May 3, 2009

Day Two; Porpoise Show
We're traveling in company with a pod of large porpoises, who showed up about an hour ago. We heard a series of whistling squeaks, and first thought it was from a cluster of petrels that were flying around the boat. We were sailing very slowly, as a passing rain squall had left us with almost no wind, when fins broke the surface nearby, accompanied by the puffing spouts of breathing. The whistles and squeaks were the sounds of the porpoises, being transmitted through the water to the boat hull. The birds were there hoping to clean up the injured and dead fish after the porpoises made a few passes through a school of small tuna. I don't know why they bother to try to play with us, when we can't get more than 3 knots of boat speed in this light wind, but I guess they don't have a real full schedule. Karen's had a great time lying on the net at the bow, watching them swim between the hulls, getting misted with seawater from their spouts.
We made 120 miles from noon yesterday to noon today. It looks like we'll be at about 4 deg. 45 min. N and 171 deg. 22 min. E when we make our report with the Pacsea ham radio net at 3:30 this afternoon. The wind generally has lightened to less than 10 knots, and shifted south of east, so we won't be making any 120 miles for our next noon to noon. Still, other than messing with sails in case there's a big blow in one of the squalls, it's pretty easy sailing. We get wet, we dry out; it keeps us cooler than those sunny days when it ALMOST rains, so the humidity is suffocating. We've talked to Imagica, who left Majuro a day before we did, and they have the same conditions a hundred miles ahead of us, so this might last a while. We'll get some reading done. Ted
PS....K8DON, you may want to try a call to Randy, KH6RC, 14,300 KHz during the warmup session for the Pacsea net, between 03:00 and 03:20 zulu time. I've been hearing operators from the west coast fairly well the last two nights, so maybe we could get a short contact. It would be good to hear your voice.