Extraordinary birds, dolphins and a sunfish

27 February 2013

A few dark clouds appear at the horizon and the temperature drops a little, especially since the sun went down. The wind decreased ever further and it is oppressively hot. But we are still sailing at an average of 100 miles per day so we cannot complain at all! Ee are sailing on schedule. Today we have noticed a low, long swell from the south for the first time. A sign of a southeasterly tradewind, which we hope to pick up within a few days. The ‘Tecla’ is approximately 30 miles west of us. We maintain daily radio contact with the ship and everything goes well on board of the ‘Tecla’ too.
As we speak it is not really busy on board, but if you pay attention there is enough to enjoy every day. Today a group of dolphins started playing in front of the prow of the ship. Later today we saw some little black birds right above the waves; probably petrels, but they were too far away to recognize which kind. A young brown booby stayed with the ship for hours and it dived to a flying fish once at a while. We are seeing a lot of flying fish. They jump up when they scare of us and it sounds like throwing a hand of rocks in a lake when they land on the water again. Even later today we saw some more dolphins and the tall fin of an ocean sunfish. The ocean sunfish is a prehistoric, flat round fish without a tail, which can reach a fin-to-fin length of 3 meters and weighs up to 1500 kg. I don’t know how that is possible on a diet of jellyfish. It shook its tall fin above the surface.
It is still quiet around us, but as said it is oppressively hot and the atmosphere feels tense. Anyway, we are making sure that we are prepared for possible changing weather.