Kavenga!

I come on watch at just after 4 am, mug of hot milky honey-laced tea in hand. The sea is glassy and we are rolling side to side with the swell, sails taking the brunt and dampening the motion. We are drifting roughly east by southeast. Adjusting to the starlight, I focus forward and try to discern the horizon. There is a light there. And then it is gone in the ground fog. I glance at the AIS and then turn the radar into transmit mode. Nothing. The light reappears. Magnified by binoculars, it appears green and red and white. Are these navigation lights? Or is this a star? Going below I launch an astronomy program on the tablet. Morning stars this day are Sirius under Orion and in the SE - bingo - Canopus. Going back above, I look again in the binoculars and see now that the red and green I saw were not lights of some distant boat but explosions revealed these light years away in brilliant twinkling light.

By this time, Canopus has risen a bit more and has distinguished itself from the horizon and its reflection stretches towards Carina....a starpath of traditional navigation that would lead us to the Ninigo Islands. At this moment, a meteor explodes and a sea bird flutters nearby before disappearing once again into the night. I whisper a wish into the sky.

Canopus is the navigation star in the constellation Carina.

At 8/4/2016 and 19:11 UTC (GMT) our position was: 01°15.64'N / 143°16.17'E.
We were traveling 111T degrees true at 1.3 knots.





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