At 5:04 PM this afternoon a Humpback Whale either surfaced closer than 20 feet behind and 10 feet off the port side of the boat; or swam from the starboard side to the port side angled 30 degrees forward of our transom's perpendicular plane. In either circumstance it probably was much closer to the boat than when I saw it. I was alone in the cockpit at the time. Joel had been napping for a while and Jeanine had just gone down to nap. I heard a noise behind the boat, looked up and saw a the large black (whale) body from the hump back to the tail. Then the tail elevated itself into the perpendicular and the whale submerged downward, with a big area of frothy water left behind. I mean BIG! As the tail was raised, it appeared as wide as the boat. The whale was so close I could see individual, large white mollusks on its tail; maybe 25-30 on one side near the end of the tail. I called below to alert Joel and Jeanine but there was no other sighting of this whale or any other whales. My biggest fear in doing this circumnavigation has always been contact or collision with a whale. Sail boats every year are sunk by these leviathans; some boats have even been 'Moby Dicked' - purposefully sunk by a whale. A World Cruising Club boat was sunk in the Indian Ocean last Rally, after colliding with an unidentified underwater object; possibly a whale. The crew were rescued by another Rally boat. Another advantage of being in a Rally in the first place.
Back to my log....
At 6:43 AM I woke up and went to the cockpit to look around. The sun was starting to rise above the mountains to our east, with Boingo Alive in the foreground. I grabbed my camera and took some pictures. I then went back to bed.
Up at 8:00 AM, showered and cooked coffee and tea. Boingo Alive had weighed anchor and was long gone before 8:00 AM.
Breakfast consisted of scrambled eggs, chilled fruit cocktail and raisin bread with butter, jelly and/or peanut butter. Fifteen sea gulls sat on the dingy while we ate breakfast. Some of them were kind enough to leave evidence of their sitting on the dingy (bird poop).
At 10:02 AM Joel saw and pointed out a 2-3 foot diameter sea turtle that was poking its head out of the water and heading toward shore. It was about 30 yards away behind us.
After breakfast we dismantled the motor and then lifted the dingy up on the deck, deflated it and put it down below on the V-Berth floor. That whole process takes about 20 minutes. Too windy to drag a dingy behind the boat.
At 10:40 AM we powered up the GPS. It took about 10-15 minutes to get our position because 'capturing' enough satellites was a slow process. Not sure if that's a GPS problem or a satellite problem. My satellite phone has similar problems locking onto a satellite.
At 10:57 AM I turned on the SSB to send and receive emails. I connected to Darawank NSW in Australia, 739 nautical miles away at a heading of 165 degrees true. I sent the emails and logs with no problem; but got disconnected when trying to receive emails. After trying a couple more times, I gave up and turned the system off. When using the SSB radio for emails, I turn the AIS (Automatic Identification System) off before doing so. We've burned up 3 previous AIS units due to radiation from the SSB. Even though this AIS is a better and more robust model from what I had, I'm still not going to risk blowing up another one.
It was quite windy as we got ready to weigh anchor, and even though we had all taken our American Spirit II caps off due to the high winds, Jeanine's got lifted out of the cockpit and blown into the sea. After weighing anchor we went back to find the hat and miraculously found it about 50 yards away. Joel retrieved it with a boat hook as I steered the boat to it. It had been floating around for 20 minutes. Lucky.
We put up a reefed jib and mainsail. The winds were 20-25 knots with the wind behind us. Made for a sloppy sail. We rolled the jib in at 2:30 PM. The seas were 5-7 feet but steep and closely spaced.
I saw the whale at 5:04 PM. See above.
At 5:08 PM a ship, the Thor Madoc, registered on the AIS. It was headed towards us, starboard to starboard.
At 5:15 PM I shook out the reef in the main and had the full main up. The wind had lightened to 15 knots. With more sail up we were doing 5.4 knots.
The Thor Madoc passed abeam at 5:41 PM. 623 feet long.
The sun set at 5:49 PM. Because I thought there was a 50/50 chance of a green flash, I woke up Jeanine to watch it. She had seen her first and only green flash on this trip. Unfortunately, just as the lower limb of the sun reached the horizon, a thin band of clouds obstructed the sun as it set. No green flash.
At 6:40 PM another ship, the Laust Maersh, 873 long, popped up on the AIS. It was moving at 17 knots coming towards us on our starboard bow. Another ship then passed us going our way.
Dinner at 7:15 PM was freeze dried, Beef Curry with Rice. One of the freeze dried I'd bought in Australia. Good. But I need to add less water next time. With the Beef Curry we had mixed vegetables and chilled fruit cocktail.
After dinner at 7:46 AM another ship, the GH Harmony came at us as the ANL Karpinia approached from behind. At the same time we were coming up on Holbourn Island that had a light on it. I was napping before my 9:00 PM watch and came up when I heard one ship calling us on the VHF radio channel 16. The GH Harmony wanted to pass port to port, but we couldn't do that because we'd have to jibe the main to do so. We also didn't want to cross in front of the approaching. So we agreed on a starboard to starboard passing; and the ship behind also agreed to a starboard to starboard passing with the other ship. That ship would be passing .4 of a mile from us on starboard as we're approaching an island with a large shoal area reaching out to us on port. Seems like things like this always happen at night. Once the ship behind us passed us we veered right a few degrees to give us a little more space away from Holbourn Island. The ship behind us was going 13.7 knots and after he passed we got some large wake waves that threw the boat around for about 20-30 seconds until they had all passed. A ship .4 of a mile away when its over 800 feet long is not a pleasant sight at night in lumpy and windy seas.
We passed Holbourn Island at 9:34 PM. Joel then went off watch and I assumed watch. Because Joel over stayed his 9:00 PM 'quitting time,' I'll relieve him a half hour later for his midnight watch at 12:30 AM.
It was a noisy night. Crashing 5-7 foot waves from directly behind us; howling wind in the rigging; and rocking back and forth every now and then when a larger wave zooms by. And we're surfing, which is noisy, also. We're doing 5.5 to 6.3 knots in 20 knots of wind. White puffy clouds are racing by overhead, but there are a lot of stars out despite the more than half moon.
At 11:00 PM the wind was averaging 22-26 knots, and our speed was 6.8 to 7.1 knots with a reefed main only. I can see the lights of a large mining facility 18 miles away on the mainland to port. I figured it was a mining or sugar cane facility because there were 6 large cargo ships anchored just offshore of it.
The wind was a steady 25 knots at 12:10 AM and our speed was 7.0 knots.
I woke Joel at 12:30 AM for his 12:00 AM to 3:00 AM watch.
Brian Fox