Crew Blog

Joined by wildlife - 25 September 2007

25 September 2007

An amazing day so far. Danny called an “all hands on deck” for a sail change. I came up from my off watch to find that we had been joined by two other Clippers; WA and Durban. It seems incredible that we have been sailing since Sunday, basically alone to suddenly find that three yachts are within a few hundred metres of each other. It has made for an exciting day as we dual with each other and watch the tactics play out, whilst dodging fishing trawlers.

Before the race I was led to believe that we wouldn’t see much marine life, but how wrong. First we were visited by two whales, not sure what they where. Matty spotted a fin and then we heard the distinctive blow of air as they surfaced for air. We must have sparked their interest as they circled the boat once, coming quite close on the starboard beam. In typical fashion, people where trying to take photo’s, but always looking in the wrong place. A further two were spotted later in the day.

An hour or so later a pod of dolphins came and played around the bows for ten minutes or so; magical.

One interesting observation is that people seemed to get on deck faster for a shout of whale than for “all hands”, but then for all hands you do need to kit up for possibly an hour or so on deck which takes time!

Fiona