Location 33° 02S, 158° 51W
Wednesday, 12:00, 07.25.2007

The Schooner Maggie B was at 31° 42S, 155° 02W at noon on July 25. We have started our slow turn North for the Islands, and were headed 030 degrees at seven knots in a 13-18 knot breeze from 170 degrees magnetic. The sea remains fairly large so we bang around a bit. We have shaken out the reefs and are under all plain sail. We have come 1644 NM from Opua, and have 897 to go to Tahiti.

We have come 213 NM in the last 24 hours and 1236 in the last six days. Splendid sailing!

Some patterns in the crew are beginning to take shape: Hannah’s watches always get the rain; Ben’s get the buckets of saltwater in the face; Teresa’s are slower; and the
Captain’s gets all three!

We passed a 100 foot fishing boat yesterday, going the opposite direction. It was only two miles away(!) and was only intermittently visible due to the swells. They didn’t have their radar on, so no alert from the See-Me, and it was very difficult to pick them out on the radar with the big swells and rain squalls. A sharp lookout spotted them, gray on gray.

I mentioned midnight moonsets previously. Last night it was a bit different. On a routine scan of the horizon at about 0100, I saw to my horror a big red riding light seemingly right on top of us. Like what your last view of a closing container ship might be. Right after my heart jumped out of my mouth, I perceived that it was a little glimpse of the 2/3 moon, made red by the atmosphere just as it set. Whew.

Going through stores, we found lots and lots of lentil beans, loaded back in Canada (what were we thinking?). We now have a number of jars out in sunnier spots to sprout them. We haven’t perfected the system as yet, as last night’s boisterous sea has spread damp lentil beans all over the galley.

Sailing measurement continues to puzzle and inspire. One reference book on Pacific Islands refers to anchoring areas defined as so many cables from this or that. So we go to our reference books and find that a cable is 120 fathoms or 720 feet, though sometimes shortened to 600 feet so that it would be 1/10 of a nautical mile (a new cable?). Why 120 fathoms? That used to be the length of a standard anchor warp. What’s a fathom, anyway? Six feet. Why six feet? About the spread of arms, the easiest way to measure rope on board a vessel. Fathom’s probable origin is “favn,” Norse for “armful.” But the Bible mentions fathoms in Acts 27, Paul’s great description of his shipwreck. Did the early Christians speak Norse, or is it a translation or recalibration (don’t get me started on cubits)? Posidonius (hmmm, smells fishy) apparently wrote in the 2ND century BC of a depth of 1000 fathoms. Makes you appreciate the metric system.

While we are only five days from Tahiti, we are three days from Raivavae in the Austral Islands, where we will probably call. Depends on the weather.

All is well.