Who Ate the Last of the Cookies?

August 5
Cape Flattery to Kauai
Day 14

Noon PST position: 25.19.96N by 154.19.13W
Miles since last noon: 153
Total miles of passage: 2207 / 340 to Kauai
Avg. Miles per Day: 158
Course: SW
Speed: 6 and 7 knots
Wind: ENE 15 to around 30, strongest overnight
Sky: Tropical Cumulus, wall of squall at sunset, rain, then clear until dawn
Waves: ENE 5-8
Bar: 1016
Air Temperature: 81 degrees
Sea Temperature: 78 degrees

Quintessential trade wind day. Cottony or towering cumulus, powdery blue sky, sapphire waves, wind in the 20s. Tropic Birds, Gadfly Petrels. Flying fish scattering in schools like silvery birds flushed from blue grass.

In late afternoon approached a wall of cloud covering the entire upwind horizon; torn at the top, lead gray below and heavy with possibility, none of it good.

Aha, I thought, here is the leading edge of low-formerly-known-as-Howard (in meteorology, if you lose your virility, people stop calling you by your name).

By dusk it was upon us. Wind went soft. Great war elephants of cloud marched forward dropping their rain in thick columns. Some missed us; some were a direct hit. I closed the hatches, went below and made dinner.

On deck in late evening I saw that the front had passed. Not a cloud. Instead stars to sea-top in all directions. Behind the front, wind filled in to 30 knots and blew like that all night. Thus our pretty good day’s run.

—

Note drop in barometer over last two days from 1020 (noon, 8/3) to 1015 (2pm today). Low-formerly-known-as-Howard has a center of 1013, winds to 30 knots and is traveling west at about 13 miles per hour. Far as I can tell, we will arrive at Kauai at about the same time.

—

Cook: Who ate the last of the cookies?
Purser: The cookies are gone? All gone? I stocked entire truck loads of cookies. Didn’t you ration them?
Cook: Who the hell rations cookies?
Purser: Those who might run out of them, that’s who.
Cook: Well, it’s too late. They’re gone and the crew is pounding the table. Hear?

Luckily, Captain Cranky discovered a bottle of Nutella in his private stock and the cook found a loaf of bread that, amazingly, hadn’t a spot of mold on it. He said it was a miracle, a sure sign of a lucky voyage when the bread didn’t go stale. Captain Cranky made gift of his sole bottle of Nutella “to the health of the crew,” and all were happy.

How quickly our wake is absorbed back into the blue. Not even ten boat lengths and any evidence we were here simply vanishes, the only evidence to begin with being pale foam.

The cookies, it has been discovered, are all gone. Luckily, we have a jar of this!