02:30 bt 28-11-2022
39’54’.0S 049’40.9W
5.6kn course 216′
Whales! And a morning swim!
This morning there was a complete blank sheet of ocean in front of us, no wind what so over! So, why not take a morning dive, three of the crew thought. Quickly munch away the porridge of the 6 o’clock watch handover and get the bathing suits on.. but then, as they were getting dressed, not 200 meter from the ship a whale surfaced and gave a big blow! Turned out, there were actually two whales there. We watched them slowly make their way away from us.. and then the swimming stairs went over board. Two quick dives and a hot shower to follow!
The water temperature has gone down to 17 degrees, still a nice temperature, but maybe less so after we got used to the 25 degrees in Brazil.
At fist it was thought it may have been a Minke whale that we spotted, it was not too big and the dorsal fin was fairly pointed and upright, triangular even. But we were not close enough to see the white on the fins or the real color of the skin. In the afternoon we spotted a whale again. Again with a fairly large upright dorsal fin, but it looked bigger than a Minke whale.. so maybe a Bryde’s Whale or a Seiwhale? The blowhole on the front was visible a few times and it seemed fairly rounded, big blowhole.. Any way, the second sighting stayed with us a little longer, we seemed to have the same course. Until it got tired of us, sped up and went more West. It was good to have it around for a bit though!
We have about 780 miles left to go to the Falkland Islands. It seems so little after we started with 5500 nm to go..
