Is this Dreamland?
Swift of Chincoteague
Wed 10 Dec 2008 17:24
|
17:10N 36:59W
We don't often see other sailboats at sea even
boats going to the same destination can be quite far apart and of course not
everyone leaves at the same time. So here we are middle of the Atlantic,
1500 miles from Martinique, it is Monday afternoon (12/8) and in the distance we
see a vessel of some sort. Our first thoughts was that it was a cargo
ship (we see lots of those) but on closer look we thought it looked like a sail
- now that was exciting! We watched it a while before calling them on the
VHF radion (A VHF radion transmits about 20 miles or so). At first there
was no response, but then about a minute later a voice comes back to us.
The vessel is a Swan called Dreamland and is 87 feet long, the crew are all
spanish but fortunately the captain spoke English. They were on their way
to Grenada (in the Caribbean). At the time we had very little wind and
they were motorsailing, we asked the captain if he had any up-to-date
weather info and he said that he was just about to get it, and would call
us back in half an hour. Meantime he said they would steer over our
way.
Half hour later this huge sailboat (remember 87
feet) motors up next to us about 50 feet off our starboard side, it looked like
they had a crew of about 8 men. We take pictures of them, they're taking
pictures of us, the captain calls and says we will have one day more of calms
and then we will get wind. We take more pictures, wave to each other and
the rev their engines and are gone. The moral of the story, even people on
megayachts are excited to see someone out there in this vast ocean. They
have promised to email the pictures they took of us, I hope they do! As we
were sailing I wasn't able to get any good still pictures, but I switched my
camera to movie and hope I can get some stills from the video.
The Captain of Dreamland was right, yesterday was a
calm day, it was gorgeous, hot and sunny. Murphy was able to spend the day
doing what she liked best. Sleeping out on the deck moving from shade to
sun, back to shade again as the mood took her. She must have known
yesterday was the day for that, because today she isn't too interested in
leaving her bunk, because yes Captain was right again, today we have wind and
are moving along at a good pace. At the moment 1440 miles from
Martinique.
Our blue and black stripey fish is still with
us. He has been riding our bow wave at least since Monday (that is when we
noticed him, but I hadn't looked for him earlier). I thought we would
loose him during yesterdays calms, but he was back today racing along. He
makes you tired just watching him.
Hasta Luego from the Deep Blue
A, D and M
|