Explore "The Island of Desire" by Robert Dean Frisbie on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Araipu's flat-bottomed boat is eighteen feet long, five wide, and has three ironshod keels, which enables it to sail into the wind after a fashion. I have rigged it with a sliding-gunter sail. Yesterday evening I bundled the household gear, the woman, Pati, Tili, and Maloku's two-year-old daughter Rachel into the boat, locked the trading station, and set sail for Frigate Bird Islet with a fresh beam wind. We were bound for the new house Leeward Village has built for us on Puipui Point, there to await Desire's parturition.
The sun set about the time we were abeam Utupoa Point, but there was a full moon which would light us across the lagoon, and we had Pati in the bows to con us through the reefs, crying, "Upwind, the coral head!" or "Down-wind, the long reef!" as cheerfully as any homeward-bound sailor. When we were out of the bay the wind shifted slowly ahead, but this did not trouble us, for by now the moon was a big yellow lantern hanging from our masthead, lighting the lagoon as we plunk-plunked on the port tack and plunk-plunked on the starboard tack.