The Eastern Pacific - Pacific Crossing Notes: A Sailor's Guide to the Coconut Milk Run - page 227

quite the luxury! Other than scanning the horizon, reading, and counting the minutes to
snack time, I passed thirty minutes of my 02:00 to 06:00 watch with an easy session of
step aerobics. After all, thirty-five feet of fiberglass doesn't provide much room for blood-
pumping exercise.
And what exactly does an eight-year-old do for twenty-eight days at sea? Doesn't he feel
bored? Cooped up? Lonely? None of the above! With a greater part of the morning de-
voted to school (plus a shorter afternoon session in his second language, German), Nicky
happily kept himself occupied in his remaining free time. To begin with, there were Lego
boats to build: massive marvels of engineering complete with working winches, cloth
sails, and swing keels. Then there were the adventures of Percy Jackson (the schoolboy
demigod son of Poseidon) to read, and decks to patrol for flying fish. Nicky also spent
part of the early night watch in the cockpit, clipped in beside me, watching the stars. How
many eight-year-olds are treated to down time like this, contemplating the grandeur of the
universe with their parents? How many parents can claim the same?
Our weeks at sea were punctuated by special occasions, too. After a flurry of cake-baking
and craft-making, Nicky and I helped Markus celebrate his forty-sixth birthday at 08°S
110°W. We hadn't brought gifts from “civilization” for this special day; instead, we ap-
plied our hands, hearts, and a little creativity to the materials available on board. The res-
ults (commemorative artwork, a bar of soap carved into the shape of a turtle, and person-
alized new lyrics for a favorite song) made it a birthday to remember in both location and
spirit.
Most exciting of all was our mid-ocean rendezvous with a French sailboat called E Capoe
(which translates to something like “What the heck!”) Position reports on the radio net
showed that we were very close to this family of five. We had chatted on SSB, but never
crossed paths - until now! E Capoe's crew is made up of a French father, Austrian mother,
and three trilingual kids (both their parents' native tongues plus the Spanish they picked
up while living in the Galapagos Islands, where their parents worked as researchers). So it
was with great anticipation that we compared positions and scanned the horizon for a sail.
Our first sighting came in the pre-dawn hours, just a dot of light ahead. Eventually, we
raised a white sail and the mirage-like shape of a boat appeared on the horizon.
Like naval encounters of centuries past, the excitement stretched over half a day as the
boats steadily drew closer. When Namani finally pulled alongside at noon, we all broke
into silly grins and waved for all our arms were worth, compressing all our social energy
into that one brief encounter. Then the mid-ocean photo shoot of a lifetime commenced,
producing countless images of each boat from all possible angles and various sail config-