[password] rachel25
[position] 51 18.891s 059 28.278w
[status] At anchor in Ship Harbour, East end of Pebble Island
We came into this deep bay just after 4PM having sailed and motored for 12 hours from Salvador Waters. We had waited there for the winds to die down and expected to leave this afternoon for an overnight passage west. However, I woke at 0300 to the sound of silence and realised the forecast was a little miss-timed, so off we went. The passage was non descript, grey, little wind, big swells, and when we arrived here it all looked a little forlorn too. A big bay surrounded by low tussock, not a tree to be seen, and the wind and drizzle blowing in from the west.
However, an hour later the cloud front passed and the low evening sun illuminated our world. Subtle blues, greens, browns and greys under a big, big blue sky. The cries of thousands of birds; penguins wandering around on the beach, chatting in groups, some climbing off up the grassy sward to their burrows; giant petrels riding the updraft on the low hills to the east; steamer ducks leaving white wakes of spray as they "fly" across the water; the eyrie whistle of the oyster catcher, and a pair of dolphins cavorting around the boat. I sit in the cockpit drinking this glorious wildness. I feel very small and insignificant, a fly on nature's wall.
[END]
There is nothing more enticing, disenchanting, and enslaving than the life at sea.