Southern sailing - Days of Deja vu - page 636

I felt a little queasy. I lost radio contact with Olivia after a day out and looked forward to
meeting them in Penrhyn.
My log helps to recall the departure....
18 th Sept: I have been out for a day. I feel slightly more human. The wind has veered a bit
to the east, improving my sailing conditions somewhat. I am now able to ease my main and
Genoa sheets, putting us on a broad reach. I hope fervently that the wind remains thus. I
am making good mileage, one hundred and ten miles, in fact, in the last twenty-four hours.
19 th Sept: I have my fishing line out in the hopes of catching some fresh fish. My body is
craving real food. Aitutaki was very limited in the way of fresh food and quite expensive.
I know that Penrhyn will have even less. I have taken to nudity on-board again. It is more
convenient, and there is no one around. I rather like the freedom that it affords. I am get-
ting as brown as a berry. Everywhere!
I have seen no ocean traffic out here since leaving Aitutaki. I sleep as much as possible,
catnapping down below in the heat of the day. It is too hot and bothersome to play any gui-
tar. I am trying to get into James Michener's The Source. It is heavy going but absorbing.
20 th - 21 st Sept: Good sailing recently with fifteen knot easterlies, I continue to clock up
one hundred and ten miles a day. It is still very hot, and I find the further north I travel the
hotter it becomes. I am about fifteen degrees south of the equator. I was trying to work out
how many times I have crossed the equator in my life on a boat. I believe this will be the
seventh time when I get to Hawaii.
The first two times were on-board large passenger mail ships from Cape Town to England
and back. My father treated our family to a four month vacation when Gavin and I were but
ten years old. I recall the grand Neptune's parties that the crew of these boats put on. Those
were different years back then. Life had an easy pace, and there appeared to be more class
and grace. Nowadays it's all about packing 'em in like cattle and milking the passengers for
every dime they have.
It is strange how the mind wanders when you are alone at sea. Crystal clear memories come
wafting back. Memories we think we had all but forgotten, that remain suppressed in our
subconscious due to the humdrum of daily noise and pace.
I realize now that in order to deal with the sometimes overbearing reality of boredom at
sea, our minds tend to recreate dramas almost as though to entertain us. I noticed this par-
ticularly on the long voyage between Penrhyn and Hawaii, where the weather was not a
threat, but the boredom became a force to be reckoned with. I recall the mental transition