The wind has been a bit fickle the last few days, but since this morning we
have been making reasonable progress south, about 200 nM off the west coast
of India.
We continue to see scores of flying fish, as they scatter out of the way as
we approach. The one's we're accustomed to seeing up and down the coast of
Dubai only really jump out of the water, but the ones we've seen pretty much
since leaving Fujairah have much longer 'wings', and actually flap them
periodically to stay above the water. I've seen some energetic individuals
scoot along above the surface for more than fifty meters.
I've been surprised by seeing birds so far off the coasts too. A few days
back a strikingly marked bird fluttered around the boat, checked us out,
then drifted off. He look a bit exhausted and like he didn't really belong
so far from the coast. He had blue and black (i think) stripes, very well
defined, and a long beak. Laith said he's a relative of the woodpecker
family.
We've had distant encounters with whales, and close encounters with tuna,
the latter being enjoyed in more and more imaginative ways.
We were given a fantastic performance by the local dolphins this morning. I'm
not entirely certain, but I believe they were working up a fish-ball, where
they work as a team to confuse the fish into a tight group and then viola...
its breakfast time! These guys were really jumping to make a splash, not
like the refined sea-world type jumps when they're just plain old showing
off. It's always struck me that when you see dolphins in the open ocean
they always seem to be going somewhere with some determination. Some of the
dolphins we've seen earlier in the trip looked more like they were loitering
around, but these ones this morning had a real sense of porpoise.
