Just afternoon, 140 miles NW of Mangareva and the sun has rejoined this ship and her crew. What a pleasure this is for us all! Seas are blue again, winds on the starboard quarter, all sails set and all is right with the world. We are westward bound again in the Picton Castle. Bound for Tahiti, no less. But our minds are not far away – yet. Minds are here onboard our ship sailing along in good conditions. Setting damp sails, coiling wet ropes, drying out all over. Teaching the new gang to steer, to learn their lines and what to do with them – and learn and accept that there are many young women in the leadership of the Picton Castle. Better get used to it guys – and they do or will, often surprisingly quickly. And learn to use the heads properly, the compass, the point bearing system. How to keep a good lookout, ship checks, belaying and/or sweating a line, knots, whippings, splices and on and on…
The next morning, early – 200 plus miles NW of Mangareva. 685 miles to Tahiti.
Came on deck at 0330 to a beautiful South Pacific sailing night. The ship is bowling along at 6-7 knots with clear skies, force 5 winds just abaft the starboard beam as we steer northwesterly. We are making our way around a couple Tuamotu atolls on the road towards Tahiti. An almost half moon is on the rise on our staboard beam. Orion too. A silvery moon path dazzles on the waves between us and the moon. But not so much moonlight as to blot out the stars. An ideal mixture of mysterious dark tradewinds night sky and enough celestial light to see by on deck. A spoke or two at the big teak wheel is all the steering needed in these 4-6′ seas. Braced up halfway on the starboard tack the ship and her crew are in a groove. Just beautiful to see.
We sailed north around famous Marururoa Atoll, site of nuclear testing for some time. Now we are headed towards Hao Atoll and will pass Tureta Atoll on port, then Vairaatea on starboard followed by Ahanui and Raraoa Atolls to port again. A sailing ship like Picton Castle, or any vessel really, wants to give atolls a good berth when passing by them. Not long ago before the ability to ensure precise navigation was universal the Tuamotus were called the “Dangerous Archipelago.” Why? Well, atolls are low. We could see Mount Duff at Mangareva from 25 miles off in less than perfect visibility. Same with Pitcairn. With an altitude of 1,200 feet the island can be seen from 40 miles away in good visability. Atolls are often broad, many miles across, rings of coral reef with big lagoons in the middle, but they are low, very low, and only 6 to 15 feet high sometimes, with coconut palm trees adding nother 30-40 feet if we are lucky. You can do well to see these type islands from 5- 10 miles off in good visibility. In poor viz? Not so great. And we can have some peculiar currents hereabouts as well, so good visibility, good navigation and a sharp lookout at all times is the order of the day. But there is plenty of room out here, so no need to get too close to any atolls. That just about every one of the some 5,000 islands in the Pacific was discovered, and many settled, by the ancient vaka voyagers is a seriously amazing story to explore. Maui was an explorer and voyager as real as Leif Ericsson, Magellan, Columbus or James Cook I figure. And maybe all put together.
With dawn we have a few squalls about but they have not bite in them. Onward we sail.