Thursday, May 24, 2007

Day 85 – Back on Course, Sitting Down, New Fish, Tiger Shark

24 May, 07 – 21.33    
15.3739N,52.3379W
24 hr progress: 12.8 Nautical Miles (1 nm = 1.85 km)
Distance left to Antigua (straight line): 537 Nautical Miles ( 993 km)
Distance completed: 2784 NM (5150 km)
Wave height: 6-8 ft, Winds: 15 knots NE, Bearing: 270-290 degrees.
Sorry guys, this post is a bit of a rush job. Not up to usual standards as I am very tired..
Beautiful weather. Clear, sunny and a light breeze. A hard days slog at the oars and I've made further NE progress, so well on course. A bit slow as the waves and wind are still going off in different directions.
The salt sores on my rear are getting worse from all the sitting down and starting to bleed. Hurts like crazy no matter what type of seat padding I use or antibiotic cream I put on. Its the rolling of the boat from side to side and sliding all over the seat that makes it worse. Not the sitting down part.
My plan was to row 2 hrs on 2 hrs off, but, so it s closer to 1 hour on and 30 mins off right now.
This morning I found a very unusual fish that must have jumped on board last night. I first mistook for a small eel. It looks like a flying fish crossed with a sword fish but much longer and thinner. Its wings are the same as on a flying fish, but the sharp sword sticking out of its head makes it look way much cooler than its cousin. Or maybe its just part of some fashion designers summer collection... (check out the photo)
I think I figured out why the fish have been so jumpy lately. This afternoon, I spotted the fish under the boat being chased by heavy 10 ft shadow. At first glance it looked like a Tiger shark, judging by the botches on its gray body and its wide head. I spent most of the afternoon trying to film it as it was too hot to row anyway. Since my tripod was washed overboard, I made a hand held swivel for the underwater camera by strapping the camera on to one of the long hand pumps that I normally use to pump water out of the compartment. The hand-pump underwater camera combo worked better than the original tripod I was using. Panning the camera around was smooth and much more controllable with the longer body of the hand pump. What a pleasant discovery.
I did not get many shots of the shark but I got some great ones of the other fish around.
Sharks are incredibly fast underwater, especially when they are hunting and its difficult to catch them for more than a few seconds in the camera frame. It is easier if they are further away from the camera, but then the visibility drops dramatically when they start to get more than 20 feet away from the lens. Will find out in the editing room how the filming turned out.
Food is pretty much down to the basics. The coffee is officially over. Snacks etc long gone.
Dinner today: Freeze dried pasta bolognese. Rice in basil sauce, Chinese chicken. - all guaranteed to put more hair on your chest!
Dessert : Freeze dried hazel nut yogurt to which I added broken bits of toast to break the monotony. Quite good.
The weekends coming up. Funnily enough, the weekends out here feel lonelier than the week. Strange how the mind works.
Right! Im off to sleep now. Keep the messages coming, they are very welcome,
B
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md-070524_1swordff

One very cool looking fish...

md-070524_2camera

Underwater camera strapped onto a handheld water pump for filming the shark

md-070524_3sset

Taken at 22.31 GMT.

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