Upanchor 0500 saturday morning. Still quite dark, so Phil up on the bow watching for yellow buoys used to mark off the slow zone and i was on the helm. After about half hour we were out of the shallow waters and rounding the tip of the island and in clear water. Still quite dark in the mornings now.
Set the sails as the wind was in. The seas were flat and we were easily cracking 6kts. A good thing when we have 200nm to go.
The most amazing thing happened to me on our first day at sea. I saw a whale right next to the boat!! We have seen whales before, but never this close, or this relaxed. I was on watch, we were sailing along at about 6kts the wind was in and there were a few splashes on the hull from the small waves. I was standing in the companion way where we usually do our watch and i heard a much louder splash off to the stern. I looked around and there, right beside the boat was a massive whale head!!
I called out to Phil, scrambled to get my phone for a photo, it just cruised along checking us out, then dove down showing us the rest of its body. We could see it swimming alongside for a bit and then it was gone.
Typically in my scramble to get my phone to take a pic, i couldn't get it to turn on properly, besides, i was watching the whale. Huge disappointment to have one so close, yet have no photo of it. Luckily my internal camera was working and i will have the memory forever. Not being great with distance, i asked Phil how far away he thought it was, we agree, 10m at the most!! After googling 'whales in the Mediterranean' i think it was a fin whale. The pictures match what i saw, and the size of it.
But the entertainment didnt end there. While we were eating dinner we saw a huge, long, skinny fish jumping out of the water...at least 7 times, then it obviously either escaped its attacker...or got caught, we shall never know.
I had dolphins on my 2100 watch in the golden glow of sunset. Maybe 2 or maybe the same one twice, its a bit tricky to tell the difference.
After sailing fast all day it was a shame to start the motor just before my 2100 watch, but as expected, that is when the wind died out.
Amazing stars, so bright, even saw a shooting star. There were huge bunches of extremely bright neon phosphorus...almost looked like jellyfish, so not sure exactly what it was. Then just before midnight a big fat moon started to rise.
Not much shipping traffic, so a relaxed passage. A pod of leaping dolphins came to say hi the next day and by 1800 sunday we were anchored in Menorca.
Possibly one of my favourite passages so far