Getting ready for land.

Last night we got a visit from three whales. We think they were fin whales. We could hear them through the hull before we saw them. I tried shining the spotlight on them and they disappeared. Later in the night on Deb's watch a single whale much larger than the others swam alongside the boat for awhile, crossed over right in front of the boat (Deb was worried we would hit him) and then swam alongside on the other side of the boat. Today we saw a pod of pilot whales. It is a real treat to hear whales breathing while you are sailing along at night. We spent a good chunk of this afternoon trying to identify them in our marine book. We haven't seen whales for awhile. We wonder if it is because we are closer to land.

Land is less than 100nm away. We cant see it yet, but we hope to tomorrow. Hopefully tomorrow the wind will hold up and allow us to make landfall later in the day. Otherwise we will be hove to waiting for daylight as we try not to approach unfamiliar harbors in the night.

We have been sending in a position report to the Greenland Island Commander. I sent our first report at 3 in the afternoon. You are supposed to send a report every six hours, so I skipped the six PM report. I immediately got an email telling me to send an updated report ASAP! The whole email was in CAPS. So, my first contact from someone from Greenland was getting chewed out. I am not even sure that we are required to file these reports as a non-commercial vessel. I haven't ever heard of anyone filing one before, but the rules don't exclude vessels under a certain size or tonnage like most countries. I am glad they take their system seriously. Maybe they don't know CAPS MEANS YOU ARE YELLING. I hope this isn't a sign of things to come in dealing with Greenland officialdom. Hmmm.

Tomorrow will be a day of taking showers and washing things and getting ready for landfall. We have plenty of water to get us there so we are going to splurge a little. We have used 26.5 gallons of water on this trip out of a total tankage of 100 gallons. We wash our dishes in salt water and spray them off with fresh water using a mist sprayer. If we boil potatoes, the water used goes into something else. Deb is really good at conserving water.

Rolland for the Trowbridges