Every day is a ‘Dolphin Day’, so said one of my crew mates twenty days into Leg 7! Although dolphins come to join us on most watches, there is always a rush to fetch cameras and off-watch to bound on deck, regardless of how many times they had been seen before.
We are way into Leg 7 now and the type and number of marine wildlife has steadily increased. Since the start of our Pacific journey, my crew mates and I have scanned the ocean, keen to catch sight of other ocean inhabitants.
Birds have been constant companions. Boobies and Gannets have often circled our boat seeking a resting place on their mid-ocean flights. During our cross-Pacific journey, the spreaders and guard rail have offered refuge to lone travellers for the night. Further south, the Boobies have vied for a perch on our bowsprit. Once settled, they sit preening and plucking their plumage in the afternoon sunshine. They are comical when they continue their fight at the surface of the sea, trying to steal a caught flying fish from each other. We have also encountered pelicans who flew across our stern as we headed away from San Francisco Bay Bridge at the start of Race 11 and turkey vultures on our fuel stop in Costa Rica.
Below the waves is the hidden marine world, surfacing occasionally to give us a glimpse of what is beneath. Whale sightings were a constant day time preoccupation during our long Leg 6 crossing. They were elusive! Over the course of many weeks less than half a dozen were spotted, although we did have a glorious moment when one surfaced gently, but momentarily, less than 50 metres from the boat.
As the water temperature has increased, so has the number of creatures sighted! Turtles have been seen, sporadically to start with, but increasingly as we have travelled south. My best encounter was with a mother (could have been dad!) and baby, as we bobbed around in a wind hole along the west coast of California. We are convinced a sea lion, with its jet black bendy torso, broke through the wash alongside the boat as we headed towards San Francisco at the end of our Pacific crossing. On the fuel pontoon in San Francisco Bay seals lounged in the sun monitoring human activity. Since then, ocean life has been keen to pop up above the waves to shouts of ‘Did you see that!’ on every watch. Sword fish had a peculiar perpendicular dance as they surfaced through the still waters. Rays have shot through the air, reaching skyward several feet as they surface. Yesterday they put on a show as we passed; first one, then two, then three and then four manta rays, jumping from the ocean surface in what looked like a playground game. Costa Rica is teeming with wildlife and on our fuel stop offered us an opportunity to see these creatures closer to hand. It also provided us with shoreline sightings of Iguanas camouflaged by the rocks in their setting.
As I said previously, dolphins have been our constant companions shooting through the yacht’s wake. Often in pairs, like synchronised swimmers, they surface together, dive and resurface to our delight. We often wonder whether they sense their audience. In the hours of darkness, the ‘Psht’ of a dolphin blowing air alerts us to their presence. In the dark water, the bioluminescence lights up the torpedo path of their swimming games, darting in and out of the boat's wake. As we traversed the bay during our Costa Rican fuel stop, the luminescence clearly defined the silhouette of the dolphin accompanying us, like a Disney cartoon – magical!
(For the experts out there, I have used generic names for most of our sightings, as my own knowledge and access to reference material is lacking.)
Lisa Sumpter