Alanna Smith - Whale sighting out from Aitutaki
POSITION:
16 52.1S 159 23.0W heading 010 Speed 4.5
WEATHER:
WIND SE 6/7KTS, SWELLS S 1M, SEAS CALM, PARTLY CLOUDY SKIES
Kia Orana
Two days in from leaving Aitutaki heading for Tongareva. Just after kelvin logged his blog yesterday some of us were able to spot a whale about 5 hours out from Aitutaki. The whale was roughly 400 m from the boat and was spouting away. My first whale sighting for the year with hopefully more to come on this trip.
Our watch had the grave yard shift last night 3am to 6am. It really is the death of me those hours! It was also slightly trickier last night as it was cloudy and there was no markers (stars, moon) to guide us, so we had to rely on the compass in the 'Are' (where the captain sleeps). The boat tracker this morning would have seen some interesting patterns haha.
Rained this morning for breakfast. Most of us made the most of the rain to have showers and wash their clothes. I went back to sleep in the dry cause it looked far to cold for me. Nevertheless, Terii and I ended up having a salt water bucket shower at the back of the boat this afternoon with 'Pamovil' soap (best soap to use on the vaka, cause it makes soap suds with the salt water), baby wipes, to wipe down the salt with plastic free wipes, and baby powder to complete a 'fresh and so clean' vaka shower session.
Second day of deploying the plastic trawl. No plastics collected. A red tailed and white tailed tropic bird was also spotted today this far out at sea.
Food is great, company is great.
Hi mom and dad
Ka kite for now
Alanna Smith (TIS)