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July 14, 1999
Hawaii to Tarawa Voyage, Update #76
Day 72. Wednesday, 14 July 1999 0359 GMT
Wind ENE-1/4, E-3. Heading 270M
Latitude: 01deg 16.244N
Longitude: 173deg 20.914E
Whether it was my praying or bellowing obscenities into the south wind will always remain a mystery to me. All I know is that at around 10pm last night, as I was starting to seriously lose faith in all things fair and just, the wind vanished for two hours and magically reappeared from the north. Before I could swallow my terrible words from a few hours past, the Good Ship and I found ourselves scudding back south toward our clearing line of latitude at a brisk 3 knots. Incredible. This voyage has had my spirits up and down like a fiddler's elbow.
We are not quite there yet though. There is one more task to complete - the most challenging one of the voyage so far - landing this bird in Betio Marina. It sounds easy enough and normally it is: on the last voyage Steve and I just had to aim for the middle of the east coast of Hawaii and park ourselves in Hilo harbour. Betio marina however - the boat landing site for Tarawa - is a rather difficult place to get to from the east. As you can see from the photo, the black cross in the right of the picture has us about 16 miles off the southeast tip of Tarawa. The brown line represents the theoretical course we have to take below the island. This passage of water is sandwiched from the south by another island - Maiana - creating a bottleneck in the current and subsequent anomalies in strength and direction. Then we have to curl north up the west side of Tarawa in order to line ourselves up with a precise heading to enter the lagoon at a precise location that is the only way to get through the treacherous reef. And just to make things a little fun, our entry into the lagoon has to be at a precise time - 12 noon tomorrow on the flood of the tide.
So, in order to rendezvous at this precise time and place tomorrow, it will take all my limited knowledge of navigation and slightly more competent feel for the ocean to pull it off. As I write this we have exactly 21 hrs to be at the mouth of the lagoon. However, speed in this case is not the key to success. We need to measure our pace instead. If we arrive too soon, there is a chance we get taken west by the trades while waiting. If we arrive too late, we miss the high tide and have to wait for the next one 12hrs later, during which we may suffer the same fate as if we arrived early. The analogy that springs to mind is trying to land a paper airplane into a waste paper basket from the other side of the room. Tricky indeed - just like in the old days before motors.
Yesterday evening, the handle of the primary water maker came away in my hand while pumping fresh water. Thanking our foresightedness for carrying extra spares (we carry three desalinators on board), I pulled out the secondary wrist pump from the liferaft bag and started to pump the evening's quota. The pump grudgingly gave up a couple of mouthfuls of glue-like tasting water then would give no more! So now I have been with out water for nearly 24hrs. I managed to catch some rain last night in a couple of the Tupperware containers. I will keep this for a real emergency. Right now I am thirsty as hell from sweating so much and not able to rehydrate. Also I daren't eat anything as digestion takes water too. But I reckon a gorilla like me can last for 4-5 days without water before things get too uncomfortable. I should at least be able to last another 25hrs to landfall. In the meantime I have for back up - as well as the cup of rainwater caught last night - half a bottle of antiseptic mouthwash and a smidgen of Glenlivet left. So there's really nothing to complain about. And in any case, it wouldn't be a proper expedition if someone didn't arrive half dead.
Jason Lewis,
The Moksha motor
Posted on July 14, 1999 5:57 AM