Ups and Downs

Aloha 6th graders!

We are sailing steadily along on a heading of 90 degrees, or directly east.  Our current position is 32 degrees 19 minutes S, 160 degrees 48 minutes W.  We are planning to continue east to a point somewhere between 160 and 155 east, depending on the winds.  We know the winds will turn out of the east shortly, and will be good for us when we make the final turn for Tahiti.

Yesterday was a day of gifts and sacrifices.  On the happy side, we caught two fish, both blue albacore. We're guessing ahi??  We had sashimi and fried fish for dinner last night and steamed fish and poisson cru for dinner tonight.  Of course, there are always leftovers the next day as well! We were planning a ceremony called oti'a moana for yesterday evening, but the fish interrupted that plan.  We ended up having the ceremony this morning.  It was to thank the Maori gods for their protection and guidance while we were in their seas, and to ask the Tahitian gods for the same as we enter THEIR waters.  We were each given a stone to drop into the water as a gift, and then we sang some songs that are a part the Faafaite va'a repetoire.  

The bad parts of yesterday were tearing our gennaker...we were starting to raise it, and a part was tangled.  In the confusion of trying to untangle, the halyard came loose and the pressure tore it. It dragged in the water, and we worked hard to pull it in, but it was in two pieces.  As compensation, some of the crew rigged up a jib for our mizzen, or back sail, so we are now running with four sails.  

The other difficulty yesterday was a problem with our electrical system, causing a brief outage of our VHF radio, which is the primary means of communication with Hikianalia.  Fati and Kalepa, and today, Brenda worked on it, and came up with "plan B", which, as far as I can tell, involves rerouting a secondary system from the primary system. It seems to work, which is a good thing!  We were forced to create makeshift navigational lights last night. All vessels are required to have a red light on the port, or left, side, and a green light on the starboard, or right, side.  A red light was easy to come by, as most of us use headlights with a red lens at night.  However, the green light presented a bit of a conundrum, until I remembered that I had a green plastic water bottle.  We put a small flashlight in it and voila! we were good to go.  Tonight, our systems seem to be working fine, so I don't anticipate any problems.

We seem to have a flock of birds that are following us from New Zealand. There are many smaller dark grey birds, a few even smaller white and grey-barred birds, and, of course, our albatross.  I think they like the food scraps (and yesterday's fish scraps!) that go overboard. Banana peels and chicken are special favorites. The birds also make sunset pictures very dramatic, as they will swoop behind the va'a.  It's been a challenge to the photographers on board to capture good pictures of them in flight.  They seem to like the cameras, but always come so close in front of you that they're impossible to catch. Would you guys like an albatross?  I think it wants to come home with one of us.

Because of our electrical issues, we were forced to stay close to Hikianalia all day.  This morning's winds were exceptionally light, and I got a chance to play a bit while I was steering...I felt like Gandalf in "The Lord of the Rings" when the orcs are chasing the group and he stands on the bridge and says, "You shall not pass!"  That was my plan - being an OFFENSIVE driver, haha.  If they turned one way, so did I, as they were a bit behind us.  The members of the watch after ours got very little sleep last night, as they were up for the fish catch and up again early this morning for the ceremony, so our watch did a double shift to help out and let them sleep. We are usually up during those hours anyway, and the sun warmed us up enough that we got to sunbathe a bit.

Herve and Fati have been teaching me songs on watch.  I'm trying to learn them and also write them down.  Maybe I can teach you some when I get back!

Ms. Fuller