Whales Everywhere!!
Location: Underway to Palau
On the scale of good days underway, it was hard to follow yesterday’s equator crossing and swim call, but today was a pretty great one nonetheless. It started with a gorgeous 6 am sunrise before Watch Team 1 saw 2 FADs (fish aggregation devices). These are pretty large (5x5ft-ish) floating objects set out by fishermen to attract and then catch a whole load of fish without even having to be there. Then, when the sensor tells them their net is full, the fishermen come to scoop all the fish out of the water. There are a ton of pretty crazy commercial fishing operations like that out here in the Western Pacific. We saw a total of 3 throughout the day, each surrounded by large bait balls that we could see splashing around on the surface. We also had two separate whale sightings today, both of which we think were sperm whales just calmly swimming along the surface - maybe even sleeping! Mac launched the drone, and we got some awesome shots of them from right above. With just a couple of days left of passage, emotions are mixed as everyone is excited to see land and have some cold drinks again, but the days are counting down until we have to say goodbye to our 40 dayers :( Other highlights today included a full rainbow, unbelievably glassy water, turning the boat in a full 360-degree circle (twice) so Ceci could get compass readings to make us a new deviation table, the sunny pour we had going for dinner, and Claire’s delicious cookies.
Dear Mum, Dad, Derek, and Andrew: I miss you all so much! I hope you’re having an awesome summer back home, and I can’t wait to see all of you soon.