Dune I

Attitudes

Aloha e, Chris here, checking in from about 3°29N 173°18E

Four nights ago I was looking back at the faint glow of Majuro Atoll. The three luminous town lights sat like a glowworm on the horizon. What lay sinking below that sea line, was a small group of people living on a gazzilion coral fragments a couple feet above sea level. The sunsets flickered through the rogue coconut groves like a thin old curtain. To them, that was a sufficient home. We got to sail with one of Papa Mau Pialug’s descendants on their traditional KorKor. To feel that brilliantly designed craft slicing through the water with such speed and lightness was nonetheless a travel through time. We were effortlessly making around 8 knots. The hull constructed out of marine ply, with Kamani ‘iako and an Ulu ama (Kala mai, using inoa Hawaiʻi because I didn’t get the Marshallese spelling). Tony, one of Mau’s grand nephews told me how they submerse the Ulu wood in water, long enough for the natural oils to secure into the wood. It was a daydream come true to feel firsthand a canoe I've been studying in books for years. The asymmetrical hull, the reversible sail, sap caulking, adze shaped v bottom… all such brilliant engineering. 

Just outside the canoe house, a Walap was being made, inspiring to say the least as I recognized many elements adapted in our ‘Aʻā. Before the ships came to deliver foreign food, these canoes were once the lifeline to the Micronesian and Marshallese people. From them, was adapted all the pacific island navigation arts we know in Hawaiʻi.

Since then we have been averaging a slow course over ground. Being at the will of headwind and westward current, this was something we all expected - a challenging route for a Catamaran. Regardless, life aboard SV Catnip has been going quite easily under the lead of captain Sienna. Fortunate for the nighttime squalls giving us a practice in reefing and the thrilling reminder of adventure. 

Alex and Sienna on squall patrol.

The joys of voyaging are always in little treasures. For me, it has been opening my daily coconut (I collected as many as I could in Majuro), laying out in the rain, measuring stars and reading Dune. The brilliantly written novel has been keeping my imagination alive and well. I highly recommend watching the two movies that have been released. While crossing the open ocean and talking about renewable energy with uncle Dwight (who is a water and energy conservationist by trade) it feels like I am living in a parallel universe with the fabled Fremen desert nomads. In the arid planet of Arrakis, single drops of water control all decisions of life, death, law and ritual. But the melange spice is the war on flesh and spirit. Here on earth, water and resources are much the same.

“It is said in the desert that possession of water in great amount can inflict a man with fatal carelessness”

-Liet Kynes. Dune p.166

In terms of celestial navigation study, I've observed the top stars of NaHiku (5° apart) crossing the meridian at the same height that the Pole star sat above the horizon - 5°N latitude . A few days later, PuanaKau and ‘Ekekeukolokolo mutually setting in the west marking our passing into the 3°N latitude range simultaneously observing the north star now 3° in altitude. My night watch beginning at 1Am, is when the great fishhook handle (Manaiakalani) is almost reaching its zenith, our preferred course is a little to the left of it, SSE. In a few days the fishhook should be “pulling” the Kiribati atolls from the sea. The sinking islands. These themes were hinted at in the Disney movie Moana. Arcturus is also a good reminder of our heading as it’s rising azimuth is 70° - keeping on course is keeping it in view between the winch and the cockpit window. Looking aft, rises the little dipper as described in Dune, Muad’dib, the small desert mouse leading the way.

“Greatness is a transitory experience. It is never consistent. It depends in part on the myth making imagination of humankind.”

- From “Collected sayings of Muad’dib” by the princess Irulan. Dune p.161

-Chris