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King's Legend - Alone at sea



Monday 1st and Tuesday 2nd December 2014

Alone at sea

2.600 miles is a long way before we will see land again and to be alone at
sea.

Today, as Michel mentioned in his blog, we are virtually half way! Reason
enough to celebrate this moment of joy with a good glass of wine our first
zip of alcohol in more then a week. To be honest, it didn’t taste that
well. In the moment I promised myself to lessen my alcohol intake in the
future for health’ sake. So, no rum upon arrival for me in St. Lucia (well
this could be my in THE moment convincement!)

Because of reaching this halfway milestone we were all in a good mood and
we hoisted the spinnaker. After a lot of preparation and a lot of checks
and double checks we succeeded. Downwind, 20 knots of wind, sunshine, it
was perfect. In the late afternoon we took the spinnaker down. We didn’t
want to sail with it through the night as it is too risky with this
inexperienced crew. So we pole out the genua again and had a marvelous
dinner at 6 pm local time (8 pm Dutch time) and sailed into the night.

Together with Michel, I took the 8 to 11 pm watch and again the 5 to 8 am
watch. During this night I had my first experience with the so-called “
squalls” fifteen minutes of heavy rainfall and clouds that produce a lot of
wind. We constantly checked the radar. “Will the squall reach us or will it
pass?” A few times we were “hit” with tons of rain and 30 or more knots of
wind fortunately no problem for King’s Legend.

Suddenly we noticed a boat on the radar. We could see it was the “Sea
Cloud”, a huge passenger vessel heading for Antigua. The people on board of
this ship were unaware of the rain and wind we had to cope with. The
communication officer wished us a pleasant trip, over the VHF so we did the
same while fighting the elements.

In the morning at 8 o’clock, when the sun just rose we saw another sailing
yacht at one-mile distance. It appeared to be a 44 feet X-Yacht sailed by
Italians. We tried to make contact but they didn’t answer. A quick look at
the participation list of the ARC learned us that this ship should be a lot
faster then we. So (again virtually) we are in the lead of them. It is not
a race …. but still nice to know!!

And then it happened…..

With a huge yell from Hans, our fishing manager, “a whale, I saw a whale”.
Everybody laughed, but half a minute later there she was again. A big whale
jumped totally out of the water to show us her big pink belly. She swam
under the boat and again out of the water at least 10 times. It was
impressive and scary at the same time. Was she angry or did she only want
to play?

Gijs and Femke decided to shut down the generator. Maybe the noise was
annoying her? After 10 minutes she disappeared in the ocean. A look in the
book “ A field guide to North Atlantic Wildlife” told us that it was a
Minke Whale. It said: An inquisitive whale that approaches boats almost in
the manner of dolphins. Often swims under or near moving boats but is
generally shy and difficult tot approach. Size 5 – 7 m.

Squalls, two boats and a Minke Whale all in one night nobody can tell me
anymore that I am alone on this big blue ocean.

Dick

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