Day 17

Having put the sail up at dusk last night in the vain hope that there might be some wind over night, we actually made really good progress through the dark, with the talk of the night-watch handovers being The Flying Fish Rescue. I had just made myself a Cup-a-Soup when I heard a flapping on the side of the deck. I leant over to see a 20cm flying fish in it's death throws on the deck. I reached out, scooped it up and flung it back into the sea, where it sailed off into the dark leaving my hand covered in slimy scales and stinking of fish. Soon, the news had spread, and by the time I saw dad next, everyone had already told him about the excitement.

In other fish news, still no fish news!

Despite forecasts of very light winds, we've made good progress today and have chugged steadily along at 4.5-5 knots. Occasional squally showers and clouds break the warm sunshine and general relaxation taking place on deck.

Marcus was on watch, on deck on his own, as the pizza was cooking this evening when he suddenly shouted "whale", we all rushed up but were too late to see anything but the disappearing plumes of water it was blowing out, having passed us going in the opposite direction. Marcus described what he'd seen, a much bigger whale than the Minkes we'd seen a few days previously and we identified it as a probable Humpback. Very exciting!

Those who'd missed the Humpback were rewarded just an hour or so later, however, when two Minke Whales came and swam with the boat for about 20 minutes or so. They were great, surfing in the waves, popping out about 10 metres from the boat. They didn't come as close as the ones the other day, but they stayed for much longer and seeing their white flashes clearly through the rollers behind us was pretty special.

In other news, we should break the 2000 mile mark over night which seems like a really long way. Not far off the miles to go reading less than a 1000 miles too which feels like a real landmark. If we can maintain our goal of 100 miles made good each day, we should get in on the 1st or 2nd February. It still feels a long way off but we're starting to talk about it more and dad said today that he thinks it feels like we're at "the end of the middle" which I think nicely sums it up.

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