Travel Reference
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Hawaii. I kicked myself for being so stupid! On the positive side, I am making good miles
now.
30
th
October: It was too good to be true. The wind died in the night, and now there is little
or no wind. I have been motoring on and off since yesterday. The current has pulled me
west quite a bit. Only today was I able to get a running fix, as there has been cloud cover
on the horizon for the last two days, and I could not get a noon latitude.
I have crossed the equator again. This is my seventh time in a boat. I am again in the north-
ern hemisphere. I do not feel like celebrating with King Neptune. I am feeling very sick.
Terrible stomach cramps and diarrhea all day. I feel very weak and dizzy. It could be the
heat, maybe the sprouts or something else I ate. Classic signs of food poisoning. I have had
it before. I may have accidentally eaten cockroach doo, not good for single-handed sailors.
Thank God the sailing isn't demanding; I can lie around and groan all day in my cabin. I
have had heat stroke before while cruising, and it is similar to food poisoning in that you
feel very weak, have headaches, diarrhea, and fever. I believe the best thing is to drink a
lot of water. If you suspect the water may be off, boil it first.
31
st
October- 4
th
November: Bad squalls, lumpy seas, no bloody wind! That has been the
order of the day. Beam me up for God's sake, Scotty!
I found that I had caught a Barracuda during the squall. They are vicious-looking fish:
long, thin, snake-like bodies with huge, black, murderous eyes and mouths full of long,
needle-sharp teeth. They are quite tasty to eat, but one has to be wary of the many long
bones. I wasn't really in the mood for fish, but knew I must eat something nourishing as I
still felt very weak.
No wind all day, I motored on and off. My mind drifted around different memories. It is hell
being forced to sit at the helm with the noisy engine going. The boredom and tediousness
of sitting up looking at the compass and the horizon, sawing the tiller back and forth to
remain on course in this heat is sometimes more than I can bear, not to mention the pain
in my back.
An odd memory keeps recurring lately; I can recall a comic book I read when younger,
called Asterix. I even have one or two of these books on-board. I loved the anticipated, pre-
dictable happy endings where they were all sitting around a large wooden table outdoors
having a merry old feast, usually with Cacophonix, the bard who is a terrible singer, all
trussed up in silence in the nearest tree.
The evening sky boasts its pale, white clouds, still barely visible, and a few bright stars are
out along with a moon. I see a similar evening sky almost every night now, and I recall the
