Vita-Wheats and Party Cubes

Land Ho! Close, yet so very far…

That night blurred into morning without sleep to divide the days. By the distance we had remaining, it would be a close race to make it to my destination with overhead sunlight to enter the pass. I revved the engine and felt the hull push through the oncoming waves, it looked as if it would be the usual fight to the finish…

The wind was picking up, simultaneously my hopes sank. The strong trades had not been predicted to set in for another 24 hours!? I was close, so close, but yet so very very far from the safety and comfort of safe anchorage. I put up more sail and drove Swell harder through the wind whipped sea peaks. By 9am I spotted the atoll, and hoped the seas would smooth as I neared the lee. But the wind seemed only to strengthen, making it hard to point to windward and even harder to do anything but quick sail adjustments between wedging myself in the corner with the Da Vinci Code. (I’d never read it and gobbled up 500 pages in 3 days!)

Aside from the meal I’d made when while heaving to, I was doing an experiment to see if I could avoid feeling seasick by eating only very simple food. Turns out that the easiest, most appetizing grub was a box of ‘Vita-Wheat’ crackers and these small squares of cream cheese that you find here. The box read, “Two Free Party Cubes!”. Woooo hoooooooooo! Party! For the entirety of the trip, at the notion of hunger I smeared a ‘Party cube’ on a hardy cracker and voila…my nausea was surprisingly minimal for going upwind…

As I anxiously watched the minutes tick away, I downed the trusty delicacy fret over our timing. We turned the corner of the atoll around 1 pm, leaving another 8 miles upwind just to make the entrance at the pass!

Just before 5pm, Swell approached the atoll’s westernmost pass. I wished the sun be overhead. I wished the tide be slack, but my reality was a quickly ending day and an outgoing tide. I would have given anything to be safely anchored already…

There was no way out off that bouncing sea except shooting that narrow finger between the reef, a seemingly brazen act when you consider your entire home is at stake…but I read and re-read the chartbook aloud, “Favor the eastern side of the pass, taking the small island to starboard.” Swell fought against the current as I revved the engine to 2100rpms. We made slow progress, about 2 knots, gradually pushing our way into the lagoon…

Once inside, another 5.5 miles separated me from that sheltered corner of the reef where I could drop anchor!…I felt dizzy at the thought and dashed below to grab the Vita-wheats and party cubes. Throwing a few back, while straining to watch for unmarked coral heads, I felt some strength and focus return…I could see the masts of a few sailboats in the far distance…

I was SALTY, HOT, STINKY, EXHAUSTED, and HUNGRY…only three Vita-wheats remained!?!…I pressed on…