Michael's latest satellite phone email was sent at 9:25 pm East Coast time last night (Sept. 13).
---------
We are at 33.53 N 152.24 W
Had to start motoring this morning, trying to get North to where the wind is, unfortunately the wind is being generated by a large Gale! Trying to get ahead of it so it does not clobber us, and push us across to the central High.
best
michael
---------
Based on these coordinates, it appears that since leaving Hilo on the night of Sept. 5, Michael and Jackson have sailed 863 miles, nearly all of it north. That calculation, however, assumes they are sailing in a straight line, which I think is probably the case since all they have had from the beginning is easterly winds and, thus, have not had to tack back and forth. Staying with comparisons in earlier posts of how far north they are getting, they have now reached the latitude of Los Angeles. In other words, they are now at roughtly the same latitude as El Encuentro, YWAM's beautiful new sail boat.
Maybe it's the hour (middle of the night) or maybe it's just that I miss Jackson but here, in honor of our beloved voyagers, is a poem. It's written by someone who used to live in Brooklyn, which is where I live, and also spent a fair bit of time on the open seas.
(1819-1892)
In cabin'd ships at sea,
The boundless blue on every side expanding,
With whistling winds and music of the waves, the large imperious waves,
Or some lone bark buoy'd on the dense marine,
Where joyous full of faith, spreading white sails,
She cleaves the ether mid the sparkle and the foam of day, or under
many a star at night,
By sailors young and old haply will I, a reminiscence of the land, be read,
In full rapport at last.
Here are our thoughts, voyagers' thoughts,
Here not the land, firm land, alone appears, may then by them be said,
The sky o'erarches here, we feel the undulating deck beneath our feet,
We feel the long pulsation, ebb and flow of endless motion,
The tones of unseen mystery, the vague and vast suggestions of the
briny world, the liquid-flowing syllables,
The perfume, the faint creaking of the cordage, the melancholy rhythm,
The boundless vista and the horizon far and dim are all here,
And this is ocean's poem.
Here not the land, firm land, alone appears, may then by them be said,
The sky o'erarches here, we feel the undulating deck beneath our feet,
We feel the long pulsation, ebb and flow of endless motion,
The tones of unseen mystery, the vague and vast suggestions of the
briny world, the liquid-flowing syllables,
The perfume, the faint creaking of the cordage, the melancholy rhythm,
The boundless vista and the horizon far and dim are all here,
And this is ocean's poem.
Then falter not O book, fulfil your destiny,
You not a reminiscence of the land alone,
You too as a lone bark cleaving the ether, purpos'd I know not
whither, yet ever full of faith,
Consort to every ship that sails, sail you!
Bear forth to them folded my love, (dear mariners, for you I fold it
here in every leaf;)
Speed on my book! spread your white sails my little bark athwart the
imperious waves,
Chant on, sail on, bear o'er the boundless blue from me to every sea,
This song for mariners and all their ships.
You not a reminiscence of the land alone,
You too as a lone bark cleaving the ether, purpos'd I know not
whither, yet ever full of faith,
Consort to every ship that sails, sail you!
Bear forth to them folded my love, (dear mariners, for you I fold it
here in every leaf;)
Speed on my book! spread your white sails my little bark athwart the
imperious waves,
Chant on, sail on, bear o'er the boundless blue from me to every sea,
This song for mariners and all their ships.
