Samoa bound
- labadiemichael
- 3 days ago
- 2 min read
Once we left Bora Bora, more than 1,000 nautical miles of open ocean lay ahead of us. The passage to American Samoa would become our longest crossing since arriving on this side of the Pacific - and likely remain so until we’ll set sail across the Indian Ocean.
Our original plan had been to head for Niue, but unfavorable winds forced us to reconsider. Instead, we decided to turn further north toward American Samoa, a tiny U.S. territory in the heart of the South Pacific.
Unfortunately, this alternative did not reward us with much better sailing conditions: For the first seven of the ten days, there was hardly any wind at all. Not a single day passed without us running the engine. The ocean seemed equally subdued: we caught no fish, saw very little marine life, and encountered only a handful of other boats along the way.
As the days blended into one another and the monotony of the passage settled in, Tony and Felix each found wrote a poem.
Tony’s Poem
The winds! Oh, how they can be ever elusive.
Always just a little further to the north, we say
It’s timid, fleeing ways can be quite abusive.
The cry constantly ringing “tomorrow is the day”
These winds! They go south when we go north!
It is a game of cat and mouse, and we are losing
We proclaim, “to the south, towards the wind we must set forth”
And when we get there, we find the wind snoozing.
The wind! Oh she is a fickle beast
Queen of the seas, never to cease.
Felix’s Poem
Roses are red, the wind is gone,
The sails are flapping, the engine’s on.
We’re stuck in the ocean, floating in place,
Till a nightly squall hits us square in the face.
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