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May 6, 1999
Hawaii to Tarawa Voyage, Update #4
Day 3. Thursday, May 6, 1999, 0625 GMT
Latitude: 18deg 14.978 minutes North
Longitude: 157deg 40.095 minutes West
An hour ago Moksha's Inmarsat C was switched back on after a frustrating 3 days doing battle with the powers that be at our service provider. It took my brilliant father back in the UK calling every hour on the hour throughout all of last night to finally get our service unbarred. Technology -great when it works. My apologies for the delay in getting updates back.
Moksha in open waters
So it's great to back on the ocean -its the end of the third day out here and I've just bid farewell to the "Goodewind" and her crew who came out to see me away from the island and pick up Kenny Brown who has been on boat doing some filming. It was one of the strangest feelings seeing my support craft disappear from view back east.
Turning westward towards my goal - Tarawa,a tiny island atoll 2200 miles away - I was hit with a sudden overwhelming feeling of being alone-like I've never felt in my life before. Not lonely (yet), so much as a sense of extreme vulnerability in the face of such vastness. One more human soul struggling for survival on this lonely planet we call home.
I'm really tired, so forgive me if this first update is brief. But I wanted to share with you something very strange yet wonderful that just happened: after the "Goodewind" disappeared from view and my wheels started spinning on being alone out here, a lone brown gull circled the boat twice before landing on the rear deck. I have to impress upon you the fact that no bird has ever landed on Moksha before. It is still there as I write this -and indeed seems set to stay, at least for my first night alone on the ocean. Whether or not this animal can sense my concern is something I will never know. But to have another living being on the same boat for some reason really, really helps right now.
Jason Lewis,
The Moksha motor
Posted on May 6, 1999 9:00 PM