Well-Earned Rest

Part of me was praying for windy conditions so we could take a break (it is very hard to justify taking a break during settled conditions here considering they come along so rarely). My partial prayers were answered today when the wind was blowing 20 knots, so we took a well earned break. Funnily enough, we still woke up at 7 on the button. The day was spent catching up on boring office stuff/paper work. This paid off as we received our CITES export permit from the Cape Verdean authorities this afternoon... but are still waiting for NPWS to respond to our import licence application a month ago...

Darren was mixing some whale songs, which sounded pretty cool... I can see them being a hit, perhaps it might help fund our next expedition. We just need a record deal. 

Tomorrow will be my last full survey day as I head back to Ireland on Thursday. Conditions are forecast to be marginal so hopefully we will find whales in the shelter of the bay. The last couple of days there has been a very curious young whale approaching boats, spy-hopping and tail-waving only metres from whale-watchers. Hopefully we can catch some of that action. The long-term forecast is not nice, but we will probably take a week-long break between me leaving and Simon arriving (first week in May) so that Darren can re-charge the batteries. The surf forecast looks good at least. 

I plotted out our survey effort for the past 2 weeks. We have good coverage down the west and south coasts, but have yet to round Ponta do Sol to survey the north coast. Hopefully this can be done in May if conditions allow as we had some good encounters in that area last year.