30’58.3N 165’00.5W course 335′ speed 6,0kn

Lazy Sunday afternoon
What started as a beautiful quiet Sunday morning under sail, turned into more of a drifting party around 10 in the morning. But we were still doing 2,5 knots in the right direction, so we just kept on sailing. Around noon our speed went down to 1,5 knots and the heat on the deck was intense.. so what do you do with all this water around you that could cool you down in a heart beat.. Take a dive! This great big ocean, with 5 km water below us, so blue and so fast, looked like the ideal swimming pool!

We streamed out some lines on the back, hung the swimming stairs and started with, what is known on the Tecla as, an equator dive! Dive of on the front, quickly come up and then swim for the stairs! With the first jump you feel like you are in a roll-a-coaster, you dive in, come up and see the Tecla, which looks pretty big from the water level, passing you by. It feels like she is doing 9 knots as you look up! Then you start swimming and realize you can keep up, but you have to work for it and when you get to the stairs, all you want to do is go again!

Fenders were used as floating devices, dragging two or three crew along at a time. We slowly slowed down to 0,6 knots, and spend hours just drifting and floating along. The lazy Sunday afternoon ended in a Sunday beer on the aft and the winner of the photo competition was Tom, who swam out to capture this beautiful afternoon.

We have also spotted our first Albatrosses! First was the Black footed albatross. A beauty with a wing span of maximum of 200 cm! Its distinctive wing movement gave it away, as its colors are dark and not easily recognized as an albatross, but its movement was! This was the first time I have ever seen this specific Albatross and I was quite mesmerized by it! Then came the Laysan Albatross, I did not see it as I was inside getting dinner done, but I hope to spot it tomorrow! Maybe the picture of tomorrow will be of one of these big ocean birds!

All is well on board, jet