22.11.2010      Visitors     “26:10N 15:46W”

I was coming off my watch around 1.00 am. It was a beautiful night. The full moon with a huge halo (Approx. 10 times the diameter of the moon itself.) appeared around 20.00. We were wondering if this infrequent phenomenon was a good or bad sign for our trip. We had light wind around 4-8kts and the asymmetrical spinnaker (AS) was filled propelling us forward with 6-7kts. My watch ended and as I was descending into the cabin when suddenly Kynan called out. “Liz, do you hear this whistling?”

I listened and indeed there was a whistling noise, more like birds chattering than the authoritive call of a whistle. The unidentified noise was sometimes louder, sometimes confused, sometimes very weak. From time to time it became suddenly quiet just to emphasize that indeed something unusual was happening. It is quite extraordinary how one gets used to the myriads of small noises on the boat and immediately recognizes when something is out of the ordinary. I dismissed the whistle first as “boat noise” but Kynan excitedly declared “Dolphins” – this was almost like the call ”All hands” – and it sent everyone on deck.  Not everyone was happy with the wake up call. Mark grumpily mentioned something about “bloody Flippers”.