later. Outside the waxing moon is casting her magic silver spell over
the waters around us and our ship looks like a phantom ship. A few
ghostly clouds are also floating around and the stars are making a
feeble attempt to outshine the moon which is now a 3/4 moon. Looks like
we will arrive at Fatu Hiva on the full moon, perhaps we will have a
little full moon party on the island. If we were here a hundred years
earlier we may have witnessed a scene that played out at these islands
quite often. A dugout cano with scary war monsters carved into them and
carrying their load of tattooed men. Tattoos originated in these islands
and the men had their whole bodies tatooed, from their faces to their
toes. And they would be invading islands killing every person they could
find and collect their skulls as treasures. The All Black's are famous
for their haka amonst other things. This war cry is quite descriptive if
you translate the words. One of the sentences tells you that the flesh
of your grandfather is still stuck in my teeth. So perhaps we shoulkd
paint our faces with charcoal and go and scare the living daylights out
of the small group of kids on the island. Pranks like this has a nasty
way of backfiring and then we will be running for our yacht safely at
anchor in the bay. Can you see what happens when one has been at sea for
three months; the full moon drives one lunatic. These Moon days or
Mondays, love them. I once visited a museum in Honiara where these type
of atrocities were properly depicted with photos of real island tribes
that still carried out these raids a hundred years ago. Honiara is a
small island in Papua New Guinea, also known as The Rim of Fire.
The wind has faded on us a bit as predicted and we are motorsailing. No
problem as we have more than enough diesel left to motor all the way to
Tahiti if we want to. We only have to maintain an average of six knots
to arrive at Tahiti on the 10th of this months and easy to do for us.
Which means there is only eight days left before this journey comes to
an end. It is amazing how one adapts to the slower pace out here and how
one day just flows into the next, and before you know it, three months
has gone behind you. But it is not time to sit and contemplate yet, we
are still 1200nm from Tahiti, about 1/10th of our journey left over. The
little stop at Fatu Hiva is just to connect a bit with Gaia or Mother
Earth again befor e we get to Tahiti. Don't want to arrive at Tahiti all
wild, wide-eyed and bushy tailed as if we haven't seen land for 30
days, that could be slightly disturbing to the people there. Anyways,
our position currently is 09*16'S/131*25'W.
A short nautical term is to 'Miss the Boat'. To miss the liberty boat
which carried sailors returning from shore leave out to there ships.
Hence to miss an opportunity.
Hope you have a great day and an equally great week ahead.
Capt. Paul
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