Northern Pacific,Outside US Economic Zone 11 May 2012 01:43 27N44 166W47
Chug, chug, chug, chug. The iron genoa, our little blue engine that can, carries us ever closer to Alaska. The anemometer is doubling as a knotlog. We’re doing a fuel efficient, brisk walking pace of 3-5 knots. The Pacific is just that – for once. It’s glassy enough that we could break out the deck chairs and serve Maitais on the bow, if we had either deck chairs or Maitai ingredients (and if our bow were a little wider, and if it were not 2 in the morning). The cabin boys have not started folding white washcloths into little animals for us, nor have they started the ice-sculptures to decorate the captain’s table. But we eat at least as well as the Cunnard passengers, with our freezerfull of everything but the fish we hope to catch…hope…
Inside is as calm as outside, except that young minds(and old) are riding dragons, casting spells and hopefully saving a few maidens in distress. At their current rate of reading, they’re devouring more than a book a day. I only bought 10 new ebooks for them before we left. If the passage is 15 days, we should make it before they run out, but our current arrival calculation hovers around 25-30 days. If they finish all the books, they’ll just have to start writing their own.
It’s actually calm enough to do school, but we’d have a mutiny on our hands. Passage has become their summer/spring/winter break.
We did make good progress our first 2 days, so we have put 500 miles between us and Hanalei Bay.
xoxomo
P.S. I goofed the location in the header of the last post. We were not in Hilo, but we were still in Hawaiian waters – We’re now hovering on the edge of the US economic zone, enjoying a tanker-free couple of days thanks to Bush jr’s Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument. It acts like a long wall to any tankers carrying certain amounts of hazardous materials (I think oil and fuel count?) Anyway, not a boat in sight.