It was the 9pm to midnight watch so it was dark. With no moon and a grey sky the sea was ink black except for the beautiful aquamarine phosphorcence dancing around the boat and off the stern wherever the water was disturbed.
Juno’s stern light was two miles dead ahead and we’d been hauling them in all day from 4 miles in the morning. At about 10:30 Helmsman Hendy spotted a phosphorecent streak on the starboard beam and then a dolphin leap from the water. Seconds later another dolphin joined and, following the earlier advice of the 1st Mate we started chatting with them. Apparently, if you chat with them they stay longer according to him. It worked! Within minutes we had we think seven dolphins darting around creating phosphorescent trails which demonstrated just how brilliantly quick, versatile, agile and elegant they are. They stayed with us for over twenty minutes.
By the time the second watch handed over to watch 3 at midnight Juno had been reigned in by a further 0.7 miles and we retired to our bunks just 1.3 miles behind them. There must have been a series of good watches through the night because when we went back on watch at 6am Juno was just 0.3 miles off our port bow. We re-trimed and the boat picked up speed. As dawn broke we could see they were flying a no.1 foresail which meant we could sail closer to the wind than they which was the better course for home, so we gently peeled off forcing them to consider their options; sail sightly faster than us but in the wrong direction or come up with another plan. They made a quick descision, opting for a gybe to head north in search of more wind. As our courses converged we were close enough to exchange pleasantries as they crossed our bow with just meters to spare but they declined our offer of bacon butties! No mention was made of their comment yesterday of leaving us in the dust. It’s not a race, but if it were; GAME ON!
One of the crew members on no.1 watch thought they saw a new species purple iguana in the sea, prompting widely held fears that the 1st mate had been putting something into the cake he’s been baking daily! From today no1 watch are known as “The Purple Iguana’s”. We’re working on names for the other two watches but given no3 watch has a Roger the Dodger in their team, I’m betting on something comic based.
Come back tomorrow and we’ll tell you what we decided on.
HENDY
