With a couple of days now of strong winds of 20-30kts behind us and following seas we’ve been making good progress towards Port Lincoln.

Having been surrounded by sea for 6 days now we’ve been surprised at the lack of sea life to be seen. Having seen hundreds of whales coming down the West Coast they were now nowhere to be seen. We have however spotted a huge pod of dolphins which were believed to be Southern Rightwhale Dolphins, which are easy to identify as they are the only dolphins in the Southern Hemisphere without a dorsal fin. We’ve also had a few different types of Albatrosses that have joined us most of the way. They’ve been magnificent to watch glide across the water around us. Sandie and I have tried in vain to identify the types of Albatrosses with there being over 24 different species to choose from.

Just a mere 2 minutes after I say to Sandie “it’s amazing we haven’t seen much sea life yet”, I spot something that looks like a fin sticking up out of the water, straight on our bow. “Turn to port!” I yell as I realise this thing isn’t moving very quickly and it may be yet another stick(not a croc Shaz). Nope turns out it’s a dopey seal sleeping on the surface of the water! How’s that for timing.

As Sandie and I have been passing the time during our night watches by playing and singing along to musicals, much to the dismay of the rest of the crew, I here Sandie let out a yelp! which sounds dissimilar to her singing style. “Are you ok?!” I ask. “I’ve been hit by a squid!” Sandie laughs. Slapped right on the hand(thankfully not the face) by a little squid. How’s that for luck. Sandie and I have been seeing these little squid appear all over the deck at night. No one else has seen them yet so I’m wondering if the sweet sounds of our singing voices are luring them from the sea(yeah right!).

With the wind lightening off today our pesky engine decides to play up again and give us an overheating error. This is weird because the engine hasn’t been on for 2 days so definitely shouldn’t be overheated. With a lot of head scratching from Matt for over 2 hours he finally managed to start the engine by holding his tongue right. This is a little disconcerting as we’re still unsure why this is happening. A suggestion from a diesel mechanic has been made to start by cleaning all the earthing points from the engine. We’ll investigate this in Port Lincoln.

We’re on the home straight now and should be in Port Lincoln sometime tomorrow afternoon. I know everyone is looking forward to a full nights sleep without having to get up in the middle of the night to go on watch. The crew have done an exceptionally good job with some not having done large ocean passages before. Morale is high but we’ll certainly be happy to see the sight of land soon!

Amazing photos again courtesy of our photographer Chistopher Howe.

Till next time,

Jess :)