Amelia Earhart’s final flight disappeared in 1937 somewhere in the Pacific Ocean, between Papua New Guinea and Howland Isle (a small lump of land between Australia and Hawaii). The rational mind would believe the most obvious fate: a plane crash due to human error, somewhere over the sea. Nowhere to stop for fuel on the longest leg of her and navigator Fred Noonan’s attempt to circumnavigate the Earth at the equator, there was little to no room for any course deviations. The speculative begin to create alternate realities to this duo’s disappearance, including landing and living on an atoll near Howland, named Nikumaroro, stocked with rations ditched there in 1929 by a steamer’s crew, or returning to America to grow old out of the spotlight with her mister.
If rationality persists in this tale of mystery and curios, Amelia and Fred spent their last breaths in the Pacific Ocean. Her journeys are described as “ephemeral”, short lived, compared to using her bravado and skills for longevity. However, with the abundance of schools of flying fish that we have seen soaring out of the depths to skirt the air as long as they can hold their breath, this speculative imagination envisions Amelia’s essence having entered these creatures. Their flights are as brief as hers, and she can carry on as a free soul, flanks of scales as glimmering grey as her own eyes once shone.
A few years later, Thor Heyerdahl crossed the Pacific from Peru with five comrades. Their raft would be littered daily with flying fish for the cook to fry up to feed the ravenous crew breakfast (flying fish sounds like frying fish…coincidence?). Kayak is slightly more raised on the water than a balsa wood raft, but we have the occasional piece of possion from Amelia’s spirit land on deck, usually a small and lost scaly creature. Last night, however, we have sailed through a school of these winged flutterers, as Brian collected five or six substantial specimens for his protein-ladenned feast. I shared the smallest fillet and in doing so, became a little bit Amelia. As you know, you are what you eat, and if Amelia is a flying fish, I now share her courageous, passionate and flighty quintessence.
“My brain is just a jellyfish in the ocean of my head” ~String Cheese Incident
A continuous stream of short-lived squalls all day have kept us on our toes, some of them with strong, intense wind, some with downpours. We’ve had to constantly correct our course with shifty winds and currents, making it hard to maintain status quo and flow.
We traded the genoa for the working jib so that we would have the option of reefing it, ready to minimize at a moments notice…winds were howling and the swell was not only tall, the trough between waves was tight and short, meaning one wave would bash us and by the time Kayak had straightened out again another wave would crash over the deck. Tying down the genoa, a twisted mess, to the leeward side of the bow was quite the task, especially with waves trying to consume the bow and impede my work. I tied the wrong know, but it was tight and secure. After dinner and a close chess match, we heard a new tapping clicking noise coming from the V-berth. Checking outside, I saw that the genoa had come loose, most likely from the force of the water that was continuously washing and cascading over the starboard side. Brian sacrificed his dry self to retie it after we turned from the wind to decrease the pull on the ocean on the fabric, fished sections from the surf of the turbulent Pacific.
Amongst this action, we had put two reefs in the mainsail and one in the jib (one section acted to catch waves as they splooshed onto the sail). Bouncing along at 6 ½ – 7 ½ knots, with spray coming over the deck every 6-7waves made this work difficult in the dark. We changed from soggy clothes when we thought the work was complete, checking the course from the cabin and contemplating steady seas and stepping foot on land. Another strange sound came from the bow not too long after the genoa had been retied, the clicking of metal on metal again, but preceded by a wrenching and twisting noise. Brian checked on the bow this time, and discovered vandalism to the boat: the waves were so powerful and had caught hold of the folds in the genoa that had been tied in as tightly as possible the second time around. But instead of splashing off and returning to their oceanic realm, the force ripped the genoa into the water, broke both the top and bottom lifelines (an important feature on the boat, as the name implies), tore the stanchion support for them out and off of its welded steel hold and consumed the post, and lastly bent the starboard side of the bow pulpit to a cocked angle. Shooootz…
Devastating damage, but as we have four days to go, we focused on turning the boat away from the wind once more to gather and move the twisted and soaked sail to the portside, protected from the wash, and again maintained our desired course with the wind and the waves. Harnesses helped and our night was sleepless in anxiety.
@6pm
2° 7 ½’ S
135° 39 ½’ W
Traveled 102 nautical miles
~ 3 ½ – 7 knots / hour
Breakfast: Amelia Earhart
Lunch: Snacks of some sort
Dinner: Pasta salad consumed quickly to continue sailing
Green in the Blue 
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