Hello from the rolling Atlantic, where after a few days of not much to report, I fear we now have too much to fit into one little blog post. I'll start with my new favourite quote, from Lyell: "Ah, Mom, calm down. It's just a fish in the cockpit!" Yes, you guessed it: a flying fish flew with a thump and splat into the cockpit last night and, being only inches from me and flopping wildly in the dark, you can imagine why I needed to calm down! He was about a foot long and the most gorgeous iridescent blue color with cream colored tummy - no wonder we cannot see their colors as they fly over the waves as they match perfectly. While we agreed this one was not one of Darwin's "fittest" (he did after all bolt INTO the passing sailboat and not away from it), Stuart nonetheless picked him up in a towel and gave him a second chance at life in the sea. We did get a laugh at the hour, 3:00am exactly, as it is regularly declared in sailing lore that everything that can go wrong does so "at 3am in the dark with rough weather." At least we had calm weather!
My other newsworthy item is that I finally got to use the nautical phrase, "What are your intentions?" on the VHF this morning with a passing 180m tanker, the Stavanger Eagle. While the last time I used this phrase could well have been when dating Stuart, in our current sailing context it really means "we're little and you're big; do you see us and will you give us more room when you pass please?" The captain was gracious and changed his course slightly; when we passed him at 2 miles off, however, it still seemed very close in this otherwise huge and empty ocean. It never fails to amaze me that, with nothing else seen for over 2 days now, suddenly there can be tanker who happens to be heading directly towards us. THAT, the Captain would say, is why we do watch!!
xo Edelweiss