At Sea from the Marquesas to Hawaii, 6/1/2019, National Geographic Orion
Aboard the
National Geographic Orion
French Polynesia & Pacific Islands
National Geographic Orion continues to make good time on our way north on the long passage from the Marquesas to Hawaii. This was an important route for the original Polynesian navigators whose incredible voyages of exploration found and settled these islands a thousand years ago. Following their historic paths is an exciting prospect. And although our experience aboard our luxurious modern ship is utterly different than theirs, we can still reach for some connection to them here in the expansive waters of the Pacific. Today we passed a milestone that was well known to them in their own way of seeing the world of the Equator.
David has worked for Lindblad Expeditions-National Geographic since 1993 on six continents and in over 65 countries. David is interested in many of the natural sciences, particularly ornithology, geology and marine biology; he most enjoys contrasting...
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The last full day at sea found National Geographic Orion only 125 miles from the Big Island. The day was spent with educational lectures from the natural history staff, a clinic on knot tying and time spent on the bow looking for wildlife. As the ship drew nearer to the islands it passed over some hidden sea mounts that often attracts marine life such as sea birds and larger fish. The day ended with one last open ocean sunset.
We awoke again to gorgeous skies and relatively calm seas. Before breakfast, seabirds were swirling around the ship. What is their motivation for being here? Are they lost? And where might they be on their way to? Well, it’s anyone’s guess what they were actually up to, but needless to say that the birds out here were quite a ways from shore. Yet that is not so abnormal. These days at sea we have spent in the realm of the true seabirds. For these sky dwellers, land is merely a place to lay an egg and little else. Today, those of us on the bow saw birds coming and going from all directions. We saw petrels that nest as near as Hawaii and the Marquesas and as far as Chile and New Zealand. What is it they were doing? Likely seeking out food, or travelling to an area more fruitful to their searching. Seabirds are a challenge to photograph and identify, yet something we are all likely to do tomorrow as we inch closer and closer to our final destination of Hawaii.
Day four of our expedition, National Geographic Orion brings us from the Marquesas Islands in French Polynesia to the Big Island of Hawaii. Our small team of explorers kept surprisingly busy with activities on every deck of the ship from early morning to late at night. The energy of our high-spirited team rose in tandem with the warm Pacific sun. Many guests attended stretch class, hit the gym, and bird watched from the ship’s bow. Throughout the day we had fascinating presentations that were well attended, yet many of us also took time over research of our own, expanding our knowledge of the locales of this trip in the ship’s library. With sunny skies and the vast blue ocean at every vantage, it’s hard to stray from admiring our surroundings out here. Sea birds were observed and identified throughout the day, including the likes of masked boobies, black-winged petrels, red-tailed tropicbirds, sooty terns, and wedge-tailed shearwaters. One notable yet unexpected sight was seeing a cargo ship for the first time on our journey to Hawaii, named Forest Symphony and well on its way to Chile. We have seen almost no other boats or ships, making the sighting a rare one. By the end of today, we had already sailed over 1,300 nautical miles; near a quarter of which had been covered on Monday alone. The wind was noticeably stronger in the morning, averaging between 22 and 25 knots from the northeast, then easing off in the afternoon. All day we felt the ship moving beneath our feet with a swell average of 2 to 3 meters. Though there were moments of rain and wind, the ocean water temperature was a comfortable 84 degrees Fahrenheit. We are still in paradise!
