I’m sat on a comfy virgin train headed from Plymouth to Birmingham on a work trip, microwaved cheese and mushroom panini already demolished. There’s a high risk of snow and maybe some small risk of not making it home to London tomorrow night, but right now i’m thinking about other things as the English Channel flies past behind a thin stretch of beach and some small sailing boats at Dawlish. We have a great seafaring heritage on this island and rightly so; from Drake to Chay Blythe the adventurous spirit at sea is a Brit speciality.

 

I wish it were the same for Tokelau. Explorers of the Pacific using speedy double hulled sailing canoes and navigation methods stored in the mind and very light on stuff, the great voyages and adventures are lost in the past of an oral tradition that is itself being lost. We might miss the soggy microwaved food on our canoetokelau voyage, but there will be a lot else to cheer us over the Pacific when we sail!