Joys of Sailing – by Marike

The last few days have been extremely frustrating, as we had no wind and our engine has decided it will NOT start. We made about 60 miles in two days with the wind that normally accompanies the rain clouds. (Our usual quota was 100 miles a day). We now have the trade winds back, and although they’re not very strong yet, they at least allow us to SEE the bubbles passing the boat on the water.
The lack of wind has given us the chance to swim though. We have now officially had three ‘middle-of-the-Atlantic-sea’ swims, and one dive! We’re probably not going to have any more, so it was fun while it lasted. The water is sooooo warm! At home I always feel a bit hesitant to just jump into the water, because I know that although I’m going to get used to the water, the initial shock of cold will be present. However, in these, lovely warm waters, I have no fear at all. =) Even with the dive – we went down with a shotline to about 15 metres at least – we only wore our costumes and the basic diving gear. No wetsuits – and I could have stayed down there for hours! (Okay – until the air in my cylinder ran out).
The night before last, we were just putting up our sails after having taken them down to deal with a bit of faulty tiller excitement, and the water was oily flat. No wind at all. So when my dad was at the front of the boat, he called us to bring a torch. There was a white thing floating in the water, and something big circling underneath it. As we were watching, the something big (obviously fish, not mammal) poked a long snout out of the water and came down on the bobbing white thing with a terrific splash. We believe it was a swordfish, as it continued to make these advances toward the innocent floating white blob. We think the white thing was a fish, or maybe a jellyfish? Anyway, eventually the swordfish ate it. It came out on its side (poor thing, it’s sword gets in the way) and made attempts to bite it. It had to have a few goes, though.
All that time we were watching the swordfish, our boat didn’t move, so we were able to see what was going on. It was quite close to the boat – what are the chances of that happening? Swordfish in the middle of the sea, surfacing and wacking the water . . . RiGHT next to the boat? It was really cool.
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