Pacific Odyssey - Leg 7

At 0900hrs we untied our lines and left Kauai.  As Noah stated so
perfectly, "now it feels like we are going home."  We have had a good day.
There were very light following winds this morning and for about 2 hours we
had the course sails up along with the engine.  The course sails are the
square sails that hang down on the yard arm hanging on the foremast; they
are big, safe sails for any kind of down wind and broad reach sailing.  Fore
watch lowered the sails and learned how to stow them; sail handling has
begun and the new trainees seem eager to learn and the former trainees are
eager to teach and ´show off´ what they´ve learned from all the excellent
sail handling we did last leg.  It´s a good combination.  We are motor
sailing on a calm sea.  There is some swell but no one is feeling ill and I
think most everyone was able to eat meals with their watch and help out with
dishes below.  It is nice to be able to spend time in our watch groups; this
is when we really get to know each other.  Several watches started
´interrogation´ today.  One person tells his or her life story and this is
followed by questions from the watch.  Some questions are just fun, others
are more serious.  I found that when I first started being a part of this
process, we were asking and answering questions about details I often hadn´t
even asked my best friends at home; I realized there were so many things I
didn´t know about people close to me, life stories I had never asked about.
Interrogation allows us to see where we are each coming from, what is
important to us, and where we hope to be heading.  Everyone is at different
point in their life but this just makes it more interesting.  Several times
today we thought we had a fish but each time it got away.  Elske and Sara R.
saw a marlin jumping in the distance.  Christina started a ´writing club.´
She began by having us write freely for several minutes on whatever came to
mind.  We then discussed various aspects of this process, rereading what we´d
wrote, taking note of interesting phrases, patterns etc.  She then gave us a
writing exercise where we combined thoughts of seemingly unrelated objects;
some interesting ´poetry-type´ writing came from it.  The plan is to meet 2
or 3 times a week throughout the passage.   Steve, Emily, Rona, Skipper,
Jose, Sara R., Jordan T., Christina and I were present.  The sun was very
hot today; memories of the tropics and trying to stay cool came up and the
fans are whirring in the cabins tonight.  Trainees put up a tarp amidships
to provide some shade and buckets of salt water were poured over bodies to
try to cool down.  We are enjoying the warmth in the evening though; we know
that soon enough we will be bundled in clothing, fondly remembering how hot
we were.  The evening is soft and we can sit on deck in a t-shirt.  The moon
is more than half full and sheds quite a bit of light, enough so we can see
each other, beautiful.  Adam, Adrienne, Susan, Raven, and Elske found a
quiet spot on the deck in the semi-dark and did some stretches, push-ups,
and strengthening exercises. Clusters of crew and trainees are seated around
the deck chatting, watching the stars from a horizontal position listening
to Jose playing guitar, etc., all wearing harnesses and clipped into the
safety line. It is very hot below and we are putting off going to sleep in
this heat.  On deck there are several little spots of light where trainees
are reading with the aid of a headlamp, very cozy.  Crew and trainees spent
the day standing watch, steering, sleeping, chatting, reading, and getting
used to being at sea again.  It always takes a few days for this life to
feel normal; in two weeks it will be difficult to imagine anything else.  It
feels good to be underway; for the new trainees it is nice that the motion
is so gentle, it allows them to enjoy the first few days at sea more.  Sarah
B. has drawn up a ´Landfall Lottery´ on which everyone will have the
opportunity to guess what day we will arrive on Canadian soil.  Last leg we
did a similar thing, though it was complicated by our slow progress and
unexpected and fortunate stop at Midway.  This leg should be straight
forward.  Until tomorrow, good-night, Bonice.