Date: 11 May 2024
Sailing from: St. Helena
Bound towards: Grenada, West Indies
Noon position: 02°30.6’N 047°26.5′ W
Course: NxW 1/2 W
Speed: 5.6 knots
Wind force and direction: Force 2 NE
Seas/swell: 2m NNE
Barometer: 1015
Sky: 8/8 st, cn
Water temperature: 82.3°F
Distance made good in 24 hours: 135nm
Passage log: 3,042nm
Voyage log: 26,291nm
Distance to next port: 1,033nm
Remarks: Light rain during the night gave way to heavy rain during the early morning hours. We had a special visitor this morning that drew all hands out of their dry bunks and to the aloha deck. A manta ray with a six or seven foot wing span was following the ship in the wake and stayed for over an hour. It swooped up and down effortlessly, sometimes 30 feet below the surface, sometimes right at the surface trailing its wing tips out of the water, its huge mouth open wide to filter feed. Two long white remoras stayed in the shadows underneath the ray, catching a ride. Most of us had never seen one before and to get a look at it that close for that long was incredible. It is one of the most amazing things we have seen on this voyage. Light winds and squally conditions surround us now and the engine was started at 0945 to keep us moving out of the doldrum area and on towards the sunny Caribbean.