One o’clock in the morning half asleep, sitting on the bow staring forward, trying to find the horizon in the pitch black.

A voice suddenly calls “Dolphins!” - at this you momentarily abandon your post and rush to the starboard side of the foredeck and try and see them.

But its entirely dark – you are wondering how anyone managed to see them when out of the depths two luminous torpedoes race towards the ship.

You watch the blur of light streaking towards the hull and as it draws alongside becomes more defined, transforming into the ghostly image of a dolphin.

It is one of the most phenomenal wildlife images anyone could imagine. Our watch officer explains that what we had witnessed is a result of phosphorescence reacting to the dolphin’s movements through the water causing the glowing effect.

In times past seafarers liked to believe that dolphins represented the spirits of sailors lost at sea … to see this fantastical display of light as the animals joyfully leap about our bow wave made one consider the idea.

As our gaze follows them as they race off to open waters we see above the south western horizon a single ghostly traveller in the night sky. With its shimmering tail a distant likeness of what we had just witnessed, Comet McNaught is clearly visible racing across the Southern constellations.
It is quite a moment on bow watch.

Christine, Miranda, Joanna, James.

Pic - James Parbery

Soren Larsen will be visiting these destinations again next year.