Last night I hit the rack early to get some long hours of sleep. The ship started to roll and I woke up. Thinking that I had beaten the alarm clock and feeling refreshed, I looked at the clock and to my astonishment it was only half past midnight! I got a total of three-hour worth of sleep! The ship was rocking and a rolling as winds picked up and tossed us around. Anything that was not tied down was on the deck and the chair broke loose and rolled towards the stateroom door and stayed there but breaking another plastic drawer on the way.
Wind speed was from 27 to 30 knots. The sea conditions were nothing like the Pacific Northwest or Alaska at this time of the year. We were slapped around a few times though, and it kept me awake through the night. I would fall asleep and a roll would wake me up again. I did fall asleep finally around six in the morning. Not because the seas calmed down but I was fatigued and wake up time was an hour later! When I first started to sail nearly a decade ago, I would equate rolls from windy seas to being rocked to sleep in a cradle. As I got older, the rocking motion seemed to have sped up and not so lullaby anymore and those days of the cradle metaphor are long gone.
There were no rains, just strong winds with gusts up to 30 knots or more at times. The seas were choppy with marching whitecaps slamming the ship as well as the reefs in the distance. Two miles off our sides, you could see the change in ocean color between the seas and the lagoon of Kure Atoll. Nevertheless, when the waves slapped reefs and from the distance, the crashing caused a titanic blast as if the wave was going through a blowhole.
Since it is Sunday here at the last part of the old calendar, near the International Date Line, it was day to catch up on administrative tasks and write weekly status reports. Due to a grand total of four hours sleep with interruptions in between, I was dragging. I felt as if I was working in an office after a long bachelor party weekend, not due to a hangover but a lack of sleep. When I did my daily inspections, the wind anemometers were going at high speed and it was not going to let up. I did get a phone call from Mr. K about a wall-mounted phone that had fallen down because the Velcro glue had dried out. I thought he was joking at first because he does like to tell jokes and does get sarcastic. I got to where he was and yes, he was right! He asked the engineers to cut and drill a plate so we can Velcro the phone again, no not really. I got rid of the jack box the phone was screwed down to and installed a connector and eliminated the jack box altogether. I put the same phone back up and somewhere between the time we took it down and putting it back up, it decided to quit working! I can get a dial tone but it would not dial out! Brought another phone and it worked! Gremlins everywhere! Rest of the day consisted of replying to flagged e-mails and then came quitting time.
It was actually cool today to where I increased the temperature in my stateroom on the thermostat. I never thought I would have done this sailing in the Hawaiian Island chain but there is always a first time.
These atolls here have always fascinated me. We are sitting 28 degrees north of the equator and here exists a tropical atoll this far north. According to some analysis, these atolls will disappear as a tropical atoll in the future, geological calendar of course. As evolution of earth’s movements will put these atolls, further north. It will become a cold rocky atoll in the colder waters of the North Pacific. As a tropical atoll, it is not a friendly looking place as you could see the white sands of the beaches with green vegetation backdrop and a lonely tree covered with vines protruding out of the island. The lagoon is large and even from the distance where the ship is at, obvious of its existence. Last year when I came here with an archeological crew, they found a shipwreck of an old British whaler that had ran aground in 1800’s. This year we are doing coral reef assessment here with this group of scientist/divers.
I have to hit the rack and hope I can get some sleep. It is still rough out there and you could feel it has calmed down a bit. I have to get up early, work with a Coxswain in looking at the identification module of his small boat, and check the status.
I bid you good night from Kure Atoll, near the International Date Line.
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