Saturday, May 9, 2009

1000 miles behind...

We're still going. We made our 1000 mile from Galapagos mark some time last night. Our celebration was popcorn, sliced apples, and hot chocolate. We thought about taking a picture but it all looks the same out here. The water color is deep indigo blue which is a change from the dark teal water which was around the Galapagos. There's no green highway signs that say "Fatu Hiva 1900 mi.; Hiva Oa 1920 mi…." No 7-11 stores either. Luckily, I don't crave the plastic chemical food from convenience stores. I make brownies, instead.

I've been reading Thor Heyerdahl's book, "Aku-Aku" about his archaeological digs and discoveries on Easter Island. Reading about its history almost causes me to wish we could change course and head the extra few hundred miles south to see it. However there are no good anchorages there, and I'm sure it's changed a lot since the book was written. The 10 - 50 ton (up to 40 feet tall) stone statues are still there as well as many secret family caves filled with ancient stone carvings. It's the most archaeologically rich island in the Pacific. Instead, we'll get to hike to some 8 foot tall tikis on Hiva Oa and Nuka Hiva, islands in the Marquises that we do plan to visit.

At this time in our crossing, a hike to see ANYTHING sounds really nice. We're still doing our daily half hour exercise routine but it's nothing compared to swinging my legs up a trail fringed with trees and flowers on the way to a tall waterfall. That's what I'm looking forward to right now!

Today, we put up our cruising spinnaker for the first time. The wind has eased a bit but our kite is holding wind and looking beautiful with it's blue and red diagonals. We only got it wrapped around the forestay once when our position changed course during a mainsail adjustment.

Right about the time we were untangling our spinnaker, Brian looked off the side of the boat and saw two wahoo (a kind of fish) swimming in tandem next to us. They were beautiful but the most striking part about them was their fins. They were light grey next to the body but the outside half of the fins was a fluorescent blue. They were easily cruising and hunting for flying fish alongside Nomad for about 10 minutes. Brian pulled his cedar plug lure up next to them to no avail. I was glad he didn't catch them.

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1 comment:

erin said...

1000 miles is a lot.

Your description of the wahoo is beautiful. plus, now when someone says "wahoo!" I can tell them it's a real word :)