Wednesday May 19, 1999 enroute to Trinidad

First of all thanks to all of you who sent positive feedback, I really appreciate it, and I’m just going to keep banging things out as they happen.

For the sharp amongst you – I must apologize for my typo yesterday – the flock of birds were of course ‘Terns’ and not turns !

We’re well on our way to Trinidad now, and are wallowing along at a steady 10 to 11 knots, The sea is not really rough but there’s just enough swell to keep us rolling. All is quiet at the moment but we’ve had a busy night weaving our way through two big groups of trawlers  that were concentrated around a large factory ship – lit up like a christmas tree. We try to keep a minimum of 1 nautical mile away from any other boats particularly at night when its better to have a large safety margin.

Not much wildlife about; as I went outside after my watch there was a small school of flying fish flitting in and out of the bow wave – one must have miscalculated and landed on the deck – unfortunately it was dead by the time I found it.

little dead flying fish 

Afternoon; we’re still barreling along and being escorted by shoals of tiny flying fish, They are smaller than I have previously seen but still they manage flights of up to 20m long over the surface of the waves. Encouraged by this evidence that we are not alone – Michael and Rudi have had the big fishing rod out at the back,  but so far have not caught anything yet. We’re probably going a little too fast and the swell has been picking up through the day.

Today is my birthday and by some miracle Monika has managed to cook up a birthday cake for me. A real nice surprise, but really  the best present was from my husband who told me that I am 34 today and not 35 as I thought – of course I’ve been filling out all my official forms for the last year  with my age as 34. – so that’s a deal, instead of being one year older I am the same age as I was last year !

Late afternoon: and good news for Net-naturalists … the water has cleared to a beautiful deep Prussian blue and the swell has died down quite a bit, which makes for pleasant sailing.

Spinner dolphin at the bow this afternoon

We have finally encountered some marine life and there is quite a large ‘pod’ (10-13) of long-snouted spinner dolphins surfing the bow wave at the front of the boat. They skim effortlessly along just under the surface and frequently breach out of the water up to 2m in height. The general consensus of opinion is that dolphins do this simply for fun and have been known to travel long distances to find a boat where they can perform to an admiring audience. We’ve all been up at the front of the boat and could actually hear the strange whistling and clicking noise they make as they jump out of the water.

For those of you who want to know more about the long-snouted spinner dolphin – I’ll be preparing a little article for our ‘Creature of the week’ page which I hope to get set up by Friday.

That’s all the news for today..

Janet