Mid-ocean memories
You were asking recently for memories of Atlantic crossings. Here’s a description from a day in the mid-atlantic in 1966. It was a more gentle time when navigation relied on a sextant and large cargo ships stopped for a chat in mid-ocean.
I was sailing with Colonel Jack Odlingsmee in his yacht Nanise. Nanise was a lovely Buchanan-designed yawl, 30ft on the waterline and about 43ft overall and had been built by Mashfords in Plymouth only three years before. We’d sailed from Madeira in November 1965 and spent all winter in the Caribbean.
We left Bermuda on 30 June and on the day I describe here we were 14 days into a very calm Atlantic crossing. There were only three of us on board: the skipper; Will Woodard, who had just left school; and myself.
It was a very exciting day with very little progress but lots of interest. Sunny and clear, there was a very light breeze from the south-east so the crew took in the staysails and set all the fore and aft sail. It was a baking day for the skipper who was making superb wholemeal loaves. He got some sextant sights and the run to noon was the worst yet – only about 30 miles.
At lunchtime, as we were drinking a glass of wine in the cockpit, a large cargo ship, Black Heron from Oslo, came towards us and with typical Norwegian courtesy slowed right down and came very close along our leeward side so there was much waving and picture-taking by their passengers. As we sailed gently past below their bridge our skipper raised his glass in a toast to the Norwegians and their captain drew himself up on the bridge and saluted. Complete understanding between the two captains without a word being spoken.
After lunch the wind died away again leaving the sea like glass and sometimes not a ripple of wind in sight anywhere. There were lots of Portuguese Men of
War looking like inflated polythene bags with plastic sails. Schools of dolphins were leaping around, we sighted two more distant ships in the afternoon, and the odd shark cruising about kept us interested.
Then, just before sunset, we passed through a shoal of the most fantastic organisms. There were lots of single phosphorescent blobs and some snakes of up to 20 of these fixed together all very thick in the water and moving about with tiny flatfish doing somersaults around them so that ‘the very sea did crawl’.
Even though it was still daylight they were lit up and not just with white light but there were reds and greens and purples. We hung over the side with our faces just above the water and stared for about half an hour as we slid slowly along. Finally, we ran out of it and the sea was clear again.
The previous night the phosphorescence had been very intense and moving, so it was presumably the same sort of thing. It was fantastic sight.
Douglas Lindsay