Chapter 3 - d: Saturday 3rd March - Logged 124 miles

Another show-down this morning on the 01.00-04.00h watch, between the skipper and Juan.  The Skipper, observing the tell-tale compass in his bunk caught Juan off his course 45º to the north on three separate occasions and bawled him out.  Don't know what the reason is but Juan told me afterwards, when I took over from him, that the wind had died down and he bore away to maintain steerage way, rather than "Penelope" should stop completely.  The skipper denies this and says it is an excuse for bad steering caused either by lack of concentration power or a complete lack of interest in the ship's destination and safety.  Maybe we shall have to take Juan off steering at night and put him permanently in the galley.  In this case the skipper and I would have to take all the night watches.

During lunch time we saw a flock of about twelve Cape birds, the first indication that we are approaching Africa (320 miles as the crow flies to Cape Town at noon).  They met and fraternised with our two faithful's: - "Dopey", a brown albatross which never takes the food we throw it, but which has followed us for the last three weeks, and "Blackie" a petrel which has been with us since very shortly after leaving Rio.  He circles around us even at night, when we see him sometimes silhouetted against the moon and follow us, evidently, just for the fun of it.  The albatross seems to disappear at night.  We think he sleeps on the water.

Later in the afternoon we almost ran down three white bellied killer whales.  15/20 feet, estimated 3 tons each:-

The skipper thinks they have come to have a look at us, thinking we might be another whale, and therefore, prey.  He dashed below for the movie camera but they turned tail and sounded immediately, just a few meters from "Penelope".

We have not yet "smelt" africa and hope we don't too soon, as this would probably mean an off-shore wind, the last thing we want right now.

Trolling for fish.  No Catch.