We are nearing Rapa Nui. It is the most eastern part of the Polynesian triangle, and one of the more isolated islands in the Pacific. Its closest neighbor lies 931km to the east, Isla Salas y Gómez, and...
After a few days of calm seas, sunny weather, holiday vibes, sunburns, and very slow progress we were finally met by a strong wind. We were going too slow for manta trawling, and too slow to make...
Crossing paths with a Low Pressure System. Already from yesterday afternoon, we had to shake off the laziness and calm of a flat windless sea and start sailing on the increasing...
The days of the forecasted calms have passed. The subtropical High is being pushed in the area where we find ourselves by a low pressure coming from the west. Isobars look squeezed in the meteorological prediction software,...
A few days ago, I can’t seem to recall which day specifically as I am only now making some time to write about it, but earlier in the trip we stopped the ship! I didn’t know it was possible to do such a thing with...
Pacific colonization and geology. A day of light airs, shifting breeze, and the now quite usual battles with countless passing squalls. Polynesians colonised the Pacific Islands from a starting...
It is late at night, or you may consider it the early hours of the new day. The Europa lays parked in a windless area between rain clouds. Before the wind died, the crew tried to catch every puff of it, bracing back...
The Pacific Ocean. A convergence of many of the stories that shaped society and colonial and economic empires, and which aided the understanding of the world and the development of science. An ocean and an era of discoveries,...
Two or three at the beginning. Then 15 to 20. Now about 50. Growing numbers of the multi-colored plastic bits and pieces were collected in each of the Manta trawls samples. Fishing crates, buckets, buoys,...
Stunning sunrise. Spectacular and dramatic clouds and squalls developing as the sun peeks over the horizon. A day of squalls, a dramatic sight, a phenomenon not just as aesthetic as it can get out at...