Travel Reference
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On the 20 th of August, a couple of days later, the pale, grey sunrise heralded a new day,
and the gale had died and backed to the south after a terrible night. We were sailing along
five knots north again, positively flying! I had some five hundred miles yet to go before ar-
riving in Rarotonga. I prayed to God we didn't get another gale; I have never felt as terrible
as in these gale-wracked nights.
I stumbled upon an old pocket Bible in my bookshelf one day. I looked at it, puzzling where
it had come from. I did not recall ever bringing it on-board. I thought about whether it had
been Paula, or Herman, maybe even Gavin? I tossed these amusing thoughts hastily over-
board! It must have been Liza from Bundaberg, as most of my books had been ruined in the
rain the day I returned from California. It was well-worn, dog-eared and smelled musty, in
a friendly way. I opened it and read a few lines: “Moses smote the rock....” It was vaguely
comforting, and I read on. I must have read for about an hour. My parched soul soaked it
up like a desert, and I felt strangely at peace. I would return to it in the days to come. It was
a good time and place to read the Bible. It was written surely by wise old men regardless
of one's beliefs. There was old-fashioned wisdom, wit, and strength there in this world's
bestseller.
Typical Murphy weather had arrived with the wind dying out in the night, making it
necessary to motor until twelve thirty when I was just too tired to care or go on. I stumbled
in the cockpit as I left the helm and fell heavily against the winch, hurting my elbow rather
badly; I was exhausted and had proverbially “hit the wall.” I stood braced at the chart table,
staring blankly at the chart. I felt dizzy. I absently tapped the barometer, finding it had sta-
bilized at 1022 mb, which was quite high. There was about eight to ten knots of westerly
wind.
Still another four hundred and fifty miles to go to Rarotonga in the Cook Island chain. I
had been at sea for three weeks and was beginning to hate it. I put this down to extreme
tiredness and the constant cold weather. The wind continued to behave very badly over the
next couple of days. It would die out and then spring up from a completely new direction
forcing me to constantly reset the sails and self-steering. Then, just as I had it set and was
wafting along, it would die out completely, leaving the limp sails slatting noisily in the un-
ruly seas. I was becoming very irritable, and the slightest thing would set me off. I noticed
that the barometer was very high, around 1027mb, where it seemed to remain. My position
had begun to improve finally, and I saw with pleasure one day that I was now only one hun-
dred and fifty miles south of Rarotonga. The weather had warmed up considerably, along
with my spirits, and I was back in T-shirt and shorts.
The warm weather lasted just a couple days, and soon the wind changed direction
again, and I was beating into a wretched headwind fifteen miles from Rarotonga. This
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