Amazing Wildlife at Sea!
22 January 2018 | Pacific Ocean off El Salvador - heading to Chiapas, Mexico
Helen
Took turns at the helm last night. Changed at midnight. I noticed the kitchen hatch was open and when I tried to close it, a wave knocked me off balance and the hatch hit the tip of my right little finger. It hurt for a very long time. It turned different shades of purple and swelled to double the size. Then we noticed a brown sea bird in our cockpit. He was heading for the cockpit door when Mark scooped it up in a 5-gallon bucket and deposited him down the port stairs. He remained there for most of the night but was gone in the morning. Mark took the main sail down as we were running down wind and it was shadowing the jib. The wind blew to 21 and settled down to 18 knots. The seas were huge all night long. At daylight, the bird and a flock of his friends returned and fought over room to stand on the spreaders. Two of them succeeded at different times, with three birds up there at one point. Later in the morning with lighter winds, the birds were encouraged to leave as we were hoisting the main. They left quite a mess. So much for our hospitality. We sailed thru a flock of 200 smaller birds which scattered around the boat. At that time the dolphins showed us and stayed thru mid afternoon. The waves were large and they loved to jump and swim thru them. At one point we saw 8 dolphins swimming in the bow wake. Took some pictures and video as well. The sun has been shining for the past number of days. No clouds at all until it gets to sunset and then we don't have much of an opportunity to see the green flash. After sunset yesterday, the entire sky was orange and then it seemed like we sailed thru fog. It was quite eerie. That cleared up before it got dark. No boat sightings last night. I saw something on the radar this morning, further out to sea, but it was too far away to see it. Mark just furled the jib as there is no wind yet again. The swells are around 6 feet with light winds around 3 -4 knots at this time. We have one engine going so the speed is all our making. We have 223 miles still to go to Chiapas. We do not have the speed to make it there by tomorrow, so Wednesday, at the earliest, will be our arrival day.