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Priska's Journal Entry
#2
Voyage from Ensenada to Socorro
Priska learning how to celestial navigate
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navigation by the stars.
We have arrived at one of the most
beautiful islands that I know; I feel that I have to share its beauty with
you.
We sailed out of Ensenada on the 20thof February. With a small
crowd of people waving us off, we left the bay and started our way out.
Seasickness grabbed hold of me and I lay in my bunk the rest of the day,
trying to control it. At sunset we anchored, since it was too rough to go
out anymore, and because it is bad luck to leave on a Friday. The next day
we raised anchor and started sailing towards Socorro. I remember little of
the first three days, because I was seasick. Usually it takes me more than
a week to recover from my seasickness, but on this voyage it only took me
3 days! After that I was able to helm and even cook.
We motored over a shallow sandbank near Baja California at 10 am in hopes of filling our freezers with fish and seeing a gray whale. I
awoke to the sound of wooden sail blocks banging on deck above my head.
When I walked on deck half an hour later, I heard the fishing line go off
and 2 seconds later “Fish!” As Eibes started pulling in the line, the
whole crew gathered on deck to watch our first fish being caught. The
second fish, caught 4 hours later, was about half the size of the first
one, but we could not believe our eyes; two fish in one day! Five minutes
before the end of my watch (at
3:55) the line went off again and the biggest fish of the day was caught,
a ten pound bonito. I cleaned this fish and just as I started to scrub the
deck, the fourth and last fish of the day was caught. After this 8-pounder
we stopped fishing for the day. It had been a very lucky day for fishing
and sailing. The sky was blue and the wind was strong. We had fish for
dinner, of course, and I went to bed with two helpings of it in my belly.
At 12, I was woken for my watch, put on my puffy raingear and sat on the
deck box. We tried tacking twice at 1 am, but the wind wasn’t strong
enough to bring us over. We turned on the engine and the tacking went
smoothly. At 4 am, I went to bed .
On the 3rd of March, late afternoon, we arrived
at Isla Socorro, one of the most beautiful islands I know. A thin spike of
land reaches out towards the ocean to great us. It slopes up towards a red
earth hill shaped like a Mayan ruin. In front of it a long grassy slope
stretches up and meets a red and black cliff wall. On the shore many
boulders and sharp rocks cause white breaking waves to appear. Then
another hill reaches for the clouds behind the cliff wall. After a few
longish hills the island rises up to meet the clouds with its lighthouse
matching the twinkling stars above. Uneven bumps meet the rounded drop
off, which falls straight down, then slants and points its pier out to the
ocean. Even this spectacular view everyday would have been enough, but
nature showed us more beauty, so much we could barely handle it. Two
massive manta rays with a 5 wingspan “flew” by the ship, flapping their
wings on the surface of the water. A pod of Humpback whales appeared,
blowing and fluking for us. They showed their barnacle covered dorsal fin,
and waved at us with their long flippers. Over and over again, we kept
coming up on deck to see the spectacular show of these ocean creatures.
The whale songs lulled me to sleep at night and breeching whales amazed me
over and over again during the day.
A few days after our arrival, some of us went on a whale watching trip
with the zodiac, hoping to get closer to the whales. As we skidded across
the waves in our red zodiac, a flying fish flew out of the water and past
our boat. To our right a school of needlefish pierced the water several
times, making a rippled appearance on the water surface. We drove into the
sunset, as a whale dove down and fluked 10 meters from our boat. It did
this a few times, as if it were a simple movement of a hand, each time I
screamed with joy. Pink mists hovered over Socorro and covered the sky
blending in with a breathtaking sunset and moon rise. Eddie, the third
mate and small boats manager, knew where the dolphins where. He revved up
the engine and headed for the shore. I scanned the horizon all around me
for any blows or dolphin bodies, but couldn’t see a thing. Suddenly a
dolphin skimmed the water with its dorsal fin. I sat on the bow and held
on to the bowline as Eddie raced over the waves. A dolphin jumped 3 meters
out of the water, span and dove back in. One after the other big
beautiful dolphins leapt out of the water, reaching for the sky.
Everywhere I looked, up, down, left, right, I saw blue, silky dolphins. I
could reach into the water and touch them, I could look at the pink rising
moon and see dolphins jumping through it. Eddie raced them and drove after
them. I felt a big splash and was blinded by saltwater. Before my eyes
closed I saw a big dolphin leap above our bow with a great splash. I leaned
forward and felt a wet silky dolphin tail slap my forehead. We screamed
and couldn’t speak. Our happiness filled our lungs, hearts and eyes.
Mouths open with amazement, eyes sparkling with joy, we watched the
sparkling dolphin bodies jump and dive over and over again. We drove back
to the ship and tried to put down our experience in words, but could only
relive them in our dreams.
The day after our dolphin experience, I went out in the small boat to see
some of the underwater world, since all I had seen of it was sand and
rocks in murky water. We anchored in a little cove and jumped into the
water with our snorkel gear on. The coral reef consisted of 2 types of
corals with a lot of fish. The eeriest thing was that I could hear the
whales singing so clearly while I watched the fish swim over the corals.
Most of the fish were the curious orange and blue clarion angelfish, which
were mostly found in these islands. One of them came up to my mask and
“kissed” it.
During all this I was also taking scuba diving lessons with Nate and
Nicole. We did theory in the morning, and dove in the afternoon. As my
bubbles rose, I sank deeper and deeper into the blue, down the anchor
chain. I could see the PSI on my pressure gauge going down as I took in
each deep breath. We sat in a circle at 30 ft below sea level and
practiced dive skills. In turns we took off our BC’s, weight belts,
regulators and masks. I rolled on the ground struggling to get my weight
belt back on. In order to see again after we had taken our masks off, we
had to “clear” them. This means, opening your mask a slit and then
exhaling through your nose. By the time I had reached the surface, my tank
was empty.
With our hair flying in the wind and
our hands tightly gripping the rope on the side of the small boat, we
headed out towards the blue lagoon. As Eddie skimmed the waves with his
red zodiac, a massive whale fluked 3 meters from our boat, leaving us
speechless. Icicle like columns of water fell from its fluke as it dove.
We surfed over dancing white caps and entered a treasure map world. First
we passed a two headed hydra, the sea monster, then we came upon the big
bison or buffalo. We took a turn around the great big sperm whale and
turned into an entrance left of a big archway carved into rock. To our
right, a single palm tree sprung up from the ground. White sandy beaches
surrounded turquoise, coral littered water. We jumped in the warm water
and took notes on the health of the corals. Carefully, we swam over algae
smothered coral heads towards the beach. We were tempted to set foot on
land, but since we didn’t have permission to go on this paradise island,
we resisted and swam back to the boat. After a lunch of hardboiled eggs
and rice, we made our way back to the ship. On our way back, we met many
diving whales and flying fish.
At the end of the next day, we went out for one last snorkel before we
left. The underwater world seemed to be sleeping in the foggy coral reef,
but out towards the deeper ocean, a baby whale was having breeching
lessons. The calf and its mother swam straight for us. At 3 meters the
baby stopped in front of us and did a big jump out of the water. It was
like a departure gift. Again and again the calf breeched, not even
noticing our presence.
We left Socorro on Monday the 15th
of March, carrying pictures of breeching whales and slapping dolphins in
our minds. We left on another big adventure across the vast blue ocean.
Priska
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