We have 990 miles to go. That means we made another 160 miles of progress towards our destination. We sailed all day and still have the code zero out after diner for a while at least.
Today was another lovely day on the ocean but I don’t feel inspired so instead of making up a bunch of stuff I’m going to repost something I wrote on the Atlantic crossing I made about 16 year ago. Enjoy.
From the log of Blue Rhapsody April 20th 2001.
One of the really nice things about the gulfstream that we’ve encountered is the weather that comes with it. The gulfstream dominates the weather and with water temperatures in the 70’s the air temp is close behind leaving us with very comfortable in shorts and tee shirts. We found the temperature raising about 20 degrees once we hit the stream coming out of Annapolis.
I’m not sure if the Gulfstream has anything to do with the Marine life we saw today or not, but it struck me as extraordinarily beautiful today. At about mid day while sitting in the cockpit enjoying a cup of coffee on this calm lazy day we came across what I metaphorically call an uncharted Island paradise. The whales were breaching, the dolphins feeding and the ocean going birds just hanging out in a flock while we looked our from our 500 square foot mobile observation deck called Blue Rhapsody. While I’ve seen a few whales in the past, they continue to be awe inspiring due to their grace and magnitude. I don’t know the kind of whale I saw today but the tail looked like the rear stabilizer of a 727 as it plunged into the 3 miles of ocean beneath. I got the camera quickly, but as I found out later they can stay down for over 45 minutes. When you see something like this all hands jump on deck and the spotter calls out the distance and relative angle and direction. I yelled, whale! 75 yards of the starboard at 3:00 heading south. After this excitement, we saw a rather large school of dolphin, maybe 50 or so, thrashing at the surface in a circle just behind us. They were feeding on a school of fish while about 50 or so birds where just taking in the sun floating along the surface. I had though that birds only showed up when close to shore, but Mats informed us that there are ocean-going birds that are happy here living off the fish without need of dry land. All very interesting when you live in Colorado and see it for the first time. So maybe this uncharted Island paradise isn’t meant for humans, but it was nice to be part of their paradise today for a short time.
As the trip continues to unfold, I find that the days seem shorter and shorter. Last night I stayed up for the sunrise, and for those who know me staying up is the only way I’m likely to see the sunrise. It was a bit cloudy, so I think I’ll have to stay up again and see if it’s even better today. The sunset tonight was nice and I’m hoping to see the green flash that occurs when the Sun sets sometime soon.