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    Around-n-Over

    Question - "What does having a dream mean to you?"
    Answer - "A dream is a goal glimmering in the distance; it is an inner calling which, when accomplished,
    serves as the rite of passage into wisdom." Erden Eruç - Sep 17, 2004
     

    Image: Hermit Islands, from about 20 nm.  They are 140 nm west of Lorengau on Manus Island. Hermit Islands, from about 20 nm. They are 140 nm west of Lorengau on Manus Island.
    Image: A Fish Aggregating Device (FAD) is a long anchored barrel, providing growth and shade underneath which attract schools of fish. A Fish Aggregating Device (FAD) is a long anchored barrel, providing growth and shade underneath which attract schools of fish.

    Birds and buoy...
    January 25, 2009 - Day: 10 (2.0871S, 144.6349E)    -2.0871S,215.3651W
    Please remember to track my progress by clicking here. [MAP] link on the top right should be plotting my dispatch locations.

    The mostly eastsoutheast winds have been relentless over the last four days, varying in direction from east to southsoutheast. With these persistent winds, the seas carried me 170 nm from my easternmost position just 30 nm north of Lorengau port on the Manus Island. Last night, I passed within 15 nm south of Hermit Islands, now located at about 40 nm to my northeast.

    When the winds were weak, I could keep a southwesterly course by rowing. If I stopped, the boat would track westerly. Occasionally I would be visited by a Crested Tern, which is larger than the Sooty Tern. Like any tern, it had a forked tail. It had grey tones to its wingtops, with a white belly. Its pointed beak extending ahead of its jet black crown, was a pale yellow color and wider at its base, not as slender as that of the Sooty or White Tern.

    In the ten days of rowing I had seen maybe a total of three Frigate Birds, and about as many shearwaters. There are very few flying fish in these waters, I wondered if there was a correlation...

    While consumed in my thoughts rowing in the heat of the early afternoon, I saw a Fish Aggregating Device (FAD) about a mile away on my port side. As I always face the rear while rowing, I had not noticed this white long barrel until I had passed it. A FAD is a buoy, about 1 meter in diameter, perhaps 6 meters in length. It is anchored at one end. A meter long pipe is welded to the top side of its other end to accommodate a mooring line.

    Schools of small fish gather under these floating objects, which in turn attract larger fish like the tuna. When Captain Obligar on CHAMPION-52 had come to tow me in May, the night before he had delivered me to PRIMROSE in the care of Captain Pagaran, we had spent the night moored on a FAD. I was sorry to see that buoy pass by in the distance.

    A couple hours before sunset, I decided to rest my back. There was not much that I could do until the north or northwest winds returned. I was a bit depressed - would I end up at Jayapura this time after trying so hard for it last time? This felt like a deja vu, like in the hopeless days I had spent trapped in the Inter Tropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ) last year, unable to escape south.

    I prepared dinner, did laundry and washed myself. I put on the short sleeve t-shirt I had just washed, letting the wind cool me as the shirt dried on my back. I sat outside, reading Derek Lundy's "The Way of a Ship," a book about the large 3-masted square rigger sail ships of the 19th century with their 30 pieces of sails of various sizes, and their treacherous voyages around the Cape Horn at the tip of South America to deliver their cargo.

    It was getting close to sunset. I took note of the evening position before retiring in the cabin, then in the corner of my eye I caught a glimpse of a small boat pitching into the waves on my port bow. It seemed to be too small for open ocean voyages, maybe the locals from Hermit Island, I thought to myself. Then when I looked more carefully, I noticed it did not have a mast, or any superstructure. I did not have a perspective to judge the distance, and suddenly I realized this was another FAD. Knowing the size of an actual FAD, I guessed the distance to be about a half mile. Could I make this one?

    I quickly opened a deck hold to pull out my rode line for mooring, I flaked it out on the deck in a hurry, then jumped in the rowing seat. My lower back had since tightened, the muscles tired and cold. Each pull on the oars was pure agony. I moaned and let out a yell with each stroke, trying to judge whether to quit in pain when so tantalizingly close. The sun was setting in large orange fireball. I wondered if I would see the green flash...

    When the sun dropped under the horizon I had arrived at about 200 meters downwind of the FAD. The wind and the seas had pushed me while I pulled weaker in agony at the beginning of my attempt. Now, I had to see if I could reach the FAD at all. I had not seen the green flash -- a wave had gotten in between...

    I rowed upwind, with the seas flowing past my boat like a river. I was averaging 0.3 knots; yes I could reach it, my back was loosening again, but would I have enough daylight to manage the mooring? I had not turned on the anchor light, nor had I grabbed my headlamp.

    With the last of daylight, using my right hand, I grabbed a hold of the rings of vehicle tires which had been cut and stacked at the end of the FAD. I reached for my rode line with my left hand, tossed a bight of it over the horn on the FAD, then started paying out rope until I had both ends, and midline was on the horn. I shackled both eyes of the rode line to my bow, and I could rest.

    This was now going to be my holding spot until the winds turned in my favor.

    Erden.

    Previous Dispatches
    image

    There are not as many birds...    January 23, 2009 - Day: 8 (1.6590S, 145.8290E)
    I heard that the [ORS MAP] link on the top right points to the previous 312 day Pacific effort. Ocean Rowing Society has started a new tracking page for me, and we did not know until friends started c

    image

    Did I mention the heat?    January 21, 2009 - Day: 6 (1.5152S, 147.1331E)
    Pacific is being its capricious self again. This morning after coming to a position 30nm north of Lorengau port on Manus Island, I started receiving winds 180 degrees opposed to before, which are now

    image

    Watermaker is working...    January 19, 2009 - Day: 4 (1.2269S, 146.9071E)
    As soon as I got some sun on the first day, I tested my electric desalinator. This watermaker is a great convenience when it works, otherwise I have to use a handpump to produce fresh water from the

    Later dispatches - Previous dispatches


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