We are getting close to being 1,000 miles away from the closest mainland and strangely enough, we have been seeing dragonflies, we can’t figure out how they came here.
This morning we got new and up to date currents maps. As we expected, the curve of the Kuroshio that we have been fighting against, moved south.
A few days ago, as we were trying to avoid getting suck into the eddy south-east of us, we progressed a little too northeast, not knowing that the Kuroshio which was just north of us was moving south. And yes, now we found ourselves trapped in the current being carried north.
We were still swimming as much east as we could today to get out of the current. As we moved north, our distance to the 1,000 miles marker increased! I really felt like a rat lab running on a wheel.
Ty and Gonzo were on the dinghy and saw an albatross feeding on what they thought was a net. They stopped me and asked me to go check it out.
As I approached it and looked in the water, I saw a big form under the surface that did not look like a net. As I got closer, the shape of an animal took form, it was a big dead squid…and it was longer than me. What was odd finding a huge dead squid still pretty intact and floating. It had been chewed up a little, its eyes were missing and some of its tentacles were damaged. We kept its cartilage but unfortunately forgot to keep some of its flesh for analysis. We don’t know what type of squid it was but somebody should be able to figure it out by looking at the footage.
Ben
Weather conditions:
Cloudy (could coverage 6/8)
Wind speed: 0-8 kts
Wind direction: S
Waves height: 0.2 m
Waves direction: E-S
Water temperature: 28°C
1 thought on “[DAY 115] The squid”-
Fascinating point about the dragonflies. In his “The Voyage of the Beagle”, Charles Darwin wondered about dust containing African micro-organisms falling on ships thousands of miles away in the Atlantic.
Might have been interesting if we could check where the dragonflies are from and what they eat that far off-shore.