Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
tummies at sea. I made tea and we sat outside with a pen and paper trying to go through
all the items we had forgotten or might possibly need, jotting down a few here and there.
Yeast for bread was one item, as well as candles. Cooking oil was one too. We would look
again tomorrow morning when we went to see the friendly girl in the store.
We spent the rest of the daylight readying Déjà vu for her long trip. We were fortunate to
have been able to fill up our diesel tanks at the army depot on the other side of the island. It
was one of the “excuses” I had given them for landing there in the first place. We had been
noticing with some concern our cockroach population had been increasing steadily. There
were different varieties now, and they all seemed to get along just fine. No territorial war
disputes between them, share and share a like. There was a lesson here, but it didn't help us
much. I had heard that cockroach dung can make humans very sick, and we were always
conscious of this when handling food, but it was very annoying to turn on a cabin light at
night and see literally hundreds of them bristling about the galley and beyond.
We had purchased a few cockroach “hotels” which had managed to trap a few. I was now
quite nervous of them since I had had a big bugger bite me in the Caribbean. I had not real-
ized that they could bite, and one night I had caught a very large one sitting on my bunk. I
was heading for an open porthole to throw it out into the night when the little stinker sank
its rotten teeth into my finger. I yelled out in pain and shock, and it flew around the cab-
in and disappeared. I eventually killed it some months later; it was the biggest cockroach
I have ever seen. A Canadian girlfriend would later name these big ones “B52 bombers,”
very apt too, I thought.
I stowed the semi-filled propane tank in its locker, wondering if we had enough cooking
gas. There was not a lot I could do about it now anyway. We were low on money and
couldn't afford to buy any new tanks; besides the fittings weren't compatible.
I once again went through the charts I had of the great circle route we would be following
and found one that would be used all through to Hawaii. I made a note of any outlying
dangers on the way, notably Johnson's Atoll. Gavin went through the fishing gear and put
together a few spare lure set-ups. We tried to think of anything we may have overlooked
and went ashore at dusk for a sundowner at a little pub on the main street. We joined a
couple of the other cruisers and told them of our departure in the morning.
“Yep, we're also heading off pretty soon towards New Zealand,” drawled the friendly
American. “So you guys are heading up to Hawaii, huh?” he asked.
“It's a helluva long way,” someone else piped in, “I don't think any one of the yachties are
headed up there, but good luck you guys; take it easy and safe trip, yeah?”
