Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
things about! Yes, some would say I threw all my toys out of the cot! I had had about all I
could take.
For some reason I had a profound thought…. Well, I must have thought it profound to write
it in my log. It occurred to me that we all could have resembled the animals we have al-
lowed to survive and were therefore not threatened by them? Not quite sure where that
came from, and no I wasn't smoking any herbs, mixed or otherwise….
12
th
November: Good strong trades, east-northeast. Good miles today, my faithful walker
log reads at the time of my daily noon latitude one hundred and ten miles.
I am two hundred miles southeast of the big island of Hawaii. I'm not sure if my current
course of between three hundred and thirty and three hundred and fifty degrees magnetic
will allow me landfall in Hilo Bay. If not, I shall just veer off towards Oahu.
I have my line out again but am not having much luck. I really could do with a meal of
fresh fish. I have been at sea now for three weeks and am pretty keen to get off this boat.
I have lost a lot of weight, mostly due to lack of eating proper meals, nerves, and lack of
decent sleep. The heat has also had a hand in my losing weight. The thought of a fresh fish
sizzling in the pan motivates me to check my line more often. I even changed the skirt to a
different color and put on a smaller hook, tempting Murphy to
steer a big fish my way.
I was staring at the line as it was being towed through the water and happened to look at
the walker log's string. It was not rotating through the water. This was odd as we were do-
ing about three knots. The string looked a little sloppy. I grabbed it, knowing already that
the line had broken, and I had lost my impeller. I quickly hauled it in and, sure enough, the
frayed string end immediately told me that a shark had nipped it off.
This had happened once before, and I kicked myself for not remembering to paint the im-
peller black again. It was made of marine bronze, and after a while in the abrasive sea-
water, the paint had worn off and had even shined up the impeller, attracting sharks with
its dazzling movement through the water. I had only one left in my box and soon replaced
the whole line with impeller attached. I checked to make sure the string wasn't frayed and
threw it over board. Within seconds, it was twirling merrily around. Never a dull moment!
I compare modern navigational aids with the ones we had to use in the eighties and before,
and while they are very quick, accurate, and usually hassle free, the old ones surely made
us feel we were navigating a boat out at sea and not playing with some dumb computer
game … but I'm just an old romantic at heart. I feel that a hands-on effort brings appreci-
ation and reward.
