18 Jan: Today is Ellie’s birthday, yay! As we previously arranged with Neptune, at breakfast time we are surrounded by a large pod of performing dolphins, here to give a special birthday display for Ellie 🙂 They play around the boat for 2h. After breakfast Ellie opens cards and presents, and as we reminisce on her 28 years, the various communication devices send many Happy Birthday wishes via text and email. She sure is a popular girl 🙂
The dolphins don’t seem to want to give up their display so we go back to the bow, this time armed with GoPro in its waterproof housing, attached firmly to the boat hook. Once the camera is in the water it’s all Glen can do to fight against the pressure on the bending pole. Once we download the video it’s a joy to see the dolphins darting about in the blue-blue water by the bow wave.
Sunshine and blue sky in the morning, feeling very hot (31 DegC in the shade) then in the afternoon clouds took away direct heat and brought some welcome drizzle. Good not only for heat reduction but also to loosen some of the salt that is now crystalline on parts of the deck… and everywhere we touch. Glen is out there trying to wash it off.
After the rain, the wind drops to 6kts and shifts, so we have to start engine. But after 1h it’s back to sailing with genoa & full main on a nice broad reach – no rocking for once! While putting the sails back out, Ellie gives a little squeal as a dead flying fish falls out of the ropes she is handling.
Along with the dolphins and flying fish there are lots of pieces of seaweed floating past. Then ahead we spot a huge raft of the stuff in front of us, complete with lots of plastic rubbish 🙁 And before we can think what to do, CB has sailed right through it, and it’s very thick. Once through, CB gently disobeys the auto-helm and rounds up into the wind. Ellie grabs the wheel and forces her back on track – but the wheel is very stiff. As we manage to put it lock-to-lock we see large amounts of weed come out the back of the boat. Clearly quite a lot had been caught around the rudder. A large clod of it was also on the fishing line which took quite some reeling in. Maybe this is what a large tuna will feel like to land?!
Late afternoon it’s birthday dinner – red Thai curry with pawns. Yummy. At sunset wind as usual decreases and our speed is down to 4 knots, but the movement is nice so we plod on. Greece is now 5 time zones and 4000 miles away. I guess we can officially say we are well on our way westwards. Just 900 miles to Barbados now.