A Day Full of Wildlife- Finally (Day 14 Passage from Rapa Nui Bound for Puerto Montt)

Today we were motoring on a becalmed sea. Porter and I were down below when Pete gave a shout. "A dead animal!" Porter and I rushed to the companion way and hurriedly asked to come into the cockpit without our harnesses. We were allowed to come on deck. The dead animal floated by. A seal. It was on its back. It lifted its head out of the calm surface. It's alive! We slowed the engine to a coast and turned around. The seal, we noticed as we drew nearer, was a baby.

100-300 yards away, ripples and flippers popped out of the water. A herd or pod or whatever a group of seals are called seemed to be way out here in the ocean. We have never seen seals out in the ocean this far from shore, 300 nautical miles.

The baby kept ducking its head into the water. The five of us eventually hypothesized it was waiting for its mother to stop raiding the fish and come to it. When we were going 0.6 knots, the seal started swimming around the boat. It had two, enormous, brown eyes. When the cute baby seal was near the transom, it kept dipping its head below the surface looking down. We thought it was looking for its mother. It seriously considered climbing on the transom for a rest. Eventually, the baby drifted away.

Many birds swooped around the boat and an albatross came within 20 feet of Sila.
It flapped its wings more frequently than we have ever seen an albatross flap its wings. This is probably because of the lack of wind today so it couldn't just soar on the wind like they usually do.

Mama was doing the dishes in the cockpit because we had just eaten a flourless chocolate cake to celebrate a big milestone in school that I just passed. (Editor's Note: Jack finished 5th grade math today.) There came another shout."Whale!" It surfaced 200 meters away. It was huge. It swam away pretty quickly and we did not see it for a while.

Pete was sleeping, because it was his afternoon nap, and the whale surfaced 75 meters away. It was huge- maybe 12 meters long. In a wildlife book, we discovered the whale's identity. It was a fin whale. Given the width of the whale, it was pretty long. The hooked dorsal fin was farther back than fins on other dolphins and whales we have seen.

The fin whale surfaced several times, blowing seawater 5-15 feet in the air. Maybe- just maybe the little fin near the whale was not a hallucination and a baby fin whale swam by the big one. It would explain why it surfaced so much. The baby could not dive for nearly as long as a full grown fin whale. It was more fun to see the wildlife today while it was calm than on a rougher day because big swells would make it harder to see the creatures and we could be on the foredeck more easily. Porter tells me that the reason there are so many animals is because squid come closer to the surface on calm days so the whales and seals could feed more easily. Today was a day full of wild life- finally. - Jack Rabbit

DAY: 14 1/2 INFO

And another day of motoring...Most we have ever done on a passage by a factor of over 4 now... glassy calm much of the day. All is well. Cheers - Christopher & the crew, s/v Sila

TIME&DATE: 2000 local (2400utc) TUE AUG 26 2014
FIX: 39º17.9'S 78º37.0'W
SOG&COG: 5.6 knots, ±113ºM (125ºT) - headed for Canal Chacao on north of Isla Chiloe, Chile
WIND (True): 197ºT F2, F1-3 last 72 hrs
WAVES: nearly flat sea
PRECIP: none in last 72 hrs
CLOUDS: 95% clouds at sunset
PRMSL: 1016.8mb

24HR RUN (20-20 local or 24-24 utc): 135nm, mean SOG 5.6 knots
TO GO: ±252nm to landfall, @ 5.5 knots, ± 1.8 days, landfall ± THU AUG 28 or FRI AUG 29