06(A) December 2012; At sea.

Today we had the first of the two 06 Decembers, in order to get back on the Western Hemisphere Calendar. We had to lose a day to get in tune with Fanning Island and now we have to double a day to get back in tune with the rest of the world.  E.g. the rest of the world which we will visit during this cruise.  Jumping a day is much more painless than an hour forward as you really do not notice it. Everything remains the same, only the daily program has a different date on it and the folks at home might get confused as you talk about Wednesday and they still live on Tuesday. You can also see it on my blog, just look at the date number in the grey block. I upload my blog everyday at the same time, and the day numbering has gone completely haywire.  Who says cruising is boring??

After our disappointment yesterday, we had a glorious day at sea today. Plus I had a surprise in store, a surprise that now worked out because we left Fanning Island 5 hours early. Fairly close to our track line between Fanning and Bora Bora, lays Starbucks Island.  We should have passed that during the night on our normal schedule.

This is what the island looks like according to NASA.

Now we were passing by around 1700 hrs. Thus a temptation I could not resist, a little deviation and I could show the Statendam guests where Starbucks Coffee was really made……… visions of a large coffee machine sitting on the edge of a Latte Lake came to mind…………………..

There is not much to see on Starbuck Island (it is written without the s) but the special thing about it is that nobody ever sees it, except some Eco-Warriors who go there to check on the Bird population. I would not be amazed if we were the first cruise ship ever to cast eyes on the island.

This is what it looked like when there people there.

So I planned a sail by. I do not want to conjure up Costa Concordia images so let me explain how we do this. We prepare and we set margins, margins we do not change and the sail by is executed by the officer of the watch and the whole process is monitored by the captain to see if the margins are being kept.

 Those margins come from the Sailing Directions, the accumulated wisdom of sailors for hundreds of years.  The sailing directions say that 4 cables (4/10^th. of a nautical mile) offshore it is all deep water. Thus if you stay a mile off, you are already in very deep water. Double the distance to two miles and you are in water of 2,500 feet and still have a very good view of the island. Courses are accordingly entered in the navigation computer, the bridge team setup,  1 qm for steering, 1 qm for look out, OOW for conning, AOW for logging and telephones and the captain sitting in his chair for overview (and NO, I was not drinking Starbucks coffee, as I do not drink coffee at all, Green tea only). We are then on Red manning status and prepared for any eventuality.  With a setup like this, you can do any sail by safely, and so it should be, as we are still a cruise ship where guests come to see the sights.

What it looked like when we sailed by at a 2 mile distance (Photo courtesy Mrs. Liz Mauk)

Starbuck Island was discovered by the first westerner in 1823, Captain Valentine Starbuck of the whaling ship the L’Aigle. It was taken over in 1860 by the English and later on they started digging for guano there.  That came to an end after 1900 and since then the island is un-inhabited. There are still some ruins from those guano days and during the last 100 years some palm trees have started to grow on the island. You can get ashore there, as there is gap in the reef, but you have to wait for a day that the swell is low, otherwise your boat will be turned upside down by the surf. 

A nasty surf running over the reef. (Photo courtesy Mrs. Liz Mauk)

We sailed by at 17.15 for a perfect view as we had the sun behind us, so it shone over the island, which reflected itself as a bright white line in a world of blue.

 My navigators were conjuring up visions of a beautiful lady standing in the surf, waving her last piece of clothing and waiting to be rescued by a handsome sailor. ………… She was not there…………big disappointment.

The island is roughly 5 miles long and 2 miles wide and the highest point is 15 feet above water (not counting the Palm trees) so on a small yacht, or in very rough weather you can hardly see it. Hence the Sailing Directions also mention that on a regular basis a ship comes by to check if any new wrecks have accumulated on the reef.  (It is not clear where that ship comes from, or who it belongs to)

Tomorrow we have 6(B) December and another beautiful day at sea. I am looking to see if I can arrive a little earlier than planned so the guests have more time ashore in Bora Bora.

Starbuck Island is about as far away from civilization as you can be.