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!