We're anchored in an atoll called Raroia, which is a long oval thing. One pass on the Northwest side, the rest a bunch of sections of reef with many motus, small islets in some cases, rather long land masses in some places. The village is to the Southwest of the pass, located on one of the long sections, and there's also an airport on that bit of land, long enough for an ATR-72 to conduct terminal operations. The commercial airport means there is a firetruck, and trained emergency personnel. Power for the village is provided by a combination of a diesel generator and solar panels wired to battery banks.
Tonight at 0200 local time there's no moon above the horizon. According to my old friend Chevy, now just dust in the wind, one of the features of being and older guy is needing to get up in the night to use the bathroom. Given the squalls we've endured the last few days and the fact the wind is moving around the clock, it's good to have a look around anyway at various times of the night, verifying that the anchor is still secure. We use our AIS as an anchor alarm, and it continuously plots our position relative to the anchor. We've been painting quite a nice arc around the anchor point. We may have a full circle before the current weather disturbance moves through.
As I did my nightly (ahem) safety check I noticed how clear the sky is, how bright the stars are, and darned if there wasn't something really odd just a little South of East. Not a constellation I'm familiar with - fumbling around I find Isabels iPhone and turn on the Skyview app, do a quick calibration and voila! Jupiter, Mars and Saturn all nicely lined up a bit above the horizon. Darned if the International Space Station (ISS) hasn't just gone below the horizon. I think back to one of the times our pal Alvin was up there on that thing and we were emailing back and forth. He didn't see me moon him from our hot tub, but it was pretty bright in Phoenix that night, tough to pick me out of the clutter. Alvin has had a pretty interesting life and is still kicking high. At one time Chevy was Alvin's boss, and Chevy had a good life too. It's a shame his candle blew out early.
They turn the lights off at night in the village. There are one or two additional inhabited motus on the atoll where a few individuals farm pearls. It's dark out there. With no moon and no light polution the view is spectacular, and as we've only been in the Southern hemisphere for less than a year there are always new constellations to identify. It is satisfying to find the Southern Cross and perhaps hum a few bars to the song.
It's a big sky out there. We're a tiny boat. I can see the anchor lights of the other five boats we know about in the atoll, one close, the rest miles to the North. Ain't nobody but us chickens out here.
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