Dearest Mother,
I hope this, my first letter, finds you well. I know I promised to write you often after leaving St. Martin, but alas, I have just now been feeling well enough to do so.
My first week as apprentice on board Adrienne II has been far from easy, although highly formative. Skipper Erik is firm but fair. It has now been six days since we picked up our anchor, cast off our lines, and caught the four o’clock bridge opening out of Simpson Bay. We then set our sails and, on our skipper’s command, made one tack and have since then been sailing on the same northeastern course for the past six days and nights. My left leg is now around ten centimeters (that would be about four inches, Delaney) longer than my right, which comes in very handy on board, and most certainly so when helming this seventy-foot beauty we are now lucky to call our home. Just how useful it will be once we get to Gran Canaria remains to be seen.
The North Atlantic waves have kept us company from our starboard bow ever since our first and only tack, and although rations are a-plenty, my appetite as of recently has been about that of a wee baby. First Mate Delaney is a talented cook, and thankfully, at around five-thirty each evening I have been feeling well enough to partake in every delicious meal she has prepared for us.
As I alluded to earlier, I learn new things every day on board. One of my most recent discoveries has been the existence of a form of life, likely much older than ours, known as the diesel algae.
According to Skipper Erik, these creatures have lived long and peaceful lives inside the diesel tanks of our dear Adrienne for the past forty-something years. That is, again according to Erik, until famous owner and skipper Gurra poured highly poisonous diesel biocide right into the long-lived habitations of these fragile creatures, just before departing Gran Canaria in January. This caused them to flee, most likely in a complete panic, into our diesel feed manifold and various filters downstream. Here, they have now taken up residence, all while blocking the flow of this precious fluid to both our generator and main engine, much to the dismay of us all, not the least Skipper Erik. Luckily, they have not yet made it past any of our filter defenses and thus stayed out of both spreaders and cylinders of our main as well as our generator.
Skipper Erik has condemned the existence of these creatures on board. Thus, every five hours, I and either Skipper Erik or First Mate Delaney join forces to oust these creatures from their new habitations to allow life as we know it, with cold fridges and fresh water, to continue uninterrupted aboard Adrienne. Rumor has it, once we get to Gran Canaria, they will be eliminated once and for all.
Yours Truly,
Apprentice Anton
S/Y Adrienne II
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First squall of the trip!
"We're gonna get our ass whooped" — not the sunrise greeting anyone had in mind, but Jim called it. The oldest and sharpest hand on board steered them straight through the squall, soaked to the bone and loving every minute of it. He's got a message for his wife, and it turns out she was right about the water.
Sextants, Polynesian Wayfinding, Captain Cook, and Tupaia, Oh My!
Somewhere north of Tahiti and south of Hawaii, aboard a 65-foot rocket of a sailboat loaded with GPS and Starlink, we pulled out a sextant. Not as a novelty—as a navigation tool. Because it turns out the 2,500-mile passage from Tahiti to Hawaii is less a ocean crossing and more a living museum of how humans have always answered the same stubborn question: where am I, and how do I get home? Captain Cook had his chronometers and math; his Polynesian crewmate Tupaia had the stars, the swells, and a map of the Central Pacific stored entirely in his head—and somehow, they were asking the exact same thing.
Star gazing and celebrating
Birthdays at sea hit differently—no cake, no candles, just brownies from a rolling galley and the Milky Way as a backdrop. It's day three aboard, and the skipper's birthday is just one of three to celebrate before landfall. Meanwhile, six crew members sat in silence last night, not from exhaustion or tension, but because the Southern Cross was doing something worth watching.