whale incident aug 7 08

some of you have asked about more details concerning the whale incident so here goes. first off, my disclaimer: there were four of us onboard all in different places on the boat, and just like blindmen describing the elephant, we each had our own experience. this is mine, taken from my journal. i'd been on watch from 04:00-08:00 (that's 4am-8am).

"thursday aug. 7. watch calmer. watched the boobie wake up, preen and move from the traveler to chrome stancion to the life line where the narrow wire made it difficult to maintain balance. sunrise a slow yawn through clouds and eventually a full blown spread of colors quickly turning sky & water a mauve color. boobie seemed tentative to leave, not quite ready to launch himself away. sunrise start 05:40, sunrise finish 06:15, bird left 06:30. 08:00 watch calm until 08:15 when we hit a whale head on. moments later saw a black mound go past under the stern about 50 yards out and a reddish pool behind it. boat appears undamaged except for cabinets in v berth on starboard side crushed & disengaged at base. no other damage apparent. how awful to hit this creature. my first sighting of a whale but i didn't want it under these circumstances."

i had just come off watch and was on deck. lori was getting ready for her watch, still in the v berth when it happened. there was a loud BOOM and you could feel the boat hitting something. it was a different feel and sound from last evening's squall when the boat was pounding through the water. you could feel the tension from everyone. lori yelled and jim ran below deck to see what was happening. all i heard was something about a door and i thought they said we hit a door floating in the water. when i turned to look out the stern i thought i saw a large doormat floating behind us (duh). jim had run back up on deck and said it was a whale. he has now decided it was a humpback because he saw a fin and he said it was really really big. the reddish/brownish color behind it, well how knows. i just hope he was okay. we've talked with other sailors about it and apparently it's a somewhat common occurrence, especially around hawaii. could be their sonar is getting affected from underwater testing. another theory is they sleep near the surface of the water.

we were incredibly lucky there was no hull damage. the hull flexed on impact but the interior cabinetry didn't so corners were crushed and sole floorboards and doors were pushed out of alignment.

so that's the story. i hope the whale was as lucky as we were.