Day 5 Its great to be alive! (Written Feb 20, 2013)
Midnight comes around quickly when you only go to bed at 10… That will teach me! With almost two hours surrounded by albatross, my usual bed-time was much later than usual, but I was thrilled for the reason! We are doing a 5 knot jig to the southeast to use up time prior to the start a transect at daybreak, right at the spot where we saw all the albatross last evening.
I can’t erase the multitude of images from my head, hundreds of pairs of wings rolling into the wind with sunlight illuminating the white underwings of Shy, Black-browed and Gray-headed albatross. A juvenile Wandering also made an appearance. Their endearing goofy, goose-like faces are quite noticeable and distinctive.
Myriads flew close by, others banking on the bow switching such that their wing-tops are visible and then the underwings – kindly helping with identification. At one point about 20 rode the wind together and a flash of gold appears on each wing! In silhouette against the “God Light” with rays extending from the sun through perfectly streaky and lumpy clouds (sirrus and cumulus, respectively) birds gliding with infrequent beats looked beautiful.
Then, as we turn towards a small, green fishing vessel, hundreds of birds circle them and ourselves, picturesque, in its’ uniqueness. “Is this usual?” I asked Pete, whom, replied that it could be usual but they did not get out to the shelf often. I feel very privileged to be here. On our aft deck of the bridge-deck which we call The Albatross Deck, so-named due to the 400 or so we saw flying on our stern while bringing Whale Song from Malta back to Fremantle, we stood eye to eye with shy, grey-headed and black-browed albatrosses. Similarly, off Namibia and SE South Africa, both also very productive places, we were escorted for hours at a time with mass albatross flocks.
Great productivity is a site to behold and a treasure in this day and age of exploitation.
During my watch we pass a well-lit fishing vessel floating on our track-line, avoiding them, we reach the end of our night time “jog-line” and then I leave steering instructions for Dale for the ongoing holding pattern before sunrise.
At dawn the sky is dotted with pink cumulus cloud backed with patchy blueness. Looking and looking we sadly only have three pods of common “mangoes”… one pod leaping ten and twenty at a time coming towards us… but sadly no other cetaceans. The wind is picking up and by the afternoon we have a solid 30 knots whipping up the seas. White, foamy patches leave enticing blue streaky lines underwater, tricking my eyes that a blue whale lurks beneath. As we approach Portland the wind increases to 40 knots and our entry into the port is expertly executed by Curt but still includes a couple of wobbles with will have the entertained the locals I’m sure!
At 1940 we anchor in the inner harbour and sit together with a celebratory G & T and enjoy chillie smoked eggplant, garden salad, chillie beef and beans with steamed rice and then pecan pie with vanilla ice cream for dessert! Red wine gets the guitar players going and as the wind howls we are treated to an impromptu concert from Pete, Sacha and Peta. A lovely night had by all! A wonderful night to be safely tucked away in Portland Harbour!
With wind whistling in the rigging and a safe anchorage tonight, tomorrow we’ll move over to the main wharf in town to wait for better blue whale weather. The world is very good!
Mich
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