Northern Pacific,Outside US Economic Zone 11 May 2012 01:43 27N44 166W47

Chug, chug, chug, chug. The iron genoa, our little blue engine that can, carries us ever closer to Alaska. The anemometer is doubling as a knotlog. We’re doing a fuel efficient, brisk walking pace of 3-5 knots. The Pacific is just that – for once. It’s glassy enough that we could break out the deck chairs and serve Maitais on the bow, if we had either deck chairs or Maitai ingredients (and if our bow were a little wider, and if it were not 2 in the morning). The cabin boys have not started folding white washcloths into little animals for us, nor have they started the ice-sculptures to decorate the captain’s table. But we eat at least as well as the Cunnard passengers, with our freezerfull of everything but the fish we hope to catch…hope…

Inside is as calm as outside, except that young minds(and old) are riding dragons, casting spells and hopefully saving a few maidens in distress. At their current rate of reading, they’re devouring more than a book a day. I only bought 10 new ebooks for them before we left. If the passage is 15 days, we should make it before they run out, but our current arrival calculation hovers around 25-30 days. If they finish all the books, they’ll just have to start writing their own.

It’s actually calm enough to do school, but we’d have a mutiny on our hands. Passage has become their summer/spring/winter break.

We did make good progress our first 2 days, so we have put 500 miles between us and Hanalei Bay.

xoxomo

P.S. I goofed the location in the header of the last post. We were not in Hilo, but we were still in Hawaiian waters – We’re now hovering on the edge of the US economic zone, enjoying a tanker-free couple of days thanks to Bush jr’s Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument. It acts like a long wall to any tankers carrying certain amounts of hazardous materials (I think oil and fuel count?) Anyway, not a boat in sight.

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Visiting the Alaska National Marine Sanctuary website, I saw a link about being good stewards of our oceans. Always wanting to practice good stewardhip, I clicked on the link and came to a page with basic advice on what that entails. The page was broken down in sections for visitors, mariners, and commercial fisherman, each section listed the issues relevant to those categories, with a cute “Peter T. Puffin says:” note for that audience making a salient point. After listing for commercial fisherman points like: be kind to seabirds, release them carefully, keep your oil onboard til you get to port, etc. their marketing team added “Peter T. Puffin says remember not to throw live rats overboard, they are good swimmers and may make it to a nearby island.” I’m not sure what puzzled me most:

1. that the powers that be felt that fishermen would respond well to Peter T. Puffin;

2. that a rat could swim to shore up there, I mean how long does it take for a rat to get hypothermia? A human would have to be pretty close to swim to shore within the 5 minute window frigid waters offer before hypothermia sets in.

or 3. that someone added the word “remember” in Peter’s message, can you picture the fisherman thinking, just as he releases the tail of a squirming biting rodent, “oops, I forgot…I’m not supposed to throw the live ones over.” My own experience with fishermen and rats has been that they prefer their rats dead, instantly, as fast as possible. Then they deal with disposal.

This of course brings to mind a Frank fishing story. When he was on one campaign, they acquired a stowaway at the dock in Saamoa. After many unsuccessful attempts to trap the rodent on their way to the roaring 40s, his captain pinned a hundred dollar bill next to the fridge for whoever caught the rat. The crew went wild, they hunted, and stalked, and chased, and schemed, all to no avail. Then the fishing distracted them from the hunt, and they didn’t see the rat anymore. After weeks at sea on the return trip, Frank was sent up the crows nest when they got near land, usually a place they only used while seeking fish. He was greeted by a faint unpleasant smell, and discovered the leathered body of the dead rat up there, the only safe place from the crew, poor guy. Frank did not get the 100 bucks, the captain said you had to kill the rat, the crew probably all went for a night on the town since their collective effort chased him up there. That was back when 100 bucks could buy a night on the town for 6 crew in a seedy San Diego fisherman’s bar

xoxomo

Remember: Al B. Tross says “Gimme da fishguts!”

Stella C. Lion says “Oaurk oaurk oaurk” which I think means “Have a nice day,” or “Get off my rock,” depending on which dialect she’s speaking.

and

Scurvy says “Lies all lies, Rats are people’s friends.”

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Hilo, Hawaii 8 May 2012 00:43 23N26 160W57

We left beautiful Hanalei Bay late this morning, and pointed Silver Lining’s bow north. Only 2200 miles between us and the Island of Adak in the Aleutian chain. We expect a 15-20 day passage, then a month or more exploring those remote wilderness islands, working our way up to Homer Alaska for a reunion with my brother, sister-in-love and their two kids. Powerful pull family! You too would cross oceans if your nearest and dearest were so spread apart. Since much of the ocean’s navigable paths are closed to us due to piracy, if we want to visit family in Europe, maybe we’ll take the northwest passage next (now open thanks to Global warming). But we have not gotten to next yet. We barely made it out the door, or through the window, a fine weather window in fact. Hanalei was not an easy place to leave, but a big stable high floats above, 15-20 knots on our aft quarter pushing us along at 8 knots on the water, and all’s well below.

Should stay like this for a week at least, that’ll do for now.

xoxomo

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