At Sea
A day at sea offers the chance to look for marine life and today we were not disappointed. During breakfast, the ship slowly repositioned to approach a whale seen blowing in the distance. For over half an hour we were able to watch a Bryde’s whale blowing and then diving, at intervals of five to eight minutes. Shearwaters fishing successfully were reminders that we had been led to a pocket of productivity in an otherwise quiet tropical ocean. Our approach to the Cape Verde archipelago together with the prevailing north-easterly trade winds brought a red-veined darter dragonfly on deck, and perhaps intrigued by the aft-deck lunch barbeque, a squacco heron. Flying fish off the bow were another indicator of tropical waters as we crossed the Tropic of Cancer.
Our cultural program continued unabated with presentations of the history of Cape Verde and of the Atlantic Slave Trade with which the archipelago is closely associated. A painting class was held in the lounge after lunch and the first in a series of seminars on the theme of the Europe’s encounter with the New World offered by the Aspen Institute in the chart room.
So we continue on south-westward, in the wake of the explorers of the mid-fifteenth century, but in a considerably more relaxed frame of mind than theirs, to our next port of call on the island of São Antão.
