Pacific Odyssey - Leg 3

Today was a good day at sea. We are now listening to Leslie sing; she has a beautiful voice. We are having another Mug Up in the stern with cookies thanks to Tristan and Arwen. It´s a nice night; the sky is full of stars, the air feels soft, we have the 2 courses and the trysail up and the mood amongst crew and trainees is good. The wind has gone down somewhat, the sailing is gentle.  We had an amazing visit with the people of Palmerston, but we´re also ready to be with each other on the ship again.  After church, lunch with our host family, and a final walk around the atoll to say our good byes, the aluminum boats returned us to the Grace. Many of the islanders came with us and stayed for nearly an hour and a half, chatting, looking through the boat, basically, delaying a final good-bye.  The islanders became much attached to us, as we did to them, and repeatedly asked us to return to the island in a few years.  Skipper had a chance Saturday morning to go reef fishing for parrot fish with Andrew Marsters.  Antony dropped him off at the mouth of the passage where Andrew was waiting with his aluminum skiff and nets.  For 3 hours they walked waist-deep in the water, along the reef, setting nets and waiting till the parrot fish moved in.  Andrew knew all the intricacies of the coral, where the deeper holes were, where the fish tended to swarm, etc.  Once they had caught about 20 fish, Andrew filleted one of them, broke open a coconut and ate the fish there, raw and with fresh coconut, in the water.  He said, "Captain, often I don´t enjoy the fish once I get home; this is how I like it best, here out on the reef."  And so they ate; Tony loved it and made a wonderful connection with Andrew.  At 1530hrs yesterday, we raised anchor and headed downwind towards Samoa.  The motion is very rocky-roly, something we have grown accustomed to, but have not fallen in love with yet.  I think when Skipper promised trade wind sailing once we hit Marquesas; we interpreted it as sailing with less motion, or at least a smoother motion.  Sailing downwind implies rolling side to side; the trysail gets raised to try to offset some of that roll.  We have had several days and some shorter passages where the motion has been idyllic and I´m sure I´ve written about it; it´s a wonderful way to travel.  The sun shone beautifully today, we´ve had more cloud and rain the past few days at Palmerston, it felt good to return to shipboard life, people were reading, studying, listening to music, and catching up in their journals.  Jordan began work watch; we began sanding and oiling the aftercabin hatch and making more baggywrinkle.  Making baggywrinkle is a great time to do something useful for the bosun and chat with the others baggywrinkling with you; it´s one of those mindless jobs like folding laundry or winding wool, therapeutic in its own way.  The younger kids had school and made a kite out of a plastic bag on string, filling the cavity with wind.
Jordan taught celestial and Karen continued telling the story of ´Gone With the Wind.´  At 1430 simultaneously, the bell on the trolling line tinkled and Chase´s fishing pole started zinging.  We hauled in 2 large Dorados.  It took Chase and Jose 20 minutes to reel in their Dorado, a whopper, the biggest so far, probably close to 35lbs. It´s always exciting to catch fish and Scott and Chase are going to fix it up in 3 different ways for us. I´ve been hearing reports from the foc´sle and the hold of interesting activity at night.  Apparently Susan works up quite the snore during the night.  She complained to me of her mother snoring, saying, "There´s no pattern in her snoring, she´s quiet, then she´s loud and very irregular."  From what I hear, Susan takes after her mom, and when she told me about her mom, she paused, laughed, and then acknowledged the similarity.  Elske said that one night, the snoring was keeping her awake and she sat up asking gently, but out loud, if anyone else was still awake; the answer in the hold and the foc´sle was a unanimous ´yes.´  We all laugh about it; it´s part of sleeping together, earplugs are available.  In the hold, Caelen has the habit of walking in his sleep, trying to make sense of people´s questions, but obviously not pulling it off coherently.  One night, he emerged from the head after only 5 pumps, finding Jordan and a few others standing outside the head and sending him back in to complete the last 25.  Caelen remained in the head, in the dark for several seconds, not pumping, and then stumbled out, stretched on the table, nodding to the group, "there, that´s 30 pumps," and then continued into bed.  Caelen laughs about it, we all look out for him. He´s given me permission to write about it, as has Susan.  I think this is it.  Time for bed, there are bits of all kinds of conversations on deck, filtering down through the hatches.  It is fun to be here.
Until tomorrow, good night, Bonice.