Well we have had a day in the proper doldrums today, the wind has been down to nothing at all.  The sea surface was like oily glass, standing on the bow and looking down it looked very strange – the water is deep blue but with the stillness it reflects the sky,the boat, and me looking down into it very brightly, in every visible direction is mile upon mile of gently undulating, odd looking, water – because we are used to looking at ripples and waves on the surface it doesn’t look like normal water any more – can’t really explain it but it looks like something from another planet.    We have seen no signs of people today – no ships and no aircraft trails (in fairness I have only seen a plane high up once so far on this trip anyway).  The only signs of people we have seen is the odd piece of junk floating past.  What looked like half a window frame went past and under it you could see fish hiding.

 

The other thing that has floated past all day is these strange jellyfish, at first we had thought they were pieces of plastic, Adam thinks they look like some bright hair grip – I thought they were Portuguese men of war but only because they had a float, I think they are a bit small, they have a float the shape of an orange segment that sticks up above the water about 5 inches long – it’s transparent but the top ridge is bright pink and the bottom is bright blue, they have a few thick bright blue tentacles and they add to the general alien-feel of the place here.  An hour or so was killed with us both sat at the bow watching for one to come close enough past the boat so we could see it clearly (you can’t go changing the course of the boat on a mad jellyfish hunt).   You also get little things skitting about on the surface that I assume are some little crustacean.  Adam at least saw a whale this evening before sunset.

 

I threw the remains of my dinner overboard (spicy mexican burritos), I suppose it will slowly sink into the abyss and form an interesting snack for the various crawly things that live on the bottom (if it ever gets that far) – I don’t suppose they have ever had mexican food before so there may well be a feeding frenzy going on right now on the ocean floor.

 

The sky was also not normal looking over the past 24 hours – different clouds and last night it was absolutely black – no stars or moon and no horizon, just blackness in every direction.  Tonight it is looking more normal with stars out and ‘usual’ clouds.

 

This morning at least we got some housework done, we are not short of hot water with the engine running so all the clothes from the past week were washed and hung about on the guardrails!

 

Adam managed to actually sail for 4 hours this evening while I was asleep, but now I am up the wind has turned to directly on the nose so the engine has had to go back on – I feel quite guilty that Adam is having to sleep with engine noise as it was lovely to have some time sailing again.