View from Charisma's cockpit

Several people have asked whether the story about the whale encounter at the mooring at Nuie in true. While I haven’t been able to read the whole story, here’s what we have heard from where it happened.

A whale was cruising through the mooring field and become entangled in one of the moorings (#3, right next to ours). This happened a month or so ago in mid-August. There is actually a part of the bow that was torn from the boat nailed to the wall up in the Nuie Yacht Club.

Seems like the whale just panicked a bit and lashed out to get unstuck. Not surprising but when a creature that big panics, there’s a certain amount of havoc.

There is a juvenille whale in this area and that’s likely the culprit, in fact he may have been the same one that cruised by about 30 yards outside our mooring this evening. A 30 foot, 10 ton teenager testing his capabilities. Hmmm, sounds like me about 30 years ago!

Easy, quiet day after the craziness of yesterday. We checked out for Tonga with customs and immigration since they are closed through the weekend and we are likely to leave on Sunday. Had a really fun night on Orcinius with Sockdolager and The Rose. Pot luck followed by pictures that everyone brought. The evening was highlighted with some beautiful singing and guitar by Karen from Sockdolager. Also a whale swam through just outside the moorings at sunset. Overall, a nice respite from yesterday.

Earlier in the day, I brought the completely chafed through bow-line from “Sunrise” that we fixed yesterday at (ironically) sunset over to them so they would have a souvenir. They were very appreciative as they realized that their boat would not have made it through the night on the other half-chaffed through mooring line. Turns out they are from the Bay Area and as I was leaving they said to “watch Latitude 38-you will be in it”. I guess they are going to send a story. Will be interesting to read their version of the crazy weather day