23.18N 150.19W

379 Miles NW of Honolulu

Life on this tenth day at sea

…Catching two Dorado. Kate planning our first fish dinner. Twenty-knot south-easterlies on our port quarter. Sledding toward Hawaii.

…The sweet smell of rain showers.

…Seawater washing through the scuppers on the aft cockpit. Warm salt-water foot baths.

…Sitting on the flybridge watching the endless horizon, drinking a no-load[1] Saint Pauli Girl, smoking a Carlos Torano (saving my last Churchill Macanudo for our arrival), listening on my I-Pod to Aretha Franklin’s gospel-rock Spirit In the Dark.

…Watching Captain Wolf use a parallel ruler and divider to chart our progress on hard-copy maps.

…Corresponding by email with Ron Dubois, Dock Master at the Hawaii Yacht Club. Learning that they’ve reserved for us great dock space.

…Watching on my laptop Flags of Our Fathers, Clint Eastwood’s tribute to the Marines (my alma mater) on Iowa Jima. Particularly poignant as we approach Pearl Harbor, and cross a Pacific made free by their heroism.

…Listening to the constant hum of our Trac stabilizers as they do their best to level our ride in some fairly choppy seas.

…Learning how better to use our SAT-COM capability with the help of emails from KVH’s chief technician. Planning to increase our video and photographic content from now on, once we figure it all out in Hawaii.

…Warm breezes. Shorts and no shirt.

…Night watches and long silences

…Appreciating chat room posts by website visitors. Responding often.

…Calling home.

…Hawaii a little more than two days away.

–Keith

[1] That’s a little financial planner joke. No Load = Non-Alcoholic, having exceeded my lifetime quota of the real stuff twenty years ago!

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