Pos 1700 UTC+9, 2/5/19. 11 38'N, 132 00'E. This afternoon I happened to be looking towards the SW out to sea, when there it was about 1.5nm away, Spray! 'Oh look there, a whale! I called out, but didn't have the whit to call Thar' She Blows, it might have been a male anyway. It came up and blew again so John could see it, but then disappeared. We sat with our eyes glued in that general direction hoping for some more evidence of a whale or whales, but despite my sitting right aft looking and looking for the next half hour, nothing! I suspect though that a whale or whales may have gone by the boat earlier in the day as for no reason at all, Hunter barked on and off for some time and wouldn't stop. When I sailed last time, my old Henry Dog used to bark like that and later we would see either dolphins or a whale. The sounds they make must be beyond our hearing range but not the dog's. When in Palau we met a marine scientist who used to work in Palau but who now works in West Papua, and she told us that there are many sperm whales there. It may follow that they hunt their favourite food, giant squid, here in the very deep ocean. There are two deep fissures in the earth here which run north. The Philippine Trench, and one beside Palau as well, the homes of such deep sea monsters as the giant squid and sperm whales.

The run so far has been extremely variable. The first 24 hours as a teaser, we had beautiful wind. Now we get variety. Lots of lovely wind, sometimes accompanied by threatening looking storms followed by nothing at all. So far the storms have been kind enough to avoid us. Over night we had average kind of breezes, this morning ithe breeze returned for a while, then none, then more breezes, then none and a glassy sea. Right now we have about 4-5 knots of wind which unless we were an extremely lightweight machine does not have the oomph to move us faster than the current. We are motoring in search and hope of more wind. Perhaps a whale might visit us. That would be delightful and cheer us up. As usual when the wind goes it seems our mood goes down with it, but we take the time to read and try not to think about drifting around out here going nowhere in particular. A few ships have gone by in the last 24 hours headed for Australia. Only one passed by with in the 3 mile safe zone, and that was during the night. We always get quite excited about the ships, feeling that we aren't entirely alone on the planet.

Will certainly let you know if we see whales. Tomorrow with good news......John and Ginni