It’s 3:30 A.M. and I’ve just come on for my three hour watch. We rotate through three different shifts on our passages. I think the hardest is the 9 P.M. to Midnight. Often the other two go off to bed after dinner and so that shift really is 7 P.M. to Midnight. We try to stay up with whomever has that shift, but it’s hard when you know you need some sleep before your shift. However, after that shift you’ve got a good night to sleep, so it has it’s advantages over the Midnight to 3 A.M. shift.
What are we watching for? Ships. Out here in this part of the Pacific there isn’t much traffic and I have yet to see anything on any of my watches. Those large container ships that haul cargo to the islands we’re visiting are out there somewhere. They move really fast and can go from a blip on the horizon to bearing down on you in fifteen minutes or so. We have what’s called a hand bearing compass to help us determine if the ship we see is on a collision course. The one we have now is new and is built into a very nice pair of binoculars. If over time the compass heading you see while looking at the ship doesn’t change, then you’re on a collision course. If it changes you’re not. Luckily, in all my sailing the ships I’ve spotted were never headed towards us.
We also keep an eye on the sails if we’re sailing or the engine if we’re motoring. The later of which we are currently. This passage has been slow and the wind only co-operates for short intervals. We watch the wind to see if it’s time to change from motoring to sailing and visa versa. It’s a great time to listen to audio books. We have quite a selection on board, with most of them nautically themed. “The Revenge of the Whale: The True Story of the Whale Ship Essex” is the book I just listened too. It was a great story, but the writing was just average. It is a bit spooky though sitting here hearing about guys in a life raft having to resort to cannibalism to survive. This was the 1820s though and we’re way better equipted if anything drastic forced us to leave Honu.
We have an emergency life raft that is filled with supplies. We have extra water set aside to take with us. The most important item though is the EPIRB. I’m not sure what all those letters mean, but I’m pretty sure the last two are Rescue Beacon. This device, when activated, will send a distress signal up to satellites as they pass over us. After several passes our location can be determined.
The moon just set and now it’s dramitically darker. The stars are brighter, the sky glorious. I can see the milky way and if I don’t look right at it, the Magellenic cloud. Your eyes and brain trick you if you try to look right at it. Somehow, if you look at it and away and at it again you can trick your brain back into seeing it.
Night watches can be, get this, cold. Yes, even here in the South Pacific the nights can be cold. I don’t mean cool. Tonight is warmer than the last couple, but still I have on sweat pants and a light jacket. Last night I had all this on plus I was sitting under a blanket. The main sail is flapping around and I’ve got to do something about it.
It’s now 5:00 A.M. I played with the main sail for a while, gave up and then gave it another go. Finally, I got it to stop flapping and making thundering “thwaps”. Of course, what worked was one of the first things I tried. I don’t know why it didn’t work the first time. During all this our wind has shifted to the south. This is great. Maybe we can sail, I thought. So, I tried. I idled the engine and pulled out the jib. Yeah, we could have sailed, but our speed was less than 2 knots. At that rate we’d get to Niue in two weeks. I pulled the jib back in and pushed the throttle back up and away we go, back up to 5 knots. If you want to know how fast we’re going, go get in your car and drive to the grocery store at about 5 m.p.h. Then slow down to 2 m.p.h.
Our fuel will only last so long and they we’ll have to sail the rest of the way. I’m voting to save at least enough to motor from Niue to Tonga, but we do have to get to Niue first, so that may not be practical. We don’t know if Niue will have diesel for sale or not. If they do, I imagine it will be the most expensive diesel we encounter.
We’re about to cross into a new timezone. We will be GMT -11 soon. That means we’re one hour eariler than Hawaii and 7 hours early than the East Coast and 11 hours earlier than London. In a couple of weeks we’ll cross the International Date Line and then we’ll be in a different day from y’all. Cool.
Our trip odometer will hit the 1,000 nautical mile mark in the next couple of hours. I can’t believe we’ve traveled that far already. This zig-zag course to Niue has certainly added a good number to the total. So much for “as the crow flies”.
Our best to everyone and let us know what you’re up to. We’re not getting much email with news from family and friends. Howard is still sending us the headlines, which is a big hit. Susan says “that’s all you need. Just the headlines”.
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