She spat on me! Just before the sunrise I was taking the weeds off the ballast, that is I put the boar on drift with sails up…

Week 35: 16-22.04.2018 r.

I was sitting on the windward and then I got it on my glasses. That body blew air with water through its head about 2 metres away from Puffin. A whale? Probably not. Whale’s breath stinks like barn. Did this thing have white spots? My good Lord man! That was a killer whale! There was panic. A lot of it. But after that I locked the boat tightly and got my camera. I recorded some of it :). I also had two experiences, which I cannot yes describe well. They surely belong to top 5, maybe top 3 experiences of the cruise.

The first one was when it was just by my side and turned on its back. It pointed its stomach at me. My first thought was an instinct: should I tickle you? Damn it, you want to play? Like a dog? After that, when was already thinking it swam away, I got out from being adrift. It blew nicely, so I got up to 5 kts. And then I saw at least two of them far behind my stern. Have you ever been in a situation, when a strange dog like mastiff, rottweiler or dobermann is preparing and rushing at full speed at you? Just the memory makes my hearth want to pop out. It was dashing through the waves behind me, sometimes jumping above the water. I felt caught, like a mouse by a cat, I felt like no one was holding her anymore. So I am trying to escape. The cat was waiting just for that and again smacks with his paw „Oh! It tries to run away?”. I didn’t feel like playing. I knew that killer whales sometimes ram or even sink boats. Because they are mistaken. They do not attack people, but the boat from below looks from below like a small whale, so why not?

I am gaining speed. Less and less weed and the trade wind is blowing well. Puffin is again a small orange almost-submarine. Sailing in point of sail is very wet, the wave after striking the nose sometimes reaches my stern. By the end of the week sailing has become less pleasant. The carnival of squalls is on. The wind abruptly raises from 2B to 8B, just to suddenly drop down to 2-3B. A lot of work with reefing. It basically takes up all the time. As if it wasn’t enough, the wave is tumbling and it is more and more wet, more and more unstable. I moved to the floor to sleep. Maybe a bit against my rules. I should keep balance on the windward berth even in my sleep, but my back pains terrorize me awfully. So many months without moving is patting me on my back. There is a lot more space on the floor and I can sleep in any position I please. The spare rudder, with which I am sharing the space, does not seem to care much.

Szymon, content from the website www.zewoceanu.pl