25 Nov to
28Nov (Richies log)
I am writing
this at 10:00 on 28th Nov. The sea has a completely calm, flat,
mirror-glass look about it this morning and the air is totally still. Having had
an uncomfortable, rocky night last night, we are now in the doldrums. We are
heading in a south, south westerly direction to try and catch the trade winds
which will take us across to the Caribbean. DOLPHINS!
a large pod of dolphins
just appeared about 100 metres away but they didn't come and play just going
about their daily business
We are about 280 nautical miles west of a place
called Nouadhlbou on the west coast of the Sahara and have travelled 530NM,
mostly south from Gran Canaria. TURTLE!
a little turtle was just swimming
along 3 metres away aahhh
and we are about 300NM north of the Cape Verde
islands. We have set our way-point to the north west corner of the Verdes, this
is where we are hoping to pick up the trade winds.
We can see
another sail about 5NM away on the starboard beam. It is interesting to chart
the positions of the other ARC
boats from the daily emails we receive. The leading boat, Monster Project, is
already about one quarter of the way across the Atlantic! Amazing, and this is
without even using their engine the racing divisions cant! Monster project
has adopted a completely different strategy to ours, perhaps to avoid the
doldrums, they are much further north and seem to be taking a rhum line to St.
Lucia. Albatross is about 200NM north west of us. Reassuringly, there are still
lot of other boats aiming for Cape Verde, the leading boat amongst these is Red
Cat (not in the racing division they were on the other side of Albatross in
Las Palmas). Red Cat is about 120NM (about a day) ahead of
us.
We saw three
whales this afternoon. They were half a mile to a mile away, coming up to the
surface and blowing spouts of water. From Andys marine life book, which his
girlfriend Jo, a marine biologist lent him, we think they could have been fin
whales, up to 15 metres long. This was the second sighting of whales since we
left Gran Canaria, the first sighting we have identified as being a minke whale.
We have had lots of visits by dolphins coming to play, from Andys book, they
were all Atlantic spotted dolphins. Other marine life we have seen to date are
flying fish, a few birds, and the phosphorescence at the side of the boat at
night.