Animal life

22 September 2014

Around 5PM we welcomed the new guest crew on board for the voyage from Brest to Alicante. A small but mixed group of Dutch, German and Spaniards. After our welcome-on-board speech and the mandatory safety instructions we departed right away. This is a mile maker so we want to sail as fast a possible from point a to point b. Plus there is very favourable northern wind that we can really use for this leg.
Upon departure we set sail and left the ‘Rade de Brest’. Unfortunately the wind stopped blowing and it started to get foggy. But with our radar we were able to spot even the smallest fishing buoys. In the morning the fog disappeared and the wind returned. So we sailed again!
It seems that this voyage is one with a lot of animal life…  The first night a few dolphins joined us and we could see them swimming next to us in the bioluminescent sea, yesterday morning we had three sterns in the mast (after a lot of searching in our birding books it were Roseate terns), that afternoon we saw three Long-finned pilot whales and we have two birds on board (we don’t know what species it is, they have a yellow chest). Today sea gulls and petrels are following us.
Meanwhile the wind has increased to 6 Bft and we are speeding, if we keep this up we will pass Finisterre tonight.