Sailing
Today brings a sense of relief and accomplishment on two fronts; we’ve passed half-way on the passage and the prunes I have been eating have finally done what prunes do. I’m really not sure why it took me so long this time find my sea legs; I’ve been offshore for longer before, but sometimes as in life you just need to heave to, sleep it off and start again afresh.
Motor-sailing due east now after a pleasant day sailing with more weather theory from Erik and practical lessons from Neptune. Delaney’s bread was a huge lift to the spirits earlier and Anton is working another miracle in the galley; yesterday’s spaghetti bolognese will be hard to beat. Looks like a clear night ahead, so keep following the second star on the left, and straight on till morning.
// Simon, Adrienne II Crew
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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.