This horse can smell the barn!
Day: 76 Odometer: about 2,429M
Position: N21 45’ W155 24’
Distance from start: 1,977M
Nearest land: Pukaulua Point on Maui 66.2M due 211T
Waikiki Yacht Club by my course: 143M due WSW
ETA: September 10-11
RECORDS as running totals
Solo career total in days at launch: 845 now 921
Overall career total in days at launch: 928 now 1,004
Solo career total in miles at launch: 27,595M now about 30,024M
Overall career total in miles at launch: 31,083M now about 33,512M
==> Ralph Tuijn (NL) leads the last one with 35,635M
Actual distance rowed in miles will append to my existing career totals at launch in solo and overall categories, respectively. To become official, the London based Ocean Rowing Society must adjudicate the supporting GPX files from my chart plotter and YB Tracker.
—-oOo—-
Have you seen the educational content in four languages that the Ocean Recovery Alliance has been sharing about my efforts? The release schedule is ion their website above (note multilingual page buttons).
You can see their articles on a story map. The articles will be pinned on it as I make progress, so please save/share this link: https://arcg.is/1jO4SC0
I am excited to be near land again. The birds are more numerous and active. I am frequently seeing Frigate Birds, Sooty Terns and Shearwaters. Planes heading in and out of the Hawaiian islands are on schedule everyday.
I am close enough to land that I regularly spot pairs of juvenile sooty and its parent calling each other as they fly. The darker colored grey brown juvenile flies lower close to the water constantly calling, the white colored parent with its black masked head, black forked tail and flowing black patterns on top of its wings, has a shorter higher pitch reply. They stay within an ear shot, echoing one another as the parent fishes. The feeding typically happens smoothly mid-air when the parent passes the flying fish right above the mouth of the juvenile. If they are not close enough, the juvenile scrambles for the catch as the fish drops in the air, sometimes fails and picks it up when it meets the water.
A Red Footed Booby has taken residence on my rowboat over the last four days, perching on my spare oars or, if I am on deck, on my rudder assembly at the stern. It leaves to fish then returns to spend the day with me. It flutters down to place its feet accurately on the rim of the rudder cassette (with multiple round trips to the same spot, it is a trained maneuver by now). It immediately takes to preening its feathers and when I stand up from my rowing station, it stares at this taller alien creature with arms instead of wings then returns to its preening. At night it has its head tucked back inside its wings, balancing in its sleep as the boat rolls side to side.
There is the smell of guano in the air most of it wafting from the stern. I must inspect for then wash and scrub away copious amounts of bird poop which takes priority before I can operate freely on the deck; the stern will require a good scrubbing once ashore. Otherwise I like the company of this booby.
Yesterday morning as I exited my cabin, I noticed a good size flying fish on deck. The booby was perched on the windward side of the boat on the shaft of the oars I had tied across my rowing station. It didn’t react when I presented the fish as I strained toward it beyond the safety line with my outstretched arm. Then I slowly passed it within its gaze and tossed it like a dart headfirst into the water a few meters in front of the bird. This must have mimicked a flying fish returning to water after its flight, so the booby immediately beelined from its perch toward it with a couple of wing flaps. It splashed and grabbed the fish at mid length then with a skillful flick of its head and neck, the entire fish went down the bird’s gullet headfirst and disappeared. Breakfast was done!
The water temperature is 79.9F (26.6C) and feels lukewarm to the touch. A whole colony of various tropical fish are under my rowboat pacing in its shadow. They are the short and broad variety; they fan their large top and bottom fins just in front of the tail to move, nothing else moves — the tail must be for steering only. Dorados mix in with them, rubbing and bumping against my hull as the waves push them about, sun reflecting beautiful hues of greens, blues and yellows off their skin — if you ever caught one, they hardly have any scales.
Proper trade wind patterns are returning soon. Over the last ten days it has been convective movements around me producing lines of squalls and unreliable winds. The forecast is for sweeping winds over Molokai then turning SW into the Kaiwi Channel at 10-15 knots. This means there is a possibility that I may be carried through the channel and quickly fall too far from Waikiki. I am now heading west to position the boat to receive those winds. I must hug Koko Head closely to avoid being washed south. Between there and the remaining 11M due west to Waikiki Yacht Club, the lee side of Oahu will shelter me from the NE winds.
The closer I get to Waikiki, the more accurate an ETA that I will suggest, but likely evening time, September 10th. Please keep an eye on my Twitter feed @erdeneruc which is quick for me to post. I will try to more frequent updates here until landfall for specifics.
Erden.