Seattle Bound!

The Pacific Islands Restoration team will be flying out of Mangareva today, headed back to our respective home countries. The flight goes through Tahiti so our family will be stopping in Tahiti for a few days on the way home to enjoy some much needed rest. We have been in Mangareva for four days now, the first two were spent preparing the helicopters for the 25 day trip back to Seattle. Everything that could be unbolted easily was taken off, along with a few things that aren't so easy to get off! The skids, tail fins, rotor blades, the main mast that the rotors attach to all had to come off for it to fit in the container. After the helis were all packed up, the focus shifted to the boat, preparing it for a 25 day trip through the hurricane breeding grounds. And finally, we had to get ready to fly out! Six of the boat crew are flying out, and two fly in leaving a crew of five to take the boat back.

We're done!!

Team Aquila, in conjunction with the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, Helicopters Otago, and Pathfinder Aviation, is proud to announce the completion of arial baiting on Henderson Island. Shortly before eleven this morning, Helicopters 54k and 6PA touched down on the deck of the R/V Aquila and disconnected their bait buckets, marking the end of the 2011 Pacific Islands Restoration Project. This was a project about firsts, being the first time three eradications have been combined into one group effort, sharing the enormous costs of bringing a supply vessel and two helicopters to the south pacific. In Palmyra, the Aquila did everything except load the bait buckets, this was done from shore. On Henderson and Phoenix, the entire operation was self contained aboard the Aquila, including transportation of the bait, loading and fueling the helicopters, and transportation of baiting personnel. In the many years that groups have been eradicating invasive species from offshore islan
ds, nobody has ever completed an operation based entirely from the deck of a ship. Even when a mechanical problem grounded one helicopter in the Phoenix islands, Team Aquila finished the job with one helicopter. When a stray bird damaged a tail rotor, the Heliops team had a replacement tail rotor fitted on the helicopter a few short hours later. Since the job went so smoothly, we are a few days ahead of schedule and will be taking tomorrow to do a beach clean up on Henderson, removing nets and plastic bits that pose a risk to sea and bird life. We will also be hosting the shore team for lunch tomrrow, probably their first shot at fresh food in six weeks. The team on the island has been here for six weeks, capturing the Henderson Rail, a unique species that has evolved only on Henderson. The rail is a flightless bird that has evolved only on Henderson, making it of the utmost importance to protect it from the bait. Although the baiting is finished for this summer, the Aquila is still 4
400 miles from home, a journey that will take her nearly a month at full speed. The helicopters will be disassembled for the trip, packed away in the containers on deck with the blades, mast, and skids removed. But we wont start that until after we get back to Pitcairn or Mangareva. Right now, its time to have some fun and go beach combing!

Pitcairn to Henderson, part two!

Look out Pitcairn, the Rat Slayers have returned! Too bad the rat slayers don't seem very badass next to the real life pirates! These guys are pretty cool though. We brought two people back from Henderson, Pawl and Sue, who apparently write childrens cartoons when they aren't busy being pirates! We finished the first round of baiting midday Wednesday, had a play day yesterday, and headed back to Pitcairn last night. Even though we finished flying before noon on wednesday, our day had just begun. For the boat crew, the rest of the day was taken up preparing for the next bait drop a week later. We moved forty some pallet size totes from our below-deck holds to the containers on deck. Each tote holds fifteen small bags, each weighing 25 kilos or about 55 pounds. That nakes each tote an 825 pound wrecking ball if the boat starts rolling too much. All of our empty totes from the first application were then stacked into a below-deck hold, a somewhat awkward process because the holds were b
uilt for fish and water, not totes! No problem a little Yankee Ingenuity can't solve! Where the floor is sloped to let the water drain to one side, spare deckboards were stacked to make it level. While we were swinging thousand pound totes around beneath crane, we put two of the jetskis in the water to get them out of the way and lessen the chance of bruising one on the nose with a swinging load. Now of course it's bad to start them for two minutes and shut them down, so I just had to take them for a circle around the boat before we put them back onboard! Unfortunately I took a bit too long getting back to the boat and we had to pick the second one when it was completely dark. One of the lifting slings decided to be moody so there was a little panic when Dad began to pick the ski out of the water and one strap popped off and rolled the ski on its side with me on it. We made sure it was right the second time and had no further issues. After another long day, I was quick to get dinner a
nd promptly go into a food coma lasting until six the next morning. The day was Thursday, and it was the first play day since leaving Samoa! Jetskis were quickly launched and the beautiful secluded pacific island became a true paradise, complete with jetskis, waterskis, and two helicopters! The whales even stopped by to see what all the commotion was about, though they only stayed long enough to scare me crazy before simming back to the other side of the island. While I was on the RXT, 206PA flew over on a photo flight around the island. They were doing 70 knots so I was outgunned by about ten but I still did my best to keep up with them. We got down to the end of the north beach and I saw the chopper suddenly stop and enter a climbing circle. I saw a little speck of white under them and, figuring it was the white jetski, kept heading that way. When I arrived under the helicopter, I couldnt see any sign of the other ski so I turned around and headed back to the boat. I glanced down at
the speedometer and saw 40, and thats when it got scary. When I glanced down, something HUGE in the water caught my eye. It was big, black, and right underneath me. I was going too fast to tell what it was, but I was afraid it was a rock I was about to hit so I gunned the throttle and got around it in a hurry. A couple seconds later, I saw another one, this one crossed in front of me. Wait a sec, the rock just crossed in front of me? The rock shouldn't be moving! So whats huge and black and can move... Of course! The whales! I wish I had stuck around longer to watch them from up close, but I was pretty hyped up on adrenaline and raced off back to the boat to tell them about our visitors. Mom grabbed a wetsuit, Dad grabbed the camera and we zoomed back to find them again. Chances are, if we had hung out longer the whales would've gotten curious and come over for a look-see. Unfortunately, we were impatient and didn't get close enough for Mom to get in and swim with the whales. But the
re's always next week! Anyone know what kind of music brings the whales up close? Bon Jovi? Brooks and Dunn? Hawaiian music maybe? The Finding Nemo soundtrack? One way to find out! Most everyone got to go to shore and check out the island, I was even able to take the jetski into the beach and walk up to the bird pens. The Henderson Rail is a flightless bird that has evolved only on Henderson, and probably the most at risk of being poisoned by the bait. As such, the team on the island has captured nearly eighty rails so that if the wild population is poisoned by the bait the species won't go extinct. After the island crew helped me push the jetski off the beach, I headed back to the boat and got the waterskiing started. The jetski actually made a surprisingly good towboat, pulling a slalom ski out of the water with power to spare. The ski doesn't throw a very big wake, so it was great for people like me that are a bit wobbly on a slalom ski. I'm learning though! While I was on the slal
om ski, the helicopter was making a shuttle run so they flew over and hovered off to the side while I was skiing. Now that is something you don't normally see when you are waterskiing! Of course, they had the best seat in the house when I crashed. When I went under water, I could feel the beat of the rotor blades all around me! Next thing we gotta try is wakeboarding from the cargo hook of the helicopter! That same lack of wake behind the jetski made it pretty difficult to jump the wake on a wakeboard, although I found plenty of other ways to crash. Once we were all thoroughly worn out from wakeboarding and waterskiing, we took the jetskis over to east beach and backed into the surf line so that we could jump the waves right as they were breaking. One time I was in the surf line checking out a channel through the reef to the beach. It looked a little too tight so I was about to head back out when I noticed a giant wave building off the beach. The waves we were jumping were about three
feet high and rounded, but this one was building to about eight and forming a sharp curl. If I had stayed where I was, the wave would've rolled my ski and stretched me out against the closest razor sharp coral bed. My only hope was to try to get to the backside of the wave before it broke. I firewalled the ski and shot out like a bullet. The wave was just beginning to break when I hit it, and it was forming a tube that made it impossible to jump. I took a sharp right at the base of the wave and rode through the curl and along the wave before shooting off the top of the wave going about thirty. I sat as far back as I could so my face wouldn't become intertwined with the handlebars and held on tight. The landing wasn't too hard, but the nose was pointed so far up I just slid right off the back into the water. I felt my knee pop when I rolled off the ski, but when I climbed back on I could tell it had just popped and was just fine. By that time the sun was close to going down so we hea
ded back to the boat to get everything back onboard before it got dark. After dinner, we pulled anchor and steamed back to Pitcairn under a beautifully clear and starry sky. Arriving here in the morning, they brought the longboat alongside and we transfered over all of empty bait bags from the first application, some gear from Henderson, and our four observers from Pitcairn. A few of our crew went to shore in that first group, though most of us went to the island later on, around noon. The first time we visited, I didn't get a chance to hike up to Christians Cave so that was where Mom and I headed. As the story goes, Christians Cave is where Fletcher Christian and John Adams began reading the Bible. It takes quite a hike to get up to the cave, including some pretty sketchy ledges along the cliff that the cave is set into. They say that back in the day the cave entrance was covered with vegatation, but that the native vegatation can't grow anymore because of invasive weeds. Without a d
ense covering of vegatation, the cave gave us a great of Adamstown and the rest of the island. The hike down is normally worse than the hike up, and the trail to the cave was no exception. Although there was great traction on the lava rock, one step on a loose rock would send you sliding all the way down to the water. After meeting up with the rest of the shore party, we headed down to the dock. While waiting for our skiff to arrive, we saw Ralph and his brothers paddling around in the keyaks we brought down for them. His little brother, who looked to be about ten, had just gotten back from spearfishing. I thought that was just the coolest thing ever cause the spear gun was probably taller then he was! Our skiff wasn't big enough to fit everybody so Dad was going to make two trips but after the first trip left Andrew offered to run us out in one of their small boats. As it turned out, his boat was twice as fast as ours going through the swells so we made it back to the boat before Dad
did. That pretty much wraps up the last few days, will travel overnight tonight and wake up at Henderson!

Henderson Arrival

The Aquila and her jolly crew of rat slayers arrived at Henderson Island this morning, the last rodent stronghold of this summer's 7,500 mile journey across the Pacific. Next year a team of scientists will visit each of the islands we treated this summer, hopefully to declare them free of the invasive rats that have wreaked such havac on the native ecosystem. On Henderson island alone, it is estimated the rats kill eighty-five thousand baby bird chicks and eggs each year. The birds aren't the only victim. Hundreds of other native species, some unique to each island, are put at extreme risk by the very presence of a rat. Tomorrow morning, we plan to begin the application of bait, again using arial application via helicopter. Although we enjoyed a beautiful ride from Samoa to Mangareva, we paid for it on our crossing from Pitcairn to Henderson. Thirty knot winds, twelve foot seas, and solid water splashing the wheelhouse windows made for a very fitful nights sleep. The best anchorage i
s actually on the other side of the island but this last storm brought the swells in from the north, rendering the north anchorage virtually useless. Forced out of the water by a bulge in the earths crust, the island is actually a coral reef that was lifted out of the water. One can still see ancient coral heads sticking out of the dirt! The top is about forty feet above sea level, and very flat. As it was a coral reef, I'm guessing the cliffs around the outside are mostly limestone. The relentless sea has carved an incredible series of caves and caverns into the cliffs, as well as quite a few blowholes. Each wave that comes in smashes into the caves and compresses the air inside making an incredible amount of noise each time. It reminds me of the Pavlof volcano in Alaska, shooting out chunks of lava rock all night long. Or like a giant air cannon. Well, dinner came and I had to run. It's now Tuesday evening at Henderson Island. We started baiting early Monday (yesterday) morning, but
after only a couple hours of sowing, the wind picked up and brought some nasty rain with it. When the rain arrived, the wind came around the opposite direction and began pushing us onto the beach, forcing us to haul anchor and head to the other side of the island. We made it around to the north beach about an hour before sunset and were able to get in about six more loads per machine before the lack of light shut us down for the night. Again the winds tried to push us onto the beach, and again we hauled anchor. This time we headed about five miles offshore and just slowly drifted around until morning. Fast forward to this morning, the sun rose over a wonderfully calm sea and a beautiful blue sky. very eager to make use of such a great day for flying, we set the anchor at the eastern beach and quickly launched both helicopters. Peter was first one off the deck in 54K and both machines were loaded and headed out by 7:30 in the morning. Every person on and above the boat worked straight
until 6 this evening when we shut down because of low light. Between both helicopters, we have sprayed about 135 loads of bait, about 100 of which was done today. Each load is seven hundred pounds, making our total so far somewhere in the neighborhood of ninety-five THOUSAND pounds of bait applied to the island. Tomorrow will be another 6AM start, hopefully finishing the entire island before lunch. If all goes well we may get to play a bit tomorrow! Dad can't wait to go for a dive as the bottom visibility looks to be about two hundred feet. And did I mention, there's whales and turtles and sharks all around! David got a picture of a massive turtle while he was flying, hopefully he will share that picture so I can post it on the blog! As much as I would love to stay up and keep writing, my bunk is calling and I need to be clear headed for our 6AM start tomorrow.
Tune in tomorrow night for loads of pictures and another update! Good night!
Tanner - Travel Department, Henderson Tribune.

Sunday at Henderson

The Aquila and her jolly crew of rat slayers arrived at Henderson Island this morning, the last rodent stronghold of this summer's 7,500 mile journey across the Pacific. Next year a team of scientists will visit each of the islands we treated this summer, hopefully to declare them free of the invasive rats that have wreaked such havac on the native ecosystem. On Henderson island alone, it is estimated the rats kill eighty-five thousand baby bird chicks and eggs each year. The birds aren't the only victim. Hundreds of other native species, some unique to each island, are put at extreme risk by the very presence of a rat. Tomorrow morning, we plan to begin the application of bait, again using arial application via helicopter. Although we enjoyed a beautiful ride from Samoa to Mangareva, we paid for it on our crossing from Pitcairn to Henderson. Thirty knot winds, twelve foot seas, and solid water splashing the wheelhouse windows made for a very fitful nights sleep. The best anchorage i
s actually on the other side of the island but this last storm brought the swells in from the north, rendering the north anchorage virtually useless. Formed by a bulge in the earths crust, the island is actually a coral reef that was lifted out of the water. The top is about forty feet above sea level, and very flat. With coral heads sticking out of the dirt! As it was a coral reef, I'm guessing the cliffs around the outside are mostly limestone. The relentless sea has carved an incredible series of caves and caverns into the cliffs, as well as quite a few blowholes. Each wave that comes in smashes into the caves and compresses the air inside making an incredible amount of noise each time. It reminds me of the Pavlof volcano in Alaska, shooting out chunks of lava rock all night long. Or like a giant air cannon. Well, dinner came and I had to run. It's now Tuesday evening at Henderson Island. We started baiting early Monday (yesterday) morning, but after only a couple hours of sowing,
the wind picked up and brought some nasty rain with it. When the rain arrived, the wind came around the opposite direction and began pushing us onto the beach, forcing us to haul anchor and head to the other side of the island. We made it around to the north beach about an hour before sunset and were able to get in about six more loads per machine before the lack of light shut us down for the night. Again the winds tried to push us onto the beach, and again we hauled anchor. This time we headed about five miles offshore and just slowly drifted around until morning. Fast forward to this morning, the sun rose over a wonderfully calm sea and a beautiful blue sky. very eager to make use of such a great day for flying, we set the anchor at the eastern beach and quickly launched both helicopters. Peter was first one off the deck in 54K and both machines were loaded and headed out by 7:30 in the morning. Every person on and above the boat worked straight until 6 this evening when we shut dow
n because of low light. Between both helicopters, we have sprayed about 135 loads of bait, about 100 of which was done today. Each load is seven hundred pounds, making our total so far somewhere in the neighborhood of ninety-five THOUSAND pounds of bait applied to the island. Tomorrow will be another 6AM start, hopefully finishing the entire island before lunch. If all goes well we may get to play a bit tomorrow! Dad can't wait to go for a dive as the bottom visibility looks to be about two hundred feet. And did I mention, there's whales and turtles and sharks all around! David got a picture of a massive turtle while he was flying, hopefully he will share that picture so I can post it on the blog! As much as I would love to stay up and keep writing, my bunk is calling and I need to be clear headed for our 6AM start tomorrow.
Tune in tomorrow night for loads of pictures and another update! Good night!
Tanner - Travel Department, Henderson Tribune.

Pitcairn Recap

What an adventure! Pitcairn Island is a truly amazing place, with a unique breed of people to match. For those that haven't heard of the place, Pitcairn is a small island 360 miles southeast of Mangareva. Somewhat of a plateau, the island is ringed with steep cliffs two or three hundred feet high. The top isn't flat by any means, but certainly more so than the cliffs at the edge! Around fifty people live on the island, about forty of whom can trace their liniage back to the original settlers of the island, the mutineers of H.M.A.S Bounty. When we arrived at Pitcairn yesterday morning, we were met by a longboat with ten of the villagers from the island. The longboat is a rather impressive vessel, about thirty feet long and ten feet wide, made from aluminum and powered by a large diesel motor. Into the longboat we loaded a pallet full of boxes, a four wheeler, and six of us seadogs that wanted to stretch our legs a bit after being on the boat for three months. Bounty Bay was quite roug
h with the swells coming in from the north so we waited outside the breakwater until a suitible wave came along. Gunning the motor, we surfed the wave in and, rounding the breakwater, immediately went to full reverse and came to a stop perfectly alongside the dock. Up on the dock, most of the village turned out to welcome us, and what a welcome it was. Heather met us with walking maps of the island and took charge of showing us around Adamstown and the general dos and donts of the island. Do feel free to walk anywhere on the island just be back to the boat by 3:30. Don't poke your head into the classroom while school is in session! Luckily we visited on Saturday so this wasn't an issue. The people living on the island all seemed like they could pass for your typical New Zealander; jolly good people and tough as nails! Walking around the island, I don't think I saw one person that wasn't smiling. The elevation gain up the road was incredible, and made for some very tired legs at the to
p.. Pretty much everybody offered us a ride up but we were quite happy to finally get to walk around and so declined. After taking a look at the village square, I headed for the southeast side of the island with Chris and Kinsi in tow. Our destination was a beautiful natural saltwater pool protected from all but the biggest waves outside. All the waves swirling around outside piled up a bit of foam, then when a big wave came in it would splash all the foam up to where the wind could catch it and blow it past us like tumbleweed! From the pool, we could watch the waves hammering the other side of the rocks and shooting up into the air. Every few minutes, an especially large wave would come through and wash right over the top of the rocks, sending a three foot mini tsunami across the pool. After the pools, we headed up to the radio station, really just a couple antennas and two satellite dishes. However, it was one of the highest points on the island and offered a great view of the villa
ge and Bounty Bay. Heading back out to the boat was pretty much the same as coming in, except in reverse. Untie the lines and hold the boat next to the dock waiting for the signal. When we got the thumbs up from the dock, it was full speed ahead and around the corner before the next roller came smashing through. Going out of the bay, everyone sits in the back of the boat because "you get a fair bit of hang time up front." Going up the waves are fine, but when the bow drops over the back of a wave it can be pretty violent. Sam was the furthest one forward and though he was holding on, he wasn't prepared for the zero G's off of one wave. Boat went down, sam stayed up. Gravity kicks in and Sam rejoins boat at bottom of wave with a very loud thump. That ones gonna bruise! After that everyone made sure they were hanging on extra tight and we made it back to the Aquila with no issues. We offloaded ourselves, four observers from Pitcairn, and a boat load of gear for the camp on Henderson. Th
e observers are Jay Warren and his son Ralph, and David Brown and his sister Ariel. At two years younger than me, Ralph is the only teenager on Pitcairn. Two of them will be staying on the island, and two will be staying on board. The rats are a real nuisance on Pitcairn and they have already had one hand baiting attempt fail so this job on nearby Henderson is of great interest to them.

Pitcairn!

Well it's official; we're 90 miles from Pitcairn Island and will be there in the morning! Onboard the Aquila, we pride ourselves on improvising and always making things work. Earlier today Andrew came up to the wheelhouse to show us some of the new camera equipment he got since Phoenix. However there was one small problwm, the new audio recorder he purchased for the camera didn't come with the adapter to attach it to the camera. After he brought all the gear up and showed us what he was missing, I ran down to my room and came back with a piece of aluminum bar and made a custom mount to attach the camera and mic to his tripod. Growing up on a boat with the closest home depot four thousand miles away sure does teach one to be resourcful!! One of the biggest problems we run into on a boat is all the garbage created by supporting 20 people for a month. The solution? As long as we are more than 25 miles offshore, everything except plastic will degrade and can be dumped into the ocean to t
urn into fish food. Ninety-nine percent of what goes over is food scraps but occasionally we have something else that has to go. Tonight was one of those nights! Mom and Dad got a new mattress and for the last 60 some days we have had an extra mattress onboard we had no room for. Chopper dave has grown quite addicted to dumping the food scraps overboard, so his eyes lit up like a christmas tree when I asked if he wanted to give the mattress the shove. Before he said yes, he asked one small question that provided endless entertainment for the rest of the night. "Can wee light it on fire before we dump it?" Well, uh, sure I guess! After getting the okay from Dad, the gas jugs were rounded up and I soaked the middle of the mattress with gas. We set it right on the rail in case it got too hot too quick, but the fire was only in the middle of the mattress so we had no issues tossing it over. Who knew a mattress would burn for so long while floating in the ocean!?! For almost an hour we wat
ched the flaming mattress surfing our wake until it finally gave up and sank to the bottom, 12,000 feet down. It is DEEP out here! A couple hours after dinner my sister was reading a book in the galley and as I walked upstairs I turned to her and said "Don't stay up to late. We will be at Pitcairn in the morning." As I rolled into my bunk, it hit me just how crazy that sounded. There aren't very many people on the planet, let alone 17 year olds, that've been able to say they will be at Pitcairn Island in the morning! Out here it is very easy to get bored and say it's just another day in the office. But little moments like that, I am reminded how truly special this life really is!

The Aquila visited the Gambier Islands yesterday, picking up our helicopter pilots and two of our scientists/project managers. Though we made it through with no issues, the channel into Mangareva is quite scary for a big boat like us. The channel is actually just a maze through the coral heads, and in places we had less than ten feet on each side and six feet of water under the bottom! The locals were awesome, although not many people spoke english, everyone was very helpful and courteous. It seemed like almost every kid on the island came down to the dock for a tour of the boat and a picture next to the helicopters. Most of the kids were learning english in school and each one remembered a couple of different phrases so when i said something there was normally at least one person in the group that understood it and translated for the rest of the group. Good thing we all know how to talk with our hands! We left mangareva at 1530 yesterday afternoon headed for pitcairn, a 36 hour trip
Our plan is to arrive early tomorrow morning, then probably head out in the afternoon again. At pitcairn we will pick up four more passengers, two observers that will stay on board and two that will be camping on henderson island.

Land Ho!

After ten days of nothing but blue ocean all around, we will finally see land today! Mangaeva is 120 miles off the bow, about twelve hours with a little bit of help from the current. The last week has been very busy gearing up for Henderson, but lots of fun too! Two days ago we celebrated Mom's birthday with the calmest day since leaving Seattle! A great birthday present from the ocean appreciated by all! We gave Chef Damien the day off for mom's birthday, and Kinsi spent almost the whole day in the galley making all of moms favorite dishes. For breakfast, Mom and Kinsi worked together on cinnamon cherry crepes just like old times. For lunch we had thai spring rolls with homemade peanut sauce, and dinner was black cod over rice and boc choy. Rounding out the night, Dad and Kinsi made two gluten-free angel food cakes covered in frozen strawberries! We tend to eat pretty well around here, and that day was certainly no exception! Yesterday we passed Fangataufa and Mururoa islands, where
the French conducted their nuclear weapons tests. Shortly thereafter, we caught the first mahi mahi of the trip. There's a chance we had a radioactive dinner last night but hey it was sure good! Mahi mahi with a side of potassium iodide anybody?! We have been working on several small changes to the boat to improve comfort, safety, and working efficiency. Our biggest project was an extension to the forward helideck, giving a pilot room to set the bait bucket down, then land next to it. Since we can load one machine off the aft pad while the other is fueling on the forward pad, we will never have to stop baiting to refuel! In the future, it is possible we could use both cranes to load, giving us the ability to run three helicopters at once! We also were able to finish up the railings around the sun deck. When those railings were originally put up, we only had enough material for a top rail but USCG regulations require a top, middle, and bottom rail. The most entertaining project came l
ast night when I attempted to fix the ships air horn. Because of its unfortunate mounting position on top of the wheelhouse, it regularly gets soaked with seawater, clogging up the inside of the horn. Somehow water also ended up inside the air line running up to the horn, because when I unscrewed the line and blew it out, it made a wonderful fountain of black, rusty water. My sincerest apologies to those who were relaxing behind the wheelhouse and got sprayed! After taking the horn apart and cleaning the whole thing, I put it back together and it didn't work. I tore it down and cleaned it again thinking I must have put something back in the wrong spot, but when I put it back together it still didn't work! After that I tore it down again and wirewheeled everything inside until it shined like gold and finally it let out a defiant roar! Now that I had it going, I took almost an hour to wirewheel the outside until the whole thing shined. Now if only the rest of the boat looked as new as i
t does! As part of our never ending fight against flab, Chris welded a stainless steel pullup bar behind the wheelhouse. The gang has been having lots of fun working out and there's plenty of friendly competition. Today will mostly be about cleaning and making the boat appear presentable when we arrive in Mangareva. Because we are getting in so late tonight, we will probably just anchor outside the channel and go through in the morning. Mangareva will be the fourth country we've entered on this trip, and Pitcairn, as a UK overseas territory, will make it five! One more month and I'm headed home!

Pictures!

Route 66!

There's other boats out here!! Until Yesterday, we didn't see any other boats, birds, or much of anything else for that matter. Yesterday we saw four sailboats and today a cruise ship passed behind us headed for bora bora! Why so many boats? This area is right in the middle of the Gambier islands of French Polynesia and the Cook Islands of NZ, both big attractioins for sail boats and apparently one cruise ship! The last month or so I've only been playing the acoustic guitar so tonight I finally dug out the electric but when i pulled it out a couple of the frets had rust spots on them! This environment is so corrosive! Looks like our speed is back down to 8.8 or so, right now the computer is saying we should get in sometime early the morning of the 11th. Mom took some funny pictures yesterday but those will have to wait until tomorrow because I am very tired! Haha more to come tomorrow!

Good Morning Vietnam!!

Ahh another beautiful sunrise watch. Mom came up this morning and told me to get off my lazy bum and write something for the blog... So here I am :) More of the same out here, just getting over some sniffles i picked up from somewhere. How strange! In the 16 years I've been on this boat, not once have I gotten anything but seasick. This trip, I've gotten a cold twice! Normally when we are on the boat, you don't really have contact with enough people for a cold to get carried around, but I suppose it's entirely possible with how many different places we've stopped. Probably doesnt help that it's the middle of winter down here. I can't believe how quickly this trip has gone. Talking to people back home, I hear about all the end of the season championship meets going on, but to me it feels like we just left! Our position now is 17 55 south and 159 34 west, by the time we get to Henderson we will be almost twice as far south as hawaii is north! Our total trip distance since we left Seatt
le is somewhere in the neighborhood of seven THOUSAND miles! Incredible! Heading back to the east, we will have to change the clocks, I think Mangareva is only one hour earlier than Seattle time! When we were over in the Phoenix islands, we were actually five hours different but we elected to stay with Samoa time (four hours from Seattle) for simplicity. Although I hate to say this, for fear of calling over a nasty storm, the ride thus far has been great. We've gone through a few isolated rain showers but even those have been pretty mild. The swells are just to port of the bow, so we are getting very little side to side motion at all. Of course the tradeoff has been a slower speed through the water and about 1.5 knots of current straight on the nose. This morning the current seems to have slacked off though, I saw 9.6 on the gps for the first time since we left Apia! Of course now that I say that it drops to 9.4... oops :P all this beautiful weather and two helicopters on the back dec
k is just killing me, I can't wait to fly around when we get to Mangareva. I think that new motor needs a couple more hours of 'testing' ;) The Cook Islands Weather forcast just came across the radio and man are these guys funny! Back home if the weather is going to be calm they say wind calm or light and variable... Down here, it's "Fine." I want Steve Pool to do his forcasts like that! "Good morning Seattle, fine weather today, light wind in the afternoon. Back to you Joe." For movie night last night, we all watched the new Karate Kid movie, Tomorrow is Rango :) Our big project for the next few days is reorganizing all of our storage space onboard, when things got crazy in shipyard alot of stuff was just piled into the corner, now we finally have the time to get rid of that stuff. My nose is telling me that the omelets are ready so I am going to jump off now... Time to go get fat again :D
I'd love to hear what everyone thinks, feel free to comment or drop me an email! Six days to Mangareva, if anyone has questions I have nothing but time.
Gracias y adios!