Galley Reflections

Author:

The sea is calm tonight. The tide is full, the wind lies fair. Steady constellations are illuminated from the dark night. Nikumaroro looks like the island paradise that as a girl I dreamed of living on. Uninhabited, a place all your own, to live with nature and create the world you want. Books about this life used to fascinate me. Island of the Blue Dolphins, The Hatchet, Swiss Family Robinson. A person or a family marooned and learning how to live with what they have, doing everything for themselves.

The boat is certainly equipped to support us as a community for a long time. We have enough food onboard to feast for many more weeks. It would get a little weird after a month more or so – canned bamboo shoots and hoisin sauce, maybe I’d get a chance to cook a coconut crab or a seabird – but we could stay at sea for a long time. It feels like we could stay out here forever. None of the chains of social media choke us out here. No daily
emails, back and forth texting, facebook comparisons. Instead we have the sunset appreciation club, crafting on the quarterdeck, daily meals and the camaraderie of sharing space with other humans in this home with a heartbeat.

This is a very special place that we have journeyed to. Thank you to whoever is reading this for the support you have given to your sailor that brought them out here.

-Lauren