Rolling Down, From Rio

Standing a mile off the dark Coromandel Coast, you could smell the fires in the southwesterly breeze. Ahead, Great Barrier Island slowly grew bigger in the moonlight. All was quiet, just the chuckle of water, and a rhythmic creak from the rigging. Not a light, no sign of life, just the sweet smell of a burning Manuka, coming off the coast.
"It was just like this", I thought, "it was just like this."

With just running sails set during the night, Endeavour was trimmed with a bit of weather helm; any sudden gusts, and she would safely head up into the wind and spill the wind from her sails. It makes for heavier work, the wheel is basically a winch, pulling the tiller over with a heavy ropes. It could have weighed a ton for all I cared; nobody was going to get me off it.

In the early afternoon we had sailed from Tauranga, in the replica Endeavour, on a section of the millennium voyage. It was to be an amazing experience.
I have always been a Captain Cook fan. He was such a brilliant seaman, and manager of men.

So Pirate Day it may be, but I would sooner be making landfall in unknown seas, where a nail would buy you a Polynesian maiden, where you saw strange and wondrous things, and you made history.

Still, I am a lucky man. The sudden smell of a cooking fire; and there I am, the dark coast, the wheel kicking in my hands.