Breath.

Slowly the wind is picking up and everyone starts making breakfast of course. As our sails and steering dont break anymore, I feel we are slowly arriving in proper sailing mode. Cruising, reading, working the boat, eating and sleeping. Kat makes oats with dates, brazil nuts, almonds and sunflower seeds, mixed with eggs and honey, fried into pancakes.

Tony fries a mix of nuts in coconut oil with salt and Tabasco. Scrambled eggs top everything off. Before breakfast is ready some of us have a swim in the ocean. My first one. It is as amazing as I imagined it. Swimming naked in deep blue, crystal clear water, with nothing but waves and a red boat filled with beautiful naked hippies around you. Tied to it with a rope. Taking off my shirt I got to look at my tattoo again. The colour is changing. From a dark grey to a lighter tone.

Coming out of the water I fry up the last pancakes. I feel deeply relaxed and finally not seasick anymore.

I go outside to sit with Kat. She is frustrated because the wind has left us again and she keeps on accidentally turning the boat 360 degrees. While we are talking I suddenly hear an intense breathing noise behind me. One I have never heard before. We turn around and my wildest dreams come true.

A whale slowly dives out of the water, breathes out and slowly disappears again. I can see its lips clearly, how they majestically, slowly open and let the air out, just to close again. The precise movement of the body, going over the surface and diving under again. The deep grey colour of its body varies in shading along the back, dotted with white and some selective yellow dots. The light toned fins with the playful reflection of the surface of the water playing over them. This moment of contact, of direct communication between this majestic god of the ocean and us, or at least our boat Noalani that is.

I immediately have to think about how funny we must look from down there. A black, motionless whale floating on the surface of the ocean, not reacting to any initiation of contact from the whales side. I want to call it Frank but I might just be thinking of Frank Ocean for some reason.

Frank dives down again. We all stare in awe, Chante screaming out! It circles the boat, dives under it and comes up the other side. We all run around like excited chickens.

The water is clear. Sometimes you just see a shadow with two light fins pass under the boat. It is a magical moment full of pure beauty. I have never experienced anything like this before. It starts.