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Brainstorm - 11/1/22 First lurker and pas by night



After a delicious oven potatoes, aubergine, carrots and bell pepper with steak Hein and Michiel took the first nightshift. Starting at 9pm they could have wakened us at 1am but were kind to wake us with Herman van Veen’s Vrolijk at 3. They felt strong during the first of many to come and we were catching up to the 60ft jolly breeze. A ship with a crew I knew to be sleepy as a morning earlier I had to wake them to their ass slamming into the dock on staring day.

 

Menno and I were happy to do their overtaking under this breath-taking night sky. The moon had just set on this cloudless night and with only a little light pollution on the horizon from Tenerife, Valverde Frontera and Gran Canaria. You could see millions of stars looking up and thousands of lights looking down around the yacht from agitated luminescent algae. After downloading the latest weather models, we adjusted our course slightly to head straight for Cape Verde.

 

As Menno dozed off, I think I caught a first glimpse of our lurker but convinced myself my imagination was running wild. 10 minutes later I looked back and there it was again! Sparkly fuzzy from our algae friends but clear in sight: slithering straight towards us!! I jumped up pumped with adrenaline from excitement as it past underneath us. I could hear the fear in my voice waking up my napping mate “Menno Menno”. Luckily, it made another round and got a confirmation from him: wtf is that?! Most dolphins show themselves by breaking the water surface for a breath, all dolphins I know were smaller and certainly none of them swam in a slithering manner from left to right: they flop there tail up and down.. What lurker we saw: no idea for sure. By the time we signed a big light on it we could vaguely see a grey top side. Options are a tuna, swordfish, my nemesis a shark 😬 or hundreds of other options the Atlantic offers. All I do know is that my harpoengun will be on deck during my next nightshift 😅.

 

While typing this update to you there are fireworks of interruptions all around! We spotted Petertje on the horizon, hoisted our orange womper and are now in hot pursuit of an enormous dolphin pod 😁.

 

Wish us luck with both, not the shark: definitely not that



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