Coming across a Sperm whale pod.
Sailing as much as we can on the veering winds. Start motoring against headwinds in the evening.
Europa makes way on a good course towards Namibia under all her canvas, sailing close-hauled on starboard tack.
The sea is not as calm and flat as the last couple of days, but the swell is still low, which helps the lookouts to spot several whale blows during the mid-morning. Some are far away, others very close to the ship. In the distance, one of them breaches a couple of times.
They are large. They show a characteristic knobby back and a block-shaped head; their blows are directed forward and to the left. We find ourselves amidst quite a large group of sperm whales, the largest of the toothed whales and the largest toothed predators. One of their most amazing habits is the deep dives, plunging to the impressive depths of over 2000 metres for foraging, mainly on squid.
The breaching we saw is not considered a very common behaviour, and it is usually young males in poor weather that rarely do it.
They are one of the most cosmopolitan cetaceans, found between 60ºN and 70ºS, with the non-breeding solitary males periodically migrating to polar regions. Females use more of the open deep waters and in the Southern Hemisphere, not south of 40ºS. So they can be found in many open ocean areas, being easier to come across pods of females, calves, and young males, which live together in groups distributed along different distinctive areas. On our track, there are several pods that use the waters between Tristan da Cunha and Southwest Africa.
The day goes on after this amazing sight, with the Europa still enjoying the good sailing under the changeable weather — now a spell of sun, more frequently cloudy, and now and then a squall, a shower sweeping over our heads.
But a few hours later, the variable southwesterlies start turning to an inconvenient easterly. We sail as much as we can, but under these circumstances, during the late afternoon our course is bending northwards and even to the northwest. The engine is turned on before dinner, all sails but a couple of headsails are doused, and we start furling them. From then on, we motor against the wind. Until then, today we made good to our destination about 80 nm, leaving ahead of us less than 1300 nm.
