8:00 PM local time Tuesday 10th. 05 59N 134 20W. Temp. 85, Humidity 84%, cloud
cover 50%. Seas SE 2 meters. Wind SE 18k.
Warmest regards from the crew of Maverick. As we write, we are doing about seven
knots under full sail in the SE trades, and Hiva Oa is about
364 miles away. We've actually gone to the chart tubes and pulled out a
chart for the Marquesas and for Hiva Oa. Until now we used the
inflatable globe for navigation.
Last night at about 2300 we saw lights from another boat, probably a
sailboat. The captain saw the lights on his watch for about twenty
minutes, and then they were gone. Since the night of our departure, the
night of the big barfennany, this is the first time we have seen
anything in the ocean besides a few bits of flotsam and the critters who
live here. The only other visual evidence of the existence of human
beings was a couple of contrails we saw during the time we were sitting
in the Pacific High.
Since we last wrote, we had a little bit of fluky breeze and then the
wind veered to the southeast and we had found the beginning of the
southeast trades, north of the equator. The Doldrums had evidently
parted before us, as we had never encountered the classic glassy seas
and complete lack of wind. But that was not quite all there was to it.
We crossed the equator in the middle of the captain's watch, 0027 on
April 7. The captain awakened fleet archivist Terry Shrode who got out
the camera to take a picture of the GPS. The captain is quite skeptical
that this really proves anything to anyone, and in any case it's not
really much of a picture. Because of his mature years, Mr. Shrode had
difficulty manipulating his various eyeglasses and the camera, and as
the camera has an infuriating wait between pushing the button and
getting an exposure, he didn't actually time it well enough to get 00 00
000. The GPS, after all, reads out in thousandths of a minute or about
six feet (which is a higher degree of accuracy than it can reliably
sense, so even if you caught it at zero you're not that close) and
Maverick was screaming through the night at about seven knots at the
time, which is about 12 feet a second. And how accurate is that line,
anyway?
As one crosses the equator for the first time, so goes nautical
tradition, one ceases to be a pollywog and becomes a shellback. There is
hazing. Alcohol, a bit of everything on board, must be drunk. Unpleasant
substances are rubbed all over one's body and a dip in the ocean is made
to cleanse oneself. On Maverick, a new tradition was begun, and we the
crew commend its adoption, thusly: The captain said, "Good work with the
camera." Mr. Shrode, shellback, repaired to his bunk. One detail of
note: As Mr. Shrode was at the nav station and the captain was above
watching the radar, Mr. Shrode crossed the line first by about two feet
and is the senior shellback.
The next day or so the wind went light, and then picked up again from
the SE. But on Sunday, we had some nasty, lumpy seas, reminiscent of the
seas we had at the beginning of the NE trades. We had swells of about
nine feet from the NE and also from the SE plus a lot of chop from the
wind. It's hard to say exactly what makes seas really unbearable. Last
night we had a rough time of it and the boat and rig took quite a
beating but neither skipper nor crew felt any the worse for it. But on
Sunday, by early afternoon, all either of us wanted to do was to take to
the bunk, and hope for unconsciousness.
The 364 miles to Hiva Oa presents a challenge. Our understanding is that
we can't check in with immigration on the weekend, and this particular
weekend being Easter, it's three days. This means that if we don't get
there by the end of office hours Friday, it is quite likely that after
3400 miles and 27 days at sea, we will be confined to the boat and
unable to set foot on land until Tuesday morning. And to get there in
time to anchor, pump up the dinghy, fire up the outboard, get ashore,
and walk a half-mile to the gendarme's office before he closes, we'll
have to arrive by about noon. Unless the wind stays fresh and constant,
we don't stand a very good chance.
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