Marshalls to Alaska Day 9: Sperm Whales! (and Tuna and Boobies)

Greetings!

Today was an extraordinary day.

I was wakened by the sound of silence this morning: Max and the kids shut down the motor and hoisted our spinnaker (without needing any assistance from me - hooray) and the boat glided through the water in barely any wind. Whereas it had taken a couple of tries yesterday, it went up perfectly the first time this morning.

Motoring at 5.6 kts with 0.8 kts of true wind.  We were extra vigilant in cleaning the hull before we left and are getting 5.5 kts of boat speed for 0.9 gal/hr at 1300 rpm.

A couple of hours later, I came up on deck to great excitement - we had a pet Tuna, nicknamed "Sashimi" swimming and playing in the shade of our bow. Every once in a while it would swim away, do a few jumps, and then it would take up its position again. He followed us for the entire morning and much of the afternoon. He didn't mind having his photo taken from the air, but he objected visibly when we dunked the GoPro beside him for a closer look :)

Can see our friendly tuna that stayed with us for the day.

We don't generally drink coffee on passage, but this morning's calm conditions gave us the feel of a lazy Sunday, so we pulled out our snazzy Aeropress that my brother gave us for Christmas, and in a rare occurrence of both being on watch at the same time, Max and I each enjoyed a morning coffee under clear blue skies and bright sunshine.

In between sips, Max was scanning the horizon when he saw what looked like breaking waves just ahead of us. This is the kind of thing we look for when there is a reef nearby, but there is no land near us for hundreds of miles in any direction. The sea was bright blue and almost as calm as glass, with hardly any wave ripples to break the surface. A closer look revealed that we had happened upon two whales! The 'breaking waves' were lapping at their backs, and they were drifting lazily in our direction, breathing and blowing from their blowholes every couple of minutes. Given that we were under sail, and spinnaker at that, we weren't very maneuverable, so thankfully, they swam parallel to our track. Only when they were right beside us did they begin to show any interest. We were hardly a boat length away, and they began to spy-hop and stick their heads out of the water to have a good look at us. They didn't seem startled or disturbed, and simply had a look at us and then carried on past our stern. Afterwards, the kids checked out our Marine Wildlife book, and determined that our visitors were two sperm whales. We all felt moved by this profound encounter, given the vastness of the ocean through which we are passing, and the odds against seeing whales at such a close distance. (On the other hand, we were also glad that we hadn't encountered them at night, or at an even closer distance under our hull!)

We have seen humpbacks, orcas and blue whales so far in our travels but these are the first sperm whales we have sighted.

Sperm Whales

The kids reading up on sperm whales.

It is hard to top visiting with whales, but everyone has to eat, so given the flat conditions, I decided to make brunch of pancakes, bacon, eggs, and apple sauce, all in a bid to use up some more of the apples that are going too soft to eat :) Many times, my menu planning starts with what is available, and what needs to be eaten, and it takes shape from there. No one seemed to mind being fed bacon and pancakes in order to use up some apples!

Multitasking.

This is a pretty fancy cruise line !

Max and the kids continued to fly the spinnaker throughout the afternoon. We had winds from 4 kts to about 8 kts and it pulled the boat along smoothly. Johnathan spent some time trimming, and it was nice to watch him expanding his skills. The colours in our spinnaker match the colours of the sky, so it is beautiful to see.

Victoria spent much of today with a needle and thread in her hand. She had decided that our lifeline netting needed repair, so she took it upon herself to fix it.

More repairs

We have begun to notice pieces of garbage floating by, perhaps because the water is so blue and calm that it is easy to spot anomalies in the surface that we would miss in rougher conditions. Sometimes larger pieces will have schools of fish collected underneath (as with our little tuna, likely attracted to the shade).

but more garbage.  We did not do a good job photographing the garbage but it was constant.

In our last wildlife report of the day, the kids were quite fascinated by the way the boobies, the same birds as we saw hundreds of miles from here in Rongerik Atoll, dive to catch fish: they come down to the water on a sloping trajectory, pass the spot where they want to fish, pull up a little, then turn and corkscrew-dive vertically to catch the fish in the water.

This night watch has been another magical, starry night (although I must admit that I am ready for the winds to fill in and move us towards Alaska a little faster than 2 kts!!) Sailing does indeed keep us rooted in the present moment; the wind and the seas are as they are, and we must adjust our sails and our attitudes accordingly. At any given time, we have either 400 or 1000 hours of sailing left to go before Alaska! As the distance to go has counted down from above 2,000 to the 1,900's we have had fun reminiscing about the various historical events that took place in each of the 'years' on the display. When we got to the years when we met and got married, it was humbling to be reminded that 'that was a loooong time ago' :) Of course, we had chips at supper to mark the 2,000 nm to go milestone.

Every extraordinary day has to come to an end, so on that note, I will wish you a good day in your own time and place. Time for a watch change.

Love to all,
Elizabeth
-----
At 2019-06-10 2:45 PM (utc) SV Fluenta's position was 29°00.68'N 166°33.63'E

----------
Sent via SailMail, http://www.sailmail.com