This has been a strange couple of days in that the usual Trade Winds have simply not blown. We have had virtually no wind, and have had to motor. Watching the weather for signs of wind, clouds, sea surface etc has been a regular activity, in between reading ... and it has given us a chance to get through a lot of books.
When we do sense wind, we try to sail, and some of these attempts have only lasted ten or twenty minutes before the engine has to go back on again. At one point, when we could sail, we found we had the wind on our bows ... exactly the opposite of the expected down-wind sailing.
Maybe that explains the stowaway we found on board, and who has been with us all day. A juvenile swallow landed on our guard rail and simply stayed there, apparently unconcerned about our close vacinity. This is over 200 miles from St.Lucia! Occassionally it would fly around the boat, and perch somewhere else. I don't know where it is now, but hope to see it again tomorrow. Could it be a lost migratory bird, expecting regular westerly trade winds, as we did, and getting tired because of lack of wind or even opposing winds? Do swallows migrate along the trade winds? Should it be in Africa, and got disorientated and followed the Trades across the Atlantic? Is it from Europe or from the US? It is certainly a youngster, so therefore its first migration, so it would be really interesting to know more.
Tomorrow is Saturday, and we expect to arrive sometime Sunday, probably in the afternoon (local time) .... the rum cocktails are waiting!
Oh, we had pasta with tuna, tomato and olives tonight, followed by baked apples.
Written by David Holmes
Crew: Hanami II
9th December 2011
Aucun commentaire :
Enregistrer un commentaire
Les commentaires aident à rendre le blog plus intéressant et à le faire évoluer: n'hésitez pas à commenter.
Merci.