Never Boring

Every day out here brings a fresh round of frustrations, challenges and rewards. Today the challenge was the Modem failing and I was most relieved when I worked out how to get it going again. The frustrations today were the weak and inconsistent winds, certainly in the morning anyway. But the rewards - well one was to observe the large ocean swells as they rolled toward me through the sea when it was barely wrinkled by the wind. As Sapphire rose up to the top of each one, there would suddenly be a distant horizon, flat and straight and sharp, and I could quickly scan the distance, but immediately in front was a low and long valley and into it we would slip and the peak of the next wave would roll forward and higher and become the new horizon, coming ever closer till once again we rose up its long sloping side to another summit. These were not huge waves, mostly maybe 3 meters but occasionally bigger and there was nothing threatening about them , they were just vast and silent and powerful.

Another reward was to see an albatross. Petrels and shearwaters are the birds commonly seen, but when the albatross appeared it was unmistakable -those vast wings, majestic and beautiful and barely moving as the albatross patrolled those valleys in a series of long sweeping curves. It approached Sapphire closely only once but it reappeared twice nearby.

I also was rewarded with a glimpse of a whale near the boat, perhaps a false killer whale, certainly much too big to be a dolphin but not as big as the humpbacks we see off the east Australian coast. This one just emerged about 50 feet away,shiny and very black, took a breath and then went back under the water. Later I noticed distant splashing from a group I could barely make out but it was what I saw on my way to Lord Howe Island but that time the False Killer whales came much closer.

Right now the wind has truly returned and blowing around 12 to 15 knots,with occasional gusts to 18 knots, much like it was this time last night. Last night however the wind eventually died away altogether but I am not sure that will happen tonight - maybe we will catch up on some of those lost miles. We have fewer than 200 miles to go to North Cape and as I previously mentioned should be clearing that on Sunday and hopefully arrival in Opua monday sometime.

Sapphire Out

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