Hokule'a and Alingano Maisu and escort boat Kama Hele tacked without gaining ground through most of Monday, but appeared to be making some headway on a starboard tack through the first half of Tuesday. The ability to make progress may be associated with the reduced size of the northwest swell that had been plaguing the canoes, and its shifting from northwesterly to northerly, according to messages from the boats.

The canoes delayed their departure in part to avoid bad weather, but recognized that once they were at sea, they would have to deal with what came.

Crew member Ka'iulani Murphy, in an e-mail today, said that message has come home.

"We have experienced a good lesson in deep sea voyaging with the weather we have been in. Before you leave, you plan around meteorological models, but out here, it's a matter of what you truly have to deal with. It is a good reminder and process in being prepared for everything," she wrote.

But there are spirit-lifting features about the open sea, and among them the seabirds. A few days ago, a line of 'a boobies perched at the stern of Hokule'a, and Murphy said crew members saw a koa'e kea or white-tailed tropicbird, and another 'a.

Murphy said the crew members have been practicing a song written for the canoe Alingano Maisu, and that crew member Attwood "Maka" Makanani was teaching members Palani Wright and Kaleo Wong to play guitar.

Escort boat Kama Hele's captain, Mike Taylor, reported that large swells and the canoes maintaining more distance from each other has made it difficult for the canoes to keep track of each other at night with just their navigational lights. Capt. Shorty Bertelmann on Maisu turned on a light at the top of the canoe's mast, which made it easier to spot the vessel.

"An unremarkable but good safe night of sailing," Taylor said of Monday night and Tuesday morning.

The canoes for three days have been about midway between the Big Island and Johnston Atoll, the tiny island they hope to spot to confirm their positions. Both canoes are sailing by traditional non-instrument methods.

Murphy said that the canoes sailed Monday night and Tuesday morning on a southerly course, part of the night hema or dead south and part of the night haka malanai, or south-southeast. The terms are taken from the Hawaiian star compass developed by non-instrument navigator Nainoa Thompson.

She said the moon is an important feature of navigating by non-instrument means. The moon was to rise Tuesday between the constellations of Gemini and Cancer.