My watch passes without incident and when I go back down to bed at 4.30 am I actually fall asleep almost immediately and stay asleep until 8.30 am which is really good for me.
The weather and sea are still really calm and we still just have the genoa out in front, ambling along at a nice comfortable speed. Mike grabs a couple of hours’ sleep and has just come back up and gone into the cockpit when he hears a strange noise, looks over the guard rails then shouts for me to come out quick with the camera. There, just ten feet away from the boat and keeping pace with us is a huge, HUGE whale. It is the full length of our boat, about 44 feet in length. Sod’s law means that the camera’s battery needs changing and by the time I have done this, Moby Dick has moved a little further away from the boat. While I film, Mike rushes to take the fishing line in as we really don’t want it to get tangled as it would rip the rod out of the holder.
Photo: Moby Dick
Moby Dick stays with us for about five minutes, gradually allowing itself to drift further and further away, and Mike has just put the line out again when it reappears behind us, right at the point where the lure is in the water and appears to be taking a look at it before catching up with us again and swimming parallel with us about 30 feet away. Again it stays for a few minutes then drifts off.
Mike is convinced that to a whale, our twin hulls look like two whales swimming together, which is why they come to investigate. I just hope that visitors of this size are not in an amorous mood – any attempts to jump us could be catastrophic!
All of a sudden we get a bite on the line (luckily not a whale) and Mike pulls in a nice mahi mahi. He gets it all the way into the cockpit before it gives a huge thrash, gets off the hook and throws itself back down the steps and into the sea, swimming off to fight another day. It was a nice size too. Bugger.
Photo: Pulling him in
Photo: Almost dinner – the one that got away
The sea is so calm that I decide to get some washing done. Mike puts the water maker on and we set the washing machine up in the cockpit. We use the dirty water for cleaning the cockpit of the boat but this does drag the process out as we empty bucket after bucket load and scrub our little hearts out. No sooner have we scrubbed the fish slime off the back steps than the line goes out again. Another mahi mahi, but this time Mike decides it is a bit too small and releases it and we have to wash everything down again. I’d have eaten it, if only to make scrubbing the decks worthwhile!
I should have had an afternoon sleep as I am scheduled for two watches tonight but the washing takes me all afternoon. I hang everything inside the boat - it never dries properly if it gets salty air on it - and in between make a nice big pot of dhal.
Just as I am about to do my watch the wind picks up and changes direction. Mike decides that he needs to do the watch until things calm down again and I go off to bed. When he wakes me, everything is nice and settled again.
Our position is: 20 deg 23 min S, 163 deg 55 min W
Distance so far: 7611 nautical miles
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