20 March 2010
At 8am we ran finally ran out of patience and wind and fired up the engine. We had been sailing painfully slowly all day and all night. A turtle could have overtaken us, we were that slow! With sails flogging and poles clattering and banging we could stand it no longer. It wasn't good for the boat, or our nerves. Also it had been a terrible strain, for with the lack of wind speed and direction data sailing in light winds makes the task of fine tuning the sails very labour intensive. So for the first time in two weeks the sails were furled away and the engine roared into life. I keep thinking about the effect that the gooseneck barnacles are having on our speed.
Last time when we reached Marquesas Stella had grown a beard of these molluscs all around her waterline. Shaped like a fat finger, many were up to three inches in length. The extraordinary feature of these creatures is that they attach themselves only on to a moving hull as opposed to stationary. When the boat stops, they die of their own accord. They are considered to be quite a delicacy. Perhaps I shall commit some to the cooking pot. As we creep nearer our destination, now 690nm away, there are a signs of approaching land.
Yesterday I saw my first frigate bird circling high overhead. An albatross came very close to the boat, his huge wingspan outstretched. The ocean itself has revealed nothing more than our daily quota of flying fish and a large pod of dolphins. But there is very much more in its hidden depths for every night as I sit gazing from the confines of the cockpit into its inky blackness I see flashes of phosphorescence, sometimes in the shape of a shark, sometimes a dolphin. The whales however remain as elusive to us as always.
Susan Mackay