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American Spirit II - Day 376; Moby Dick Lives! - We Encounter Our First Giant Sperm Whale; Thursday, January 15, 2015



The wind goes light and we have to turn the engine on at 2:25 AM. Even though I'm off watch until 6:00 AM, the engine is located in the aft cabin where I sleep. So if it goes on in the middle of my night, I usually wake up. The wind picks up enough at 7:00 AM that I turn off the engine at that time. An our later I put 2 fishing lines in the water, one on a rod and the other a hand line with a coke can as an alarm when we get a hit.



At 8:25 AM the wind is 14/15 knots and we're moving at 6.3 knots thru the water and 6.7 over the land. Its sunny and clear.



Saphir pops up on our AIS at 9:00 AM, 7 miles aft on our starboard quarter. The AIS doesn't give me their boat name because I'm not receiving all their data, but their MMSI number is listed, and I look it up in my rally directory and see that its them.



The 10:00 AM net is hosted by Jon (?) from Polaris, one of the German boats.



Breakfast at 10:15 AM consists of bacon, scrambled eggs, cut up potato, chilled fruit cocktail and brown bread. Jeanine brings some honey to the table for Joel to try as a bread spread.



Our noon position is 25 degrees, 3 minutes South; 8 degrees, 21 minutes East; and we're 957 miles from St. Helena. The wind is 5 knots and we're motor sailing again at 1,600 RPM's with the mainsail up.



I do emails and a log from 12:15 PM to 2:04 PM; and at 2:20 PM I call American Express regarding a card issue.



At 2:35 PM we rolled the jib out and picked up .4 of a knot in boat speed.



At 2:42 PM Joel makes cheese flavored pop corn in the micro wave oven. We each get a small bowl so everyone gets the same amount.



At 245 PM a pod of dolphin, covering an area the size of a football field, is seen chasing and eating a school of fish to our starboard about 200 to 300 yards. They're jumping out of the water high into the air as they swim along. Joel says that the dolphin jump when feeding like this to 'look around.' Beats me.



At 3:00 PM while reading and sitting in the cockpit, port side, facing forward, I see a whale 'blow' 30 degrees off the port bow a few hundred yards ahead of us; heading north in a course paralleling our own. I yell out to Joel and Jeanine that I see a whale, and we all look forward trying to track it. Its long body comes into view, and it becomes fairly easy to track by watching it 'blow' every 10 seconds or so. The blow is about 15 feet high and with the wind and the whale's 3-5 knot forward pace, the wet spray widens out. In th. e old sailing days, the most common method of finding a whale was to search for the blow. That's where the term 'there she blows' comes from. A lookout on a whaling ship would shout that upon seeing a whale. Upon close inspection we determine its a 'sperm' whale. Its head is the most different and unusual in the whale kingdom,with a blunt, huge head unlike other whales in the ocean. For example, other whales have typical fish type heads, in that they become narrow and taper the further you get to the front tip of the fish. Not so the sperm whale. And the singular dorsal fin is way back in its body, but it doesn't look like a normal dorsal fin that the other whales, dolphins and fish have. Its like cut off half way up, with no curving point to it. Male sperm whales grow to 18 meters (59 feet) and females to 12 meters (39 feet). The whale we see is longer than the boat, at least 50 feet, which makes it a male, and is light grey in color. Because its traveling alone, that also indicates (we think) that its a male and not a female. I alter course 30 degrees to get closer to it and pull back on the throttle to slow the boat down. Joel and I get our cameras out, and while he shoots still shots I'm shooting video along with some still shots. I get two videos of the whale, one with 10 blows and one minute, 42 seconds in duration; and the second video with 2 blows and 51 seconds in duration. We get within 50-100 yards of the leviathan. Seeing this sperm whale is going to be one of the highlights of the entire circumnavigation; for sure! To my knowledge, we may be the only rally boat so far to see a sperm whale. I'll try to upload the video on Facebook and Joel's web page when we get to St. Helena. I counted a total of 16 blows in the whole encounter. Our position of this sighting is 24 degrees, 49 minutes South and 8 degrees East.



Joel also saw and pointed out to us a small jelly fish he called a 'sail jelly fish.' The 'sail' of this jelly fish is about 1 1/2 inches in diameter, and is raised so it can move over the water. The jelly fish itself under the water is also in proportion to the sail. Its very small.



At 3:50 PM I accidentally knock one of my sandals overboard, so we have to turn around and and hook it with a boat hook.



We turn the engine off at 5:18 PM as the wind is 8/9 knots and we're moving at 5.9 knots thru the water and 5.7 knots over the land. Even though the wind is light, its on the port beam and not behind us so we're able to sail with it.



Jon from Polaris hosts the 7:00 PM net. Because of reception problems, Tim from Ghost finishes hosting the roll call. Most boats announce that they are motoring or have been motoring most of the day. Folie a Deux says that they've been sailing since noon.



The auto pilot cuts off at 8:10 PM again. Frustrating.



The sun sets at 8:24 PM local Cape Town start time. Because of clouds on the horizon, there is no green flash.



I nap from 8:30 PM to 9:30 PM, when Joel wakes me for the 9:00 PM to midnight watch. Though I should be on watch at 9:00 PM, Joel lets me start a little later due to my watching the sun set.



At 9:30 PM the wind is 10/11 knots and we're moving at 5.7 knots thru the water and 5.9 knots over the land.



At 10:41 PM I see Saphir on our aft, starboard quarter 2.4 miles away.



At 11:38 PM the wind is 12 knots and we're moving at 6.0 knots thru the water and over the land. 'Bombs' of phosphorescence are shooting out from under the transom every couple of seconds; like little depth charges. Very cool to watch.



I seen my first shooting star at 11:42 PM; the first one in months. Two seconds in duration. Joel sees one a little later that he says 'skips' on the atmosphere. Cool.



I try to send and receive a log and emails via the SSB radio, connecting to an African station 1,093 miles away at a heading of 104 degrees True. The send is quick, finishing at 1,400 bytes per minutes; but the receive doesn't happen as I get disconnected...twice. I stop trying at 12:20 PM and will 'receive' the emails I didn't get later today using the satellite phone.



At 12:20 AM I help Joel put up a low side pole on starboard; and at 1:22 AM we drop the pole due to the light wind and its direction behind us. We then turn the engine back on and motor sail with the mainsail up.



Before going to bed I turn on the water maker for 2 hours. That will make us about 13 gallons of water.



Brian Fox


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