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To Our Readers
CROSSING the Pacific from Seattle to Honolulu in a 37-foot sailboat took us 27 days in June 1989. There were four of us aboard and we stood two-hour watches night and day around the clock -- two hours steering and six hours sleeping, eating, cooking, making repairs or just goofing off. The schedule took some getting used to -- especially when it meant getting up out of a warm bunk to wrestle with a flapping sail -- but it was an immensely valuable experience. The night sky,
a lost treasureDaytime watches were interesting enough, but the overnight shifts at the wheel remain freshest in my mind a decade later. It wasn't the ocean or the wind I remember, but the sky.
At sea in a small boat, the ocean is a surprisingly small place. On a flat calm day, you can only see a few miles in each direction. When things kick up, the horizon moves even closer. The night sky, on the other hand, is vast and infinite. When it's clear, a limitless hemisphere crammed with moon, planets and galaxies spins above, making it inexpressibly clear how insignificant we mortals are.
Our passage took one day less than a lunar month. I'd learned the basics of astronomy in science class and at the planetarium, but after a month of solitary overnight watches, the workings of the heavens made sense at a different level. I'm no Mau Piailug, but I began to understand how a master navigator might find his way just by watching the sky and waves and looking for signs.
Modern life excludes the nighttime sky. Streetlights, floodlights, hardtops, roofs, houses, TV, regular hours and indoor jobs have made us strangers to its workings. We all went outside to look at Hale-Bopp, the Great Comet of 1997, but only because it was incredibly bright, convenient and unmistakable -- the celestial equivalent of microwave popcorn.
This is the season to think about magi and shepherds following a star 2,000 years ago, when people were more aware of the night sky, its portents and possibilities. Today, we leave it to NASA. It's our loss.
John Flanagan is editor and publisher of the Star-Bulletin.
To reach him call 525-8612, fax to 523-8509, send
e-mail to publisher@starbulletin.com or write to
P.O. Box 3080, Honolulu, Hawaii 96802.