Semester 3 is over! Yay! However, like the last two breaks, most of it is being spent in Dominica. So, not a lot of things going on for me. Becky is working on a degree in Exercise Science, and it really looks like between my classes and hers, we won't really have a time in the next 18 months that we both have a break at the same time. I guess that's part of being and adult, though. Right?
So far, it's been a mostly interesting break. I took my final and had the afternoon off before I went with a group of friends to Fort Young's waterfront restaurant for a good meal to celebrate. Then on Thursday, Becky and I were employed by the Tomato restaurant to tend bar at their downstairs bar. Friday, we were invited to Sugar's, the new restaurant around Ross, for the Tomato end of semester celebration. Saturday Becky had me help her with her new job, personal training. Then, yesterday, we went sailing with a group of Canadian ex-patriots on a really nice little sailing yacht.
There are a few things that bear mentioning about the sail trip. First is: Becky and I are landlubbers. I will freely admit that. In fact, given some of the boat trips I've been on, I've pretty much decided that one trip a decade in water that's too large to see land over the horizon is enough. So, for three longer-than-two-hour boat trips in 6 months is quite a feat for us. Second is, Sunday was pretty much a day made for sailing. There was a breeze, not a wind. The water was fairly calm, and the bay wasn't terribly busy. Third is, we were sport fishing off the back of the sailboat. And, finally, we saw whales!
The whale part was actually really, REALLY exciting, and had a bit of drama, too. How it was happening is we were just sailing along, minding our own business, when the "crew-member" of the boat, a trained whale-watcher says "Oh, it looks like there are some whales over by that boat". So, we watch for a bit, and see how many there are. There is the occasional spout, and we're pretty content.
But, we have a pretty good breeze. The captain lets the gib, the sail at the front of the boat, out a bit more, and we begin chase. We sail closer to the ship and the whales and are generally having a good time watching and catching up to everything. We come to the conclusion that this is a small pod of about 6 or so sperm whales, possibly mating. Then, the boat we're catching up with starts yelling at us but we can't quite hear them due to the distance we are apart, and the different sounds of a sailboat.
We tool around watching the whales for a while, and then one of the bulls starts to breach the water. I must say, a bull sperm whale breaching the water is a sight to see. It looked like something the size of a 2000 gallon anhydrous ammonia tank shooting up 3/4 of the way out of the water vertically and then splashing over. This happened 5 or 6 times, and there were several tail slaps, and it all was quite amazing.
As this is going on, the crew-member gets the radio hooked up and we come around closer to the vessel which has Halifax, Nova Scotia painted on its side, and no one really knows what flag its under. They yell some things at us, and our crew-member yells some things at them, and we sail off. It all looked mostly like a bunch of macho posturing. In all reality, I think the other boat was frustrated because our boat was sailing faster than they were going with motors. All testosterone, and no sense.
After we had our fun with the whales, we started heading back to port and hit a small doldrum in the wind. We saw some more wind coming, so we trimmed our sails in preparation. Soon, that wind hit, and we were clipping along with a 30 degree port list (left) and we had a barracuda hit the line. We reeled that it and were ready to gaff it when the fish fell off the line which was good enough as we had to come about to continue to tack back to port. When we came about, we were taking a 30 degree starboard list from the wind, and I was so close to the water, I skimmed my hand in it without leaving my seat.
After all was said and done, and the boat was moored in the port, I hopped overboard and swam ashore. Then, Becky and I walked to PBH for cokes and supper, and a quick cab ride home to sleep by 7:30 p.m.
Don't worry, though. I'm no sailor. I still have basically no inclination for that life.
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