Into the Southern Hemisphere
14 April 2015 | Just south of the Equator
Kristy
Well we've officially crossed the line that divides north and south! It's been an eventful few days since my last post, or about as eventful as can be when you're on a 44 foot boat with the same people, day in and day out, with scenery that never seems to change.. On day eight we began our second week on passage with squalls all day. At least this meant the decks were getting a good rinse. Finally by about the third squall, Austen and I felt the need for a rinse ourselves and changed into our bathing suits, grabbed the shampoo and soap, and hopped out on deck to take advantage of the rain. We both felt much better, and lighter, having scrubbed off a week's worth of grease and grime. As I sat on my night watch on day nine, watching the sun dip below the horizon, I heard the unmistakable sound of some sort of mammal coming up for air. I kept my eyes glued on the spot the noise came from and eventually saw a whale surface about 100 feet from the boat! It wasn't a large whale, and I'm not sure exactly what kind it was, but it was a whale. I called the boys on deck to check it out and we all waited for it to surface again. The next time it surfaced it had changed course, obviously intrigued by the strange object beside it, and was only 20 feet behind our transom! Seeing whales, or any other sea life for that matter, is always extremely exciting, and to have a whale so close to us was quite amazing. Unfortunately, the whale didn't think we were all that exciting after all because it didn't stick around any longer. Day 11 was our Equator crossing day. I was on my morning watch and woke the boys up at 8 am as we got close. This was Austen and Tim's third time sailing across the Equator, my second, and Myst's first. Since Myst was the only pollywog we brainstormed some possible hazing exercises. Perhaps shave her belly with a rusty razor? In the end we decided she is just too darn cute and chose not to haze her. We all starred intently at the GPS, counting down the minutes of latitude until they read all zeros. It's always rather anticlimactic as there's no line, or bell that rings, or fireworks or anything. Candine just kept on sailing as she had in the northern hemisphere. After our Equator crossing, we settled down to breakfast in the cockpit when we noticed a target on the AIS. AIS is necessary for all commercial vessels of a certain size and many pleasure craft have it to. It tells us of any nearby ships, what direction they're heading, and how close our paths will cross. We hadn't seen a single ship on the AIS or otherwise in days so we were intrigued. Tim checked the details on the target and it was listed as having a length of 6 feet, a beam of 6 feet, a draught of 37 feet, traveling 74 knots, and engaged in fishing. These are incredibly odd details, and as it was 20 miles away, we didn't think much else of it. Half an hour later, Tim noticed the AIS flashing, warning us of a dangerous target. The same ship was coming towards us, and we were set to collide in 47 seconds! This was very weird, seeing as a quick scan of the horizon revealed no ships at all. I went out on deck for further inspection and could a rumbling sound off on the horizon, getting closer. Eventually what came into view was not a ship, but a helicopter! Judging by the floats on it, and the fact we were 600 miles from land in any direction, we figured it must belong to a large fishing operation nearby. The helicopter came straight for us, circled us a couple of times, getting lower and lower, and eventually just hovered right off our beam. It was so close that I could feel the spray kicked up by the propellers. There were three guys in the helicopter and they just wanted to say hi, obviously just as excited as we were to see other humans on such a vast and seemingly empty ocean. They took some pictures of us and we took some of them, waving and smiling to one another before they took off again. Just when we thought they were gone from sight, they turned around and did one last fly-by. We tried to settle back into our breakfast, thinking this was way too much excitement for one morning, when a bunch of splashes appeared about a quarter mile away. All of a sudden we were treated to quite a show by a pod of dolphins leaping out of the water. The leaps were spectacular and the dolphins numerous, much better than anything you could see at an aquarium! We took all this as a sign that the southern hemisphere is going to be good to us! So now here we are, day 12, approaching the half way mark. We've come along way, but still have many more miles to cover before we reach Easter Island. Hopefully the rest of the passage will be just as eventful!