Feb. 18, 2000; 13 days since departure--Into Northern Waters

Source: Sam Low

At 4 p.m yesterday, by Nainoa's reckoning,we crossed the equator after a day of sailing under mostly clear skies. At sunset,we pass under a line of tattered clouds--dark bellied and full of wind. We ease the main and mizzen sheets and changed down to a smaller jib. All around us the sea is dark and cold-looking but we are buoyed by the canoe's increase in speed.

After dinner, looking east, Bruce says "the sky is clearing" and sure enough in a few hours the clouds dissipate. The moon shines through--a few days from full and now rising to starboard (she was on the port side and setting at sunset when we began the voyage).

"What's the speed Chad?" Nainoa asks. Chad crawls up on the navigator's platform with a spotlight to track bubbles of foam passing along Hokule'a's port hull. He counts the seconds, converts time to speed, and announces "five knots." We trim our sails and change to a larger jib and increase speed to six knots.

We watch the stars rise to starboard. Breaking the horizon, they now rise straight up rather than arching--a sign that we are on the equator, "We are close to the Northern waters, " Nainoa says. "I feel it. This canoe is going to go."

Nainoa , Bruce and Chad have now adjusted our reference course to match the existing wind and sea conditions. At 4 p.m. yesterday, as we crossed the equator, Nainoa began our new course line at 0 degrees latitude and 156 miles to the west of our previous course line (which had already been adjusted 25 miles west to depart Tikihau instead of Rangiroa). The new line heads Akau (north) until we reach end 9 degrees north latitude (the end of the intertropical convergence zone), then heads Haka Ko'olau(1 house west of north) to a point 20 degrees, 30 minutes N latitude and sixty miles east of Kumukahi and 100 miles east of South Point.

Yesterday's mild evening did not last. In a pattern that has repeated itself for the past 3 or 4 days,a squall factory to the east of us opened for business--churning together remnants of clouds, cold dense air and stored energy to send dark swirls of wind and rain down the horizon toward us. The two evening watches endured rain and gusting winds--brailing up the sails many times to let the squalls pass.

Today at noon the sky dome is filled with sun and brisk 15 knot winds. We steer north at 6 knots, following a new and challenging path toward home.

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