Grey, Grey Wednesday! (Written Jan23, 2013)
Lots of darkness all around, we are 38 00.7 S and 123 07.0 at 265.6 nm SE of Esperance. It’s 4730 m deep, way deep, all over your head basically! Thus far we have heard sperm whales, sighted a beaked whale (and recorded its calls), seen and heard common dolphins and now we’ve got the best sort of blues. We have blue whale calls that at one twenty-five am (on my watch) are now getting fainter, please don’t go away…
It’s a NE wind of only 10-12 knots, we are roaring along with 8.8 knots of boat speed with an oceanic push from the west. It’s funny to see on the C-Map nav chart three lines of bathymetry procurement splayed at oblique angles. Right here, the chart is bare so we are travelling in “unchartered waters”, in more ways than one!
For several years Curt and PeteGill have been trying to get funding to come to the STC (Sub-Tropical Convergence) and here we are approaching a recent chl-a bloom in the Southern Ocean. Will this yield pods and pods of whales? We are certainly loving the company of majestic albatross that sometimes travel with us for hours at a time during the day, very indicative of our southern locale.
The railing is chilly on the Portuguese bridge while I walk on deck at 2am checking for stars. The only sparkles are phosphorescence seen in our side-wash, brave little ostracods and salps.
The grey day continues through-out the mid-morning, a steel-grey sea shrouded by tightly-packed “cotton-wool “cloud coverage. Every now and then a crack in the blanket allows welcome sunbeams through. The wind is from the NE, the swell is from the SW, so we have “dorsal” shadows on the waves tricking our over-enthusiastic eyes. Real cetacean dorsal fins are welcome anytime now!
Hot roast chicken, soup, rice and salad warms the observers at the mid-day meal and Resty’s delicious spicy chicken & corn soup, steamed rice, salted potatoes, chicken Adobo and beans with tofu thaw the late afternoon and early evening crew for dinner. This is high seas, high dining all the way!
I think of the Volvo Ocean Race solo sailors travelling the globe alone in this area just a few weeks ago. Our small community of 12 is running very smoothly and I am glad for all the fun company. Washing up turns into a bouncy party of Sam and the girls all laughing and singing raucously with suitable i-pod playlists and surprisingly, they clean the dishes too! I believe if I were a lone sailor, I would be speaking to myself the entire time! This is another day at the office for us, between the two greys seeking air-breathing creatures. This is what we do.
Slight fractures in the clouds reveal deep blue sky beyond. The sun feels warm on my hands and face – the only bits exposed. The sunshine is welcome and makes the cream deck glow, contrasting pleasingly against the grey sea and 99% clouded sky.
Shortly after lunch we detect two blue whale calls, one in front of us and one behind. Do we happen to be in the middle of a conversation of blue whales travelling between the Bonney Upwelling in Victoria and the West Australian Perth Canyon? Are they discussing the menu at their local krill cafes? Despite looking and looking, they escape us. Is the equipment so good, we are detecting whales a long way away and thus beyond our sighting range? Where are they?
As the afternoon progresses the wind rises, swell increases and upon reaching our chosen destination at a huge chlorophyll patch, we turn for the northern coast of King Island, north of Tasmania, almost 900 nm away. This track lie will take us through the northern reaches of the STC with further chances for spotting blues and other whales. Thus far we have travelled 700 nm and have completed one third of our journey to Sydney. Tomorrow at 6am we will advance our clocks one hour ahead, to slowly acclimatise to the 3 hour difference between Western Standard Time to Eastern Standard Time. As such, we will have one hour less sleep tonight. Hmmm, I try to comfort myself that we will nicely get this hour back while on the return transit! The rest of the crew are not so convinced!
On a Southern Ocean swell,
Mich
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