The Maiden Factor Blog

18:24 local – 22:24 UTC

We are past our halfway mark! We spent yesterday sailing in between a high pressure system over the great lakes and a low pressure system off shore, which has left us with a light north westerly gradient wind. The first day consisted of motor sailing with temperatures steadily dropping, causing the crew to wonder whether I’ve been sending us north rather than south! But they are starting to believe me as today is beautiful and sunny. 

As we left the Bay of Fundy there was wildlife all around us. Whales breaching, birds, dolphins, and a sunfish right off our starboard side giving us some side-eye. (I wonder if we look as strange to them as they do to us!)

Motorsailing makes it easy to alter course to pick up any plastic we find floating. Thankfully we only saw two pieces thus far, much less than what we saw on our way north. Marie scooped up a gallon jug with our net, and almost immediately a pod of 30 dolphins surfaced. We had a laugh as she joked about how caring for our environment brings back wildlife. If only environmental improvements actually happened that quickly!

We finally got some wind on Saturday evening, and despite the cloudy night sky it was very nice sailing. The forecast warned of a drizzle and patchy fog, but besides one cloud with some moisture in it we were quite fortunate, staying dry and with good visibility. The full moon showed up for the last two hours of night before sunrise. Today has been very nice, sailing most of the time in sunshine. As we approach Cape Cod now we are seeing many whales swimming along the surface! They’re not the endangered right whales our charts warn about because we can see dorsal fins, but we are still determining what type they are.

It feels good to sail out of sight of land again for a couple of days. Watching our team teach new guests the ropes on board makes me very proud of how far we have come since January. They are making my job easy! The mood on board is cheery and we are making great progress.