Poespas - day 11

Day 11
Another 24 hours gone and those promised 15 knot trade winds are due very shortly. Unfortunately before we get blessed by Aeolus who has been providing mankind with the right kind of global winds to explore, travel and to do trade, we had to go through a period of being becalmed.
Unable to receive synoptic charts by fax through the SSB due to a lot of electrical disturbance, we have had to make do with grib files in order to make an assessment of the weather situation. As mentioned before, the grib files have been very accurate so far, and yet again they proved right. They foretold the winds would veer westerly and decrease to less than 10 knots, with an area of heavy precipitation. How right that proved to be! From early on in the morning we started getting lots of echoes on our radar, indicating heavy rain (the auto rain clutter was turned off). Soon we were hit by downpours of biblical proportions. It wasn't raining cats and dogs, more like elephants and hippopotamuses! With this the wind was all over the place and we spend some frustrating hours constantly changing heading in order to fill our sails as well as stick to our great circle track to our destination.
Later on in the day, the showers abated but the winds had totally gone. Resisting the temptation to start the engine, we just furled the sails and enjoyed the thrill of going for a swim in the middle of the ocean. Afterwards we had a bit of a shindig on deck, fortified with cold beer and white wine.
Yours truly admits to getting rather frustrated with the lack of winds and was seriously considering turning on the engine in order to make way, but just at that moment all this was forgotten when two whales decided to pay us a visit. They swam around us for quite some time, entrancing us all before finally going on their way. Not 100% sure but I think they were 2 young fin or possibly Sei whales just wanting to find out more about that weird unresponsive creature in their way. In any case probably the highlight of our trip so far! Not long after, as if provided for by our cetacean friends (also predicted by the grib files, but one has to go metaphysical at times), the winds indeed changed to the northeast and we finally started making way again towards St Lucia. Hopefully Parasailor conditions!
Roger

After the excitement of yesterday (see previous log ) no one thought that today would compare and probably many other days to follow wouldn't either, but you never know whats out here on the Atlantic…….!
After the nights huge amount of rain fall Poespas was beautifully clean with not a drop of salt on her… sparkling. Then the usual bread making plus a couple of Spanish omelettes for lunch. Rain , light winds and not much to speak of… then the line goes wizzing of the reel and we are into another fish, our fishing virgin, Rogier, was straight there as keen as mustard and applied himself admirably in the fish fighting /reeling in task .Eventually we saw the beast in the distance, it was not the same yellow hue as previous UFO's (see previous log) no, this one was a silver blue and more streamlined. As our leader managed to get the silver bullet alongside he paused with exhaustion ( don't forget he was windsurfing yesterday) and at the same time I stooped and managed to Gaff the beast and get it aboard. So Rogier no longer the fishing virgin and as a team…. We are complete. Fish.. sorry.. beast ….despatched and jointed, yes jointed, and put in fridge. I believe beast is a Wahoo.
Well Rogier certainly is having a couple of days of it.
This morning whilst gazing into the water from the pulpit seat I noticed how much plankton/plancton was in the water and said to my crew mates "I think we'll see whales today"………………………….OMG……………….No really……………..OMG at about one hour before sunset we spotted two small whales swimming round Poespas (who was becalmed at the time as we are currently refusing to use our engine for propulsion) , almost as if they were checking us out. Swimming under and round and back and forth, quite spine tingling. For about half an hour they swam around us… absolutely fantastic… that's one ticked of the old bucket list. We think they may have been small fin whales but not sure.
So another great day on board Poespas, and as it's Friday it's curry night, so a can of beer(or wine in my case) and a chicken Balti… lovely.
Pigs leg still under dinghy
No fish for supper .,.:)
Mike….Over