Day 13: Saturday 21 August

Karen pictured at the helm.

Making good progress and now expect to see landfall around dawn tomorrow.

Karl was on watch this morning when he yelled out ‘whale’, catapulting the troops out of their bunks and into the cockpit. The whale had surfaced right next to the boat, but he only glimpsed its back. Overall the impression was that it was a humpback whale. It surfaced again but still didn’t get a good view in the rough seas. A short time later Chris spotted a whale blow, possibly from the same whale. We think between 1 and 3 whales is the best estimate, and most likely humpbacks!

Word from Niue is that the whales still haven’t arrived in numbers and we hope that we are bringing them with us. Niue has developed quite a tourism interest in the whales allowing people to snorkel with them so a delay in their arrival also won’t be good for business!

Seas are still quite big with some long swells up to 4m high, which can push the boats speed up as she slides down the front of the swell. Very few birds about and the ones I have seen have been petrels or shearwaters (dark, long wings) but too far away to i.d. Very frustrating! Yachts don’t give much height above sea level and so birds easily get lost in the swells. It’s still too rough to listen in to more whales. We will have to wait till Niue now.

Wind to our East and running a broad reach for most of the day giving good speed averaging 7 knots. But the boat healing over quite a lot to get onto our course makes prep in the galley a challenge! I have a lovely set of bruises at hip level. Fresh fish and the last of our Raoul oranges and into my ‘cave’ to write this.

We hope Customs will be lenient and either check us in tomorrow when we arrive or we may have to wait until Monday as no work is done on Sunday!

Midday position 20 degrees 59.9’S; 170 degrees 58.97 W