We entered the Anjur Passage five days ago, 87 days out of Sanre-tay orbit. The twisting passage is marked by a string of fifty-seven buoys. We needed to make frequent, subtle, but timely alterations in our course throughout the passage using our balancing rockets rather than the less powerful steering rockets. Using the array of eight balancing rockets to make course corrections is demanding and delicate work for both the pilot and the lookout who has to locate and chart the position of each buoy through the static and haze created by our passage through the dust and gas of the drift. It took us five days to thread our way through the Anjur narrows. There's always an element of danger in space travel, and traversing the Anjur passage certainly upped that danger level a notch or two, but it would be an exaggeration to call it dangerous. It just felt like it to this poor captain...
We passed two more ships in the passage, the last ships we'd likely come across until Zilantre, since we'd soon be leaving the Azminn – Aticor space lane to sail directly to Zilantre through the 40 au gap between the Helgot and Myzar Drifts. Still, we were farther away from Sanre-tay than we were from Zilantre, and after the timelessness of our passage to Anjur, we now began to look ahead.
Today, after clearing the last buoy, we moved the Ghost from the boat deck to hold no. 2 in order to free space on the boat deck for the three-drone davit the engineering staff was building. The two newest ones are now ready to deploy, and we may soon send all three ahead, just to get some experience in managing two or three drones at once.