At Sea, Oh So Close to Les Gambiers 12 June 2010 (the dog watch again) 22.1976S 136.1278W
It’s glassy flat calm, not a cloud in the sky, and crystal clear visibility. It’s a moonless night, so you can’t quite see the horizon, but the stars are in gala form, bright enough to reflect off the water. You can even see the Milky Way reflected, sliding past a vague horizon all the way to the side of our hull. Phosphorescence tonight is in bright pinpoint form, not the glowy foamy sort, but big bright starlike points of green. These phosphorescent constellations ride our wake out to collide with the Milky Way. On the horizon I keep seeing fishing boats, I can clearly make out red, green and white lights, it’s disconcerting when those fishing boats float slowly up into the sky ahead.
Our ETA was down to 10 hours this afternoon, when a nice breeze helped us pick up speed (and morale). Now we’re motoring along and the ETA is back down to 24 hours. So much for the hoped for early morning arrival.
I didn’t get a chance to tell much about our child abandonment case. Logan desperately wanted to be left alone on a deserted island, so we found him a perfect Motu, claimed it as Motu Logan and dropped him off one morning. He’d been working on his list of needed items for weeks, and had it pared down to less than 10: Hammock, fire starter, fishing hooks, line, machete, TiFeFe (Tahition light cotton blanket), journal, pen, and Ukulele. He’d constructed his Hammock test drove it, and had practiced opening coconuts with the machete (without loosing the precious liquid inside). He’d been hoping for a tarp, but we had none on board, so he figured he could make do with palm fronds if it rained. We also made him take the handheld VHF in case of emergency.
Motu Logan was a ways from the boat, but Frank, Kennan and I visited in the course of our beachcombing, each bearing gifts we’d found on the reef. Kennan’s find was the most useful, a small camping pad to soften the bite of the hammock knots (with one TiFeFe, Logan did not quite make it through a whole night on his test drive, and he was hoping two would soften things, the pad made all the difference). I don’t think Kennan’s toothbrush find was used.
Logan only called once in the late afternoon. His fire sparker was working, but nothing would take flame. It’s amazing how humid an atoll can be in the evening. Frank jumped in the dinghy with a lighter, which turned out to be empty, so he used a little dinghy gas to catch the spark and POOOF that worked (that did require parental supervision). It took awhile for Frank to return, but he reported back that Logan had already speared a small grouper so he would not starve (the spear head was another Kennan find). He tried to spear an octopus, but “They’re smarter than they look,” he said. Apparently he tried under the rock where he’d first seen it, but it had moved to an adjacent rock, when Logan moved to that rock, the octopus stole his spearhead. Frank was also delayed by a request from Logan to help him chase off sharks out on the reef so he could collect some snails to toss on the fire (a local delicacy we’d tried a couple nights before). Logan’s reef was surrounded by shark infested waters (little 1-3 foot reef sharks, normally not too troublesome, but it doesn’t hurt to have your dad help toss rocks at them if they get too curious).
I know that I’m not the only mom, who has experienced a case of nerves when their budding teenagers take off on their own. If it wasn’t Motu Logan, it would have been a concert, or a party or a dance equally fraught with potential dangers in L.A. I probably slept as poorly as Logan that night, especially at 4 in the morning when it started pouring rain. The VHF was on all night and he didn’t call once. By morning, I was straining my eyes to see if I could see any movement on Motu Logan, finally I thought I saw him wandering with his black Uke bag. I made Frank go and check if Logan wanted to come over for crepes for breakfast. I could have gone, but there are some moments in life off limits for mothers, kissing them before they go into kindergarten is one, rushing to save them on their first motu outing is another.
Frank came back with Logan and supplies. One night was enough. He had gotten really wet, but didn’t think we’d leave the VHF on all night, so didn’t call. Lessons: it’s hard to sleep when you’re shivering, grouper is delicious fresh off the campfire, there’s nothing better than playing the Ukulele at sunrise, but it’s hard to write in a hammock, it’s impossible to get to coconuts that have fallen in the night before the hermit crabs, and campfires are a lot more fun when there’s someone to share them with (Scurvy* had up and disappeared on him). All and all I think it was a successful rite of passage. I haven’t asked him if he discovered a new spirit name, but he did say he wants to come back as an octopus in his next life.
I can’t believe he actually speared, cooked and ate the grouper. My boy is all grown up!
I better go make sure those fishing boats are still launching themselves into the sky. I wouldn’t want to be on a collision course with one.
xoxomo
*Scurvy the Rat, is a stowaway on board. He’s taken to sending messages using our computer, but since he’s a pie-rat, and has Bligh’s own bad language, I have to edit his messages before posting publicly. In the Marqueses, I posted a collection of his notes on the www.silverliningacademy.org site – click on “Scurvy’s Blog” I’ll update with his latest when next we get internet. He’s quite a character, but he’s definitely growing on us (well some of us…he is a rat!)