Day 191, Year 1: Encounters with a Squid and a Whale–Day 5
Date: Wednesday, April 26, 2006
Weather: Clear Skies Above with Cumulus Clouds on the Horizon
Water Surface Temperature: 77 degrees F
Latitude: 04 degrees 47 minutes S
Longitude: 099 degrees 57 minutes W
Location: Passage from Galapagos to the Marquesas, Day 5
Miles to Go: 2337 (~137 miles last 24 hours)
Miles to Date: ~599

When you get hit in the head by a flying squid at exactly midnight, you should know that your day is going to be an interesting one. I was on watch and moved back to sit at the helm at exactly midnight last night to record the “vital signs”. At least twice a day, every night at 2400/0000 and every morning at 0900 the person on watch records wind speed, boat speed, course, weather, position, and all of the other details in the log book. I had just moved back to do this, when WHAM, a flying squid hits me in the head. Who knows what the squid was flying away from, but after observing the strange creature that was still wiggling, I threw him back in the water.

The next event happened at 0730. I was sleeping but I awoke to see Mark rushing past me to get the V-berth. I asked why he was in such a hurry and he said he had to fix the knot meter. Still a bit groggy, I asked what was wrong with it and he replied that we had just hit a whale and that the prongs on the knot meter were bent. That woke me up. “We just hit a whale?” Mark confirmed and I hopped up to help check to see what other damage was done. Hitting a whale at sea is always a threat and one of those things that you never want to happen. Once the knot meter was fixed, I asked for more detail. What other damage? Was water rushing into the bilge? What kind of whale? I had at least 40 questions and Mark patiently assured me that all was well. He saw a whale blow and then the boat lifted slightly out the water and the whale emerged on the port side. It was at least as big as our boat, maybe longer. I went to the cockpit to look for other whales, and sure enough, behind us and to starboard I saw at least two others. Mark saw more. I spotted a blow, strange, at an angle like it was being blown by the wind, and then I could see part of the whale’s back and small dorsal fin. It was moving fairly fast and came up three more times to blow and show its back and then it disappeared. We think we crossed the path of a pod of female sperm whales. The one we hit must have been close to the surface and then dipped when we hit. Unlucky to hit a whale; lucky we didn’t sustain more damage. Two other boats that are part of our net have had similar experiences. I hope this is our last whale encounter on this voyage.

Then came the news on the net this morning that there is cyclone in the French Polynesia – Tuamotu area. We had heard that there were 40 knot winds in Papeete, Tahiti, but on last night’s Pacific Seafarer’s Net, Don Anderson, the weather forecaster for the net, was reluctant to call this weather system a cyclone. By this morning, however, our Fatu Hiva Net was calling it a cyclone. Whatever, it is far from us right now, and will not move this direction. The bad news is that a cyclone in that area will probably suck all of the air out of this region. People two weeks ahead of us are already feeling the effects. Hopefully we are far enough away that the winds will return as we get closer. In a normal year, there should be no cyclones in the eastern Pacific after the first of April. I guess this is not a normal year.

I decided to spend the day baking bread and making banana bread from all of the bananas that fell on our deck yesterday. It looked like it was raining bananas! We bought a huge stalk of bananas for the trip and hung them from the boom gallows knowing we would probably not be able to keep them for long. When the winds picked up yesterday, the motion of the boat caused those that were a little ripe to fall. We collected those that fell and put a mesh bag around the remainder. So the bananas are under control for now and we have banana bread and whole wheat bread. Unfortunately, I got thrown against the hot oven when the boat lurched over a wave and have a nice size burn on my thigh. Another “interesting” event for this day.

The good news is the sailing right now is great. The seas are fairly calm and we still have about 15 knots of winds from the ESE. Except for a little rain on Monday night, we have had wonderful weather . . . so no complaints. I’ll try to make sure tomorrow is a calmer day aboard Windbird.