North Atlantic Ocean, Caribbean to Azores – May/June 2009
We sailed quite well for a few days and then motored through calm seas.
We had a great encounter with a large number of pilot whales, and even snorkeled with them.
The sea was also busy with Portuguese Man’O’War jellyfish, although at the time we didn’t know what they were. We referred to them as “fairy wing jellyfishâ€. The floating sac with a sail on top keeps the jellyfish permanently afloat and moving.
Sadly, Lisa had caught some kind of bug in the Caribbean and she was very unwell. We were so worried we almost stopped in Bermuda, when she became much better. Two days later and well past Bermuda, she was ill again. We cursed ourselves and hoped for a speedy arrival in the Azores, but that was still two weeks away. We did find NW wind at about 32 degrees N which carried us all the way to the Azores.
About four hundred miles from the Azores we saw some phantom sailing boats, masts appearing and disappearing in different places. Finally we realized that they were whale blows, very tall ones. Three groups of whales were swimming in our vicinity, and as we watched, they came closer, and then one whale came right across our boat. We were amazed by its size and its pale grey colour, and realized we had seen our first and only Blue Whale. It was a very moving moment. There were a mixture of whales as another close approach was by a black whale.