Getting Warmer

Saturday 10th March 2018
We are now in a near windless ocean, with just the lightest of breezes under a clear blue sky with a few distant powder puffs off cloud to the north. It is, happily, much warmer and the thermals, fleeces, woolly hats, socks and, yes, my ski gloves have come off and we are back in shorts, T shirts and bare feet.

The ocean is now a deep blue as we have left the cold green, nutrient rich, Benguela Current behind us on the desert coast of Africa. So too have we lost the birds, the great Shy Albatrosses on wings 10 feet wide and the chunky White Chinned Petrels, all black except for the pale bill. Gone too are the regular visits from the Dusky Dolphins, leaping clear of the waves to look at us, their distinctive white lines making them easily identifiable. We are trailing two fishing lines, but the ocean seems empty of fish too.

However, this morning at sun rise I had a very stealthy visit from a few dolphins, hardly disturbing the quiet sea. But I did get a brief glimpse of one and was pleased to identify a Short Beaked Common Dolphin, with a pale patch on its fin, and a deep V shape in the black cape on its back. We are at its very southern limits here, unless it is the Long Beaked version which only inhabits the shoreline of the bordering continents.

Our water-maker is now behaving as it should, making 90 litres per hour, the freezer is at -10 degrees C, and the batteries are behaving reasonably well, but there is a worrying little red light occasionally hinting at that current leak again.

I have been reading a charming little book called "Outposts" by Simon Winchester, in which he describes his mission in 1984 to visit the surviving relics of the British Empire, some of which he does in a small yacht. Of course he covers St. Helena and Ascension Island, which lie ahead of us, so I am thoroughly enjoying his beautifully written essays about them, and wondering how much of what he describes still remains.


He covers other places, which I have been fortunate to have visited, such as Montserrat which Anne and I sailed to in "Laros"in 2006. I found his description of the island before the devastating eruption very poignant, and was interested to be reminded our Quaker cousin, Joseph Sturge, who had invested in planting lime trees and freed all the slaves on the island. Following the failure of the Sicilian lemon crop in 1853 Montserrat Lime Juice entered the British market and was apparently a great success, until a hurricane destroyed the plantations.