Weekend Write-In Story Collection

Observations While Sailing

In 500 words, tell a story where unexpected wildlife appears. Written for the Weekend Write-In Challenge: "Fauna" — 23-25 December 2016.

Some musings on the fauna we saw and didn't see while sailing around South America.

Observations While Sailing

As we sailed through the Chilean archipelago exploring Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego, we were blessed with an abundance of wildlife. Dolphins cavorted in our bows and often led us safely through tricky passages. Whales accompanied us through broader waters, playfully breaching to entertain us. Among these, we identified southern right whales, blue whales, southern fin whales, minkes and pygmy right whales. Fur seal pups played games alongside in our anchorages, and many rocky points were sea lion rookeries.

Ashore, the terrain and the climate are too harsh to support many mammals, so we saw no raptors, but other birds were common, particularly the sea birds. Seagulls and guanacos were regular sights, and as we ventured further south, so were king penguins.

On our way from Cape Horn toward the Falklands, we were accompanied by small squadrons of Antarctic fulmars. Albatross were also abundant, particularly black-browed and royal, but we also saw several wandering albatross. The spume, fins and flukes of whales were also common sights as we sailed, as were dolphins playing with our bow wake.

In the Falklands, we used our dinghy to visit a Magellanic penguin colony. Two dolphins nudged our inflatable's sides as we entered the cove, and they guided us through the rock-strewn approach to the beach. Ashore, we wandered among the penguins, thankful it wasn't mating season. On the slopes above the beach, Magellan geese performed intricate mating dances.

We sailed north from the Falklands on an eleven-hundred nautical mile ocean passage toward the southern coast of Brazil. We needed to remain well clear of the Argentine coast since we had visited the Falklands without Argentinian permission. They had again heated up their claim on the islands they call Las Malvinas.

This stretch of the South Atlantic has a severe storm every four or five days, so the nautical pilots recommend departing on the heels of one storm, heaving-to for the next one en route and sailing out of the area before the arrival of the third storm. We hove-to in a Force 11 of sixty knots and ten-metre seas. As we set sail after the storm's passage, we found a dove huddled in the cockpit, apparently blown seaward in the storm. That was to be the last wildlife we would see at sea for many weeks.

The Brazilian coast is over 4,000 miles long, which for landlubbers is over 7,500 kilometres, nearly 4,700 statute miles. We sailed through severely polluted water along much of Brazil's coast. Oil slicks were common from their deep offshore drilling. Our watermaker filters clogged far more frequently than we had experienced during the previous three years on this sailing adventure.

We saw no whales or dolphins, nor did we see birds, either sea or land based. The only living creatures besides ourselves were the swarms of insects above the rafts of sargasso as we passed through the Doldrums and across the Equator.

Seven weeks after beginning our transit of the Brazilian coast, we saw a flock of petrels. We had left Brazil. We were back to abundant fauna.