Calmer seas and bluer skies greeted us as we awoke for our second full day at sea. After a leisurely breakfast, a small group of whale-watchers gathered on the bridge, keen to win the bottle of wine that has been offered as a prize for the first sighting, but sea conditions rendered the morning's search unsuccessful.
Before lunch, David Barnes gave a lecture on the Brendan Voyage, the possible voyage from the Old World to the New ascribed in medieval manuscripts to the sixth century Irish Saint Brendan, and demonstrated to have been possible by the modern historian/expedition leader Tim Severin in the mid 1970s.
By noon we had arrived at 20.15 N (latitude), 53.27 W (longitude), 526 nautical miles from Antigua and with 2155 to go to Las Palmas. After lunch calmer seas and warm sunshine produced a lively deck before we drawn inside by the sound of our maestro Ziggy Stemplowski introducing afternoon tea.
After tea, Magnus Forsberg gave a talk on whales illustrated entirely by his photographs of whales in the Atlantic taken from the Caledonian Star. This whetted appetites for tomorrow's search that will begin in earnest at first light.
