some of us hoped for). Instead our well
honed bodies from all the exercise, will be a sight to behold when we reach our
destination!!
Signing
off
Sue
J.