The Masteka Log — Day Six · Seven Kilometres of White

The last full day started running.

Dawn patrol

Masteka Training Camp

While the boat slept, Claude and Nick went ashore at first light and turned the Hill Inlet track into a training montage: trail running through the forest, push-ups on the lookout rock, stretching drills on the rail, sprints on sand that squeaks. All of it was filmed. None of it will be forgotten. The cinematic edit is out of post-production: the official training film, cut to the beat of a certain 1982 anthem.

Push-ups on the summit rock. Form: contested.

The rail stretch, with a view most gyms lack.

Sand sprints at dawn. The birds were unimpressed.

Ninety-eight percent pure silica, one hundred percent squeak.

The lookout

Hill Inlet at first light

The reward for the climb: Hill Inlet's swirling sands from the lookout, seven kilometres of white curving away with the fleet at anchor below, and the whole thing to ourselves before the day tour boats arrived.

Panorama of Whitehaven and Hill Inlet from the lookout — Hill Inlet, before the crowds. Worth every early alarm of the trip, of which this was the only one.

Midday

Whitehaven, full blue

By mid-morning the clouds gave up and Whitehaven switched to its postcard settings: full blue sky, blinding sand, and a beach long enough for whatever anyone was planning. What the group was planning, it turned out, was a national sporting event.

The full team selfie on the white sand at Whitehaven — The full team on the sand, one frame before hostilities commenced.

The main event

The Masteka Cup, decided

And then, on the sand at Whitehaven, the Masteka Cup 2026 was settled at last: beach games, sprint finishes, and scenes the stewards are still reviewing. The full record, from the inaugural undecided leg to today's finale, has its own page: The Masteka Cup 2026 →

Scenes from the ceremony. Full record on the Cup page.

The last night

Aloha night

The last night declared itself a theme night: leis for everyone, island shirts of competitive loudness, and piña coladas in the Sky Lounge before cocktails on the aft deck as the sun went down on the final anchorage. The company assembled for the last full-group photographs of the voyage — a dozen people in flowers, backlit by the week’s last sunset. The full portrait session — the couples, the girls, the boys, the company — has a special edition of its own.

The full company in leis at sunset on the aft deck — The company in leis, final sunset. Nobody underdressed.

The women in leis at dusk — The women, garlanded, holding the light.

The men in leis — The men, in shirts that require no further comment.

The ceremony

The Cup, presented in grass

Then the saloon screen lit up — with this log. The Cup page, “Champions declared”, was projected for the company, and a steward of the Cup in a full grass skirt presented the Couples with a cardboard MASTEKA trophy in front of the official record. The log has covered many events this week. This is the first time it has attended one.

The grass-skirt trophy ceremony in front of the projected log — The presentation, before the projected verdict.

The handover, as it happened. Note the ceremonial skirt.

The final dinner

One long table

Dinner was one long table in the saloon, red napkins and leis down its whole length, every face of the twelve in one frame. Afterwards the night did what the nights here do: a full moon through broken cloud, the underwater lights on the wake, and a last quiet round at the bar.

Full moon through clouds — The week’s last moon, making an entrance.

The wake lit at night — Blue water astern, one night left.

Run at dawn, crowned by noon, one night left on the water.