Return Crew Day 12 – 19 February 2020

By Kristy Whillier

THE WIND IS BACK!! It has been a quiet and peaceful day without the sound of the engine running, which also means that it will be easier to hear the sound of the reel when a fish has taken the lure… This has, however, been taken advantage of by Oliver and Francois with them pranking each other, making the running reel sound and causing each other to rush to the rods: only to find absolutely nothing. A lot of fun has been had with the fishing though and we have been lucky considering that we are basically fishing in a ‘desert’. A battle was initiated between Francois and “the biggest sailfish he’s ever seen” yesterday evening, but the battle ended soon after the bite because the fish unfortunately snapped the line it was so big. The boys were highly disappointed but are still optimistic. We are still hoping to catch a fish for tonight’s braai!

Yesterday evening we were also fortunate enough to see a massive pod of either minke whales or porpoises that seemed to be hunting. We can’t decide what they were so are sticking with Ollie’s version of: “We saw a big fish” until further notice. If anyone is able to give any insight; they seemed to have a small version of a whales body, with a dorsal fin similar to a dolphin.

Today’s sailing is definitely making up for the past few windless days with an average of 6-7knots throughout the day, and we are hoping it remains this way for the next 5 days. With wind comes larger swells and stronger currents, which means there will be a lot of movement of the boat: We will soon see who is going to get the second dose of seasickness and needing to use the chumbucket once again!

We have all thoroughly enjoyed sitting together in the cockpit, looking at the stars and having long discussions about the universe. Each night, there is always a different enactment that arises about the potential conversations that the aliens are having, and how shooting stars are actually aliens making a ‘pit stop’ on earth because they are hungry… (we’re not sure if this was thought about due to the intense craving of biltong, steak and Nutella that everyone is experiencing).

For lunch today, Clare made pancakes! Some of us had the classic of cinnamon and sugar while Robyn decided to melt a Barone and some smarties which she added to her pancake. Due to this, we all started drooling over the thought of Nutella again. During this conversation of Nutella pancakes we started to notice a naughty smile on Robyn’s face along with blushing that could be compared to that of a tomato. Needless to say we interrogated her and what we discovered rendered the rest of us speechless!!!! Hidden deep inside her bag was a jar of NUTELLA! We have reminded her that we know when she is on shift and where she sleeps.

We have sailed 132nm since our last blog.
Total: 1355nm