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!