Log of the Mahina

Book Rating: 4 of 5

Log of the Mahina catalogs John Neals Sailing Journey in 1974.

John sailed: San Francisco -> Hawaii (Hilo) -> Marquesas Islands -> Tahiti -> Southern Cooks (Rarotonga and Aitutaki) -> American Samoa -> Hawaii -> Seattle.

John was 22 years old and caught a bit of wanderlust. He refit a 1968(?) Albin Vega he named Mahina.

One of the notable parts of the story is that Mahina is only 27 feet long and John removed the head (toilet) to make more storage space. For weeks John single handed or sailed Mahina with crew in a rather small space with no operational toilet, crazy.

Log of the Mahina is one part captains log, one part journal. Mostly its Johns notes and thoughts lightly edited. Occasionally a brief log entry is provided by his crew.

John has a bit of a revolving door of crew. Sometimes they seem to be semi-romantic partners. Other times they’re other single men with a bit of a case of wanderlust. The crew often interested me because the boat seems small confined and uncomfortable. Who were these people who were interested in this. In at least one occasion a crew member stops sailing with John after one or two sails because the boat is too rough.

I’m not sure how much the more “free” culture of the 1970’s impacted Johns journey. I feel like he was a bit of a vagabond hippie. Sailing about the pacific on a small boat. But I’m guessing at this, John never really indicates anything about the era in the book.

Johns stories of sailing and navigation are enjoyable. All the Sailboat content I consume these days involve people traveling with GPS. John did the entire journey with a sextant and dead reckoning. His weather reports mostly came via VHF and HAM radio. Its clear he started out a clueless young man. The journey built his knowledge which is a interesting thing to read.

One thing I think would have improved the book is a few more maps. I spent a lot of time looking up locations of the islands he was visiting trying to get a sense for where he was. Lack of maps isn’t a big issue if you’re comfortable reading and googling on your smart phone a bit. It was very interesting to Google the remote and isolated islands he was visiting. I’ve always been interested in the Pacific and this book really feed that interest.

I recommend the Log of the Mahina to anyone who enjoys reading about Sailing or the South Pacific. Its amazing to me that John would go so far in such a small boat I’m hopeful I can have such an exciting adventure someday.