34’35.3S 045´36.4W course 209′ speed 6,5kn
Was this our last swimstop for this voyage? Well at least it was our first swimstop in the South Atlantic Ocean! But what a temperature difference! During our previous swimstop the water was still 26 degrees celcius.. now the temperature is down to 20,9 degrees celcius and I thought it was just about the coldest swim I have had in a long time!! Diving some what deeper, made it even colder, so a dive into this pristine blue water, was a bit of a shock.
We made the most of it though! We went for a swim, made a few special moves (Magnus stepped of first, Jasmijn and Floris were on the backflip, Daniel was monkeying around the jibboom, Mark swung from the bowstay, I tried my fly dive and Moritz went for a deep jump straight into the ice cold!), Joel got his fins out and within an hour we were all out of the water and underway again. Our previous swim stop was over 2 hours and I had to get them out of the water.. just to show you, it wasn’t just me who felt the cold!
We did not see any wildlife while stopped for our swim, but the rest of the afternoon it seemed we were on a turtle highway! We have seen at least 14 turtles surfacing, hanging around, not bothered by us or anything else. Most of them seemed to be Green Turtles, big ones! Possibly on a migration. But we all had to agree that the most we know about turtles and migration, comes from the movie Finding Nemo, where they ride a current and are the most relaxed animals in the movie.. Out here on the great big ocean, it is hard to imagine what they are doing here. There is no land, no obvious food source and it is very deep.
Our afternoon was very relaxing, although under engine. Most of the crew were hanging in the sunshine, reading a book, enjoying the sun after a few days of grey and rain and generally it looked like one of our Sunday afternoons on deck. Today the wind should return, and within 24 hours we are back under reefed sails most likely. So we enjoyed it, while it was there.
Our bakery team is getting the Christmas Pudding ready and they have even named it, Bas. Now normally, according to the recipe, one would need to poor whiskey over the pudding every 4 days or so, for 4 weeks.. now we only have 2 weeks, so we agreed that we need to poor on the rum at least every 2 days..!
Maybe tonight I will start leaving out our first Christmas decoration. See if anybody notices in the morning. I think 11 days before Christmas evening is ok to start with small decorations right..?
All is well on board,
Jet
