Author: Pete

Location: 18°28.010S’ 179°05.262W’

Day 3 at sea en route to Fiji.

Last night was a fun game. At around two in the morning we entered Fijian waters marked by a string on low islands running north to south. We were cutting due west through the Oneata Pass, a four mile wide cut between Oneata Island and an unnamed, barely submerged reef. They’re both marked clearly on the charts, but because of our speedy first days we were disconcertingly making the pass in the middle of the night. As usual, it was dark, no moon, heavy cloud cover, and no navigational beacons. The wind was ripping twenty plus knots and we were making seven knots of headway. In our defense, the pass is plenty wide and thousands of feet deep, though it comes up abruptly right at the reefs on either side, so you wouldn’t know things were getting tight based on depth until you were in trouble.

The wind and towing generators screaming, we had plenty of energy to keep the radar lighting up the darkness continuously for several hours as we made our run. I felt like a submarine captain in an old war movie. It was too dark to see anything out of the port windows so my only view of the outside world from my tin can were the glowing chart plotter and sweeping radar screen with its yellow blobs of certain reef death. Charts in this neck of the woods have been known to be off by up to a few miles, so I was constantly checking our theoretical distance from the island with what the radar was showing. I knew I should be drinking diesel fuel coffee and chain smoking unfiltered cigarettes in true sub-captain style, but chips and salsa were the nervous munching item of choice. Snacks made it feel sort of like watching your own bad movie as you’re filming it.

To make the scene more like Das Boot, the seas boomed against the hull, shaking us and making it sound down below deck like depth charges were going off left and right. To make things more authentic, the towing generator kept making that groaning of a metal hull creaking under immense pressure. The situation became dire when we got a call from the engine room that we’d burned through the last jar of salsa. To make matters worse, damage control reported that the rest of the chips had given out. Damn the Tostitos! Full speed ahead!

I got my start in such undersea endeavors building a submarine with my buddy Mike out of the Bentleys’ plastic barrel in the back yard and ‘testing’ it in the neighborhood pool before taking it out for lake trials and ultimately sinking in it. I’m still amazed that we survived any of that nonsense, but it sure came in handy out here tonight.

All fooling aside, we glided right between the two unfriendly, unseen masses, two miles from the Oneata reef and two from the unnamed reef south… I think. A sliver of moon peeked over the horizon just before dawn.   A few hours later, after Miranda had relieved me of my watch, the sun was up and beaming through blue skies.

No further funny business during the day, just a lot of podcasts, opening coconuts on a rolling boat with a machete, and keeping an eye out for islands. The tricky buggers sneak up on you. More from Tayrona to come.