Schedules and airline tickets on boats
06 July 2023 | 17 degrees, 30 minutes south; 152 degrees, 58 minutes south
Eric
Thereâs an old saying that the most dangerous things on a boat are
airline tickets and calendars. So far on this trip, Rover has made it to
all the designated crew hand-off places on time, while 60% of the
arriving crew have been delayed for reasons beyond their control. Most
of the delays have been airline related. Another old saying is: Time to
spare, go by air. Since the voyage is a lot of successive legs with crew
flying in and out, I have had to juggle itineraries. Some slack was
built into the schedule, but it looks like weâll have to skip a country
on this leg in order to honor some departing and arriving airline
tickets in Tonga. Weâll need to skip Niue, and come back another time,
perhaps by air.
Weâre underway for the town of Avatiu on the island of Rarotonga of the
country of Cook Islands. Weâre about a hundred miles into a 500-mile
passage, in the middle of the deep blue ocean. We havenât seen land for
24 hours, nor any boats. Our only company outside the boat is some
seabirds that occasionally visit, some flying fish we glimpse and the
phosphorescent animals that show up in our wake at night. Weâre cruising
at about four knots, under staysâl and reefed main, with pretty large
seas. Weâre going slow because all the crew (except the captain)
suffered from seasickness yesterday, and could use gentler motion and
some rest today. Also, navigational calculations show that if we went
faster, weâd arrive in Cook Islands on a Sunday and customs and
immigration would either be unavailable or very expensive. Another
example of the impact of the calendar on a voyage and the impact of
missionaries on Polynesian lifestyles.
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