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2000 GMT Lat 08 31.6N x Long 014 39.9W
Sailing under 4 lowers, topsail, jt, and main gaff topsail
1.5 knots, 109 T
Wx Wind light E'lies, seas rolling in from NE 2-3 ft.
Yesterday another set of squalls, wind backing, sailing 4-6 knots, then calms.... A beautiful bird with turquoise colorations perched aloft most of the day - migrating form the topsail brailes to the yard to the cross trees and head stays..... We had begin the day with another striking bird of the piper/tern style flying along in the light of our stern light - landing for brief periods on the aft davits etc....
Yesterday also brought out some of the frustrations we can naturally expect being so close - yet actually so far away.... For most of the rest of this voyage 100 miles was a hop and skip.... As of yesterday it began to feel like we might never get these easterlies to shift enough to get us to Freetown's door.
We swept north into Guinnean waters then drifted back down the continental slope into deep ocean waters.... Watching the large ships just a few miles more offshore steam by at 10, 12 even 14 knots. At dusk, serenaded by two guitars and several amazing voices singing some old standards (Dylan, Fleetwood Mac, some shanties etc) - a small pod of pilot whales came to escort us for a ways. (I gather these were the first whales of this leg... kind of fitting as pilot whales are named for sailors' belief that they pilot you home.) We drifted mostly through the night - then caught a perfect breeze this morning which got Amistad going in the right direction! The day, however, demanded a much needed break from standing stifling watches in the sun - so we launched a man-overboard drill - after which we segued into a swim call in some amazingly beautiful 85 degree water, then into lunch on deck and chance to go out in the small boat and photograph Amistad under full sail.... Unfortunately she was not showing off for the cameras - but we had been hoping for a day to get those shots and finally the sea and conditions provided them. Also took a few moments to do some inspecting of the hull - and some folks back home will get a kick out of hearing that you could read all the names they painted along the keel in last spring's yard period..... "Bridgeport 2007" is clear as day!
After clean up we did a class on the biographies of the Amistad captives trying to familiarize ourselves with the names, tribes, and languages of this amazing place that is just over the horizon. Each one of the ship's compliment read one or two biographies to us - and we all got to remember: That some of the captives were taken into slavery in exchange for family debts, small legal infractions, to placate a king or tribal leader. One, Pugnwawni, was sold into slavery for a coat. Some were taken in ambushes as they went to market or out to the fields, others were taken by raids on their villages. They came from all over: Mende villages, Vai country, Febaw, Sando, Bandi county, Balu, Timmanni, Lomboko, and the list and names go on and on.
Just as I was sitting down to write this around 5 pm - the fishing line spun off the reel and Mike landed the largest Tuna of our trip - a yellow fin. Like all the other fish we have landed it was majestic - tired - but beautiful beyond belief. Each one of the fish we have caught has caused many of us to feel the intensity of killing such an amazing creature - so perfectly built to torpedo through the water, its warm-blooded body designed to maximize its oxygen transfer to energy and minimize its heat loss in the world's largest body of water - where heat slips out of most bodies in record time. The eyes of these fish are crystalline, with large black pupils - looking back at us, yet having seen and lived in a world we will never see ourselves. I know I eat our fresh caught meals with a grave sense of the life sacrificed. It makes you wonder - and feel a tremendous sense of humility.
After such a beautiful day - filled with the tastes, touches, sights, sounds and smells of this amazing patch of water eight and half degrees above the equator and just 14 degrees west of so many other places.... we will have to fire up Amistad's main engines and begin our final last leg "home". And what a home coming this will be...... I know none of us can even remotely imagine... When those engines rumble to life two or three hours from now - Amistad will be bowing her head to the east, to the ancestors she has only known in the abstract, until now.
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