The last three days have been somewhat more restful. Two days ago we sailed along with only the jib out to starboard attached to the boom while the main is down securely fastened to starboard by a preventer. With the trade winds this keeps us on the rhumb line straight for St Lucia. The motion of the ocean was much easier on the crew.
Yesterday winds were fair again so Lee decided it was time to hang out the 2nd spinnaker. The spinnaker pulled us along at a better speed and we gained a couple of knots speed over the day before.
These last 4 days the only boat we have seen is a French NARC. That is a French 41 foot Lagoon Catamaran with a family of four and 3 crew, Not of the ARC. They have been really friendly, initiating contact several times. We have inquired about the family. They have 2 girls aged 8 and 4 and are home schooling them. Chloe the oldest got on the VHF to practice her English by saying hello, her name and wishing us well. Yesterday they passed us within 200 yards and we were taking pictures and movies of each other and waving. It was really ironic that out in this great big ocean we were tracking with a French boat not in the ARC and not going to St. Lucia but to Martinique.
While being pulled along by the spinnaker yesterday, I spotted a dolphin surfing a wave directly behind the boat. As the other crew came up to look we saw 3 more in varying positions behind the boat. I tried engaging them by slapping on the boat and they hung around for awhile. Then we noticed a much larger fish swimming very fast up the starboard side very close to the boat and it was at least 20 feet long and fast. A whale? This one did not surface but swam alongside and in then in front of the boat and past us. Sebastian was taking pictures and we have been trying to analyze them to determine the species. There are known to be several kinds of dolphins and whales in the Atlantic but do they hang out together? Our best guess is that the smaller more playful ones are dolphins while the larger is possibly the long-finned pilot whale. And then, without any ado they were all gone.
At 24:00 GMT which would equal about 8:00pm island time Sebastian came up the companion way for his watch. He went out and looked around for any boats and then came in to ask Lee and me if we had seen the unusual star on the starboard side and to the North. We all went out to investigate and sure enough, just above the horizon was what appeared to be a very nebulous star? It didn’t look like a star, or plane, or planet, or satellite, because it was bigger and more diffuse. Over the next 40 minutes we all watched it as it moved slowly to the east, and became even more diffuse to the point that it disappeared.
Being out of touch with the news and the internet we had no way to investigate this phenomenon. It raised many questions. Did a rocket get launched and then blow up, or was it an accident similar to the challenger. It was moving too fast to have been a star that had exploded and upon examination with a very small set of binoculars it seemed to have a tail. What was it? Does anybody want to offer an explanation? Four of us witnessed this and we would like to know if anybody else did as well.
Today the wind was between 18 and 22 knots all day, but the swells were much bigger, more confused with white caps. Too much wind for the spinnaker. We had a quiet day with the guys spending much of it again honing their celestial navigation skills. This evening after dinner Sebastian taught us a game that is played by officers in the Swedish Navy. It is called Cork. Assuming there are four players, 3 have a cork tied with a string in the middle of the table. The 4th player has 2 dice and a dish. The player with dice rolls for either 2 of a kind or a combination adding up to seven. When he gets either then he tries to slam his dish over the 3 corks on the table while the others pull their cork away. It is a game of fast reflexes and very fun.
At this point we are a little over 200 miles from landfall and expect to be in Rodney Bay St Lucia in the next 24hours.
By Teresa Bright, crew
Oregon
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