The moment of arrival — looking toward the horizon and seeing the shape of land — is, in the accounts of ocean voyages, among the most described experiences in maritime literature. After days or weeks of open water, the first sight of land produces a specific psychological response: a sudden transition from the uniformity of the ocean horizon to the particular shape of a coast, a mountain, an island.
For Ashcraft, the first appearance she mistook for Hawaii — the cloud formation that looked like an island — produced the kind of crushing disappointment that only makes sense in the context of 38 or 39 days of hoping to see exactly that. The ocean, particularly in the tropics, produces cloud formations that form over islands and can be mistaken for the islands themselves at distance. This is a known phenomenon; Pacific navigators have always had to distinguish between the cloud caps that form over high islands and the islands themselves.
The error was temporary but significant. Having prepared herself for arrival, having allowed the anticipation to become concrete, and then finding it was a cloud: this is a specific kind of psychological blow that arrives on top of everything else.
When she saw the actual islands — when the shape on the horizon remained the shape on the horizon as she approached, did not dissolve or move as a cloud would — the confirmation came gradually. Each hour brought her closer; the outline became more distinct; the specific features of the Big Island’s volcanic topography emerged from the distance. She was going to make it.