Captains log: Dolphins and whales

Date: July 23, 2022

Time: 21:11

Position: 22.15.501N / 154.41.392W

Without a doubt, today's highlight was the dolphins. Gene and I were in the cockpit, Gene yelled "dolphins port side!". I looked and there they were. Probably 5 of them jumping in the air playing along side the boat. It was a bit magical. Joe was fast asleep from his night watch, but Nick scrambled to come up. He was almost up and I said "Nick, grab my phone so I can take a video!". The three of us were on the deck like little kids at the zoo excited to see something we'd never seen before. I went all the way up on the foredeck and it was just in time. The dolphins came up by the bow. I thought the water had clarity about 5 feet, but when I saw a dolphin roll under the boat probably 20 feet down, I saw his belly and realized the incredible clarity of the water. It was a special 5-10 minutes. They leaped and jumped in front of the boat, behind the boat, next to the boat, all around. We're now quite close to Hawaii (about 130 miles) so it felt as if they were giving us our first warm welcome. 

Last night looking at the stars was something else. The milky way was so clear, you could see the gaps of darkness in between the spilt milk, the stars, the planets, and incredible site. To top it off there was a bit of a meteor shower. Joe said he's spent most of the trip staying up all night on watch and he'd not seen anything like last night. Shooting start after shooting star. I saw a handful myself but Joe said it went like that most of the night. 

As the days wind down, a new mood, a new emotion has come over us. We sat on deck and celebrated what should be our 2nd to last day with a bottle of champagne (thanks dad!!!). Nick suprised us by putting it into the fridge earlier, then bringing out the bottle and announcing "now this is really champagne sailing". The mood has changed to reminiscing about our trip. Remember this? Remember that? Remember when it was so cold? It's an exciting mood and I've broken out the high power binoculars and left them on deck so we can keep scanning the horizon for our destination. With big island at over 14,000 feet and Maui at over 10,000, I thought we would have been able to see them from 100+ miles out, but no-one has yet to spot land. 

And the whales...I completely forgot to write about this earlier...out of San Francisco we started seeing whales right away. There were so many of them...it's actually not unusual. Nick and I saw a lot of them about 2 months ago on a trip we did. What was spectacular however, was when a couple of whales came maybe 6 feet out of the water, head first! They were feeding on something just 100-200 feet from the boat. It was incredibly close. The majesty of these incredible creatures was witnessed and felt by all of us. 

Tonight Gene went to bed very early, maybe 6PM so that he can wake up and do his watch. Joe was down below in the cabin on his phone. Nick and I were on deck and witnessed what we both agreed was the most spectacular sunset of the trip. I'll spare you artistic descriptions and try and get my sat phone to upload a picture of the glory we witnessed. 

Still no sign of Hawaii but our GPS says it's very close...looking all day but nothing yet. I'm counting on waking up in the morning and seeing an island off the bow! If all goes according to plan, tomorrow night will be our last sunset of the trip then we will arrive in Honolulu around 11AM on the 25th. We're all getting so excited we can hardly stand it.