Day 4

Position at 9:30 am Hawaii time, tues may 15: 23 degrees 34 minutes North, 154 degrees 13 minutes West

It's been an eventful first few days at sea. Luckily my seasickness passed after the first day. Probably because there have been no *seas* to speak of. We've had very calm weather - in fact, not even enough wind for sailing at times. Our progress has been slow, but it feels good to break into this trip slowly without getting tossed about. It seems the calmest we've ever seen the Pacific Ocean! The first full night out, we motored a bunch, then second night, after noticing an accumulation of water in the bilge, Tim found a hole in the salt water exhaust pipe cooling the engine. To repair it he used JB weld and epoxy and fiberglass cloth and magic tape - thank goodness we had some JB weld onboard! The first repair held but then he noticed a second hole which required fixing… all in all he was at it from about 5 to 11 pm. Fortunately it was super calm so we were glad to have caught this corrosion now when it was easier to fix than if we were in big seas. We have been motoring on and off since and the repairs have held up nicely. But then last night after shutting down to check the oil, etc, the engine wouldn't start! Panic! Thank goodness we quickly realized the engine stop cord had been left pulled out, so once it was pushed in, the engine started right up.

Well, now our challenge will deciding how much more to use the engine when the winds are light. We will want to conserve fuel to use at the most opportune times. We started with just under 100 gallons, which gives us about 200 hours of motoring time. So far we've already used maybe 13 gallons, deciding to take advantage of the opportunity to motor east as much as possible while winds were too light to move us with just the sails. As Tim puts it, we will have to be sailors as much as possible from here on out. Sailing in light wind is a definite skill, especially in a boat as heavy as ours! We've been playing with the spinnaker and our mizzen staysail, and I'm sure we'll get more practice today. We expect the winds to fill in from the east in a day or so and we'll be heading north then, hoping for a smooth crossing.

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1 day out

Just wanted to put out the word that we have actually left.... Motored out of the marina about 4pm on Friday, anchored in Waikiki to scrub the bottom of the boat, had dinner and a nap, saw the friday night fireworks show to send us off, and now it's 5AM on Sunday and we're at 22 degrees 51 minutes North, 157 degrees 49 minutes west. Anyone that wants to keep track of our position can always check the Pacific Seafarer's net online (i think it's at www.pacseanet.com), and look at the Current Roll Call. My call sign is KF7OHO; I'm one of the last boats on the list. I check in every night, but I'm not sure they're that current at posting positions every day...

So far all's well, very light winds though. Hoping to get enough wind to keep us moving today, we only were doing 2-3 knots last night, too slow for our liking, so we've turned on the engine to put us along a bit this morning.

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And we're off again!

It’s been nearly a month since we sailed back into Honolulu.  And a very busy month for sure!  Since we had come back and decided not to head back out until the weather (specifically, the Pacific high pressure system) stabilized later in May/June, I took the opportunity to book a ticket to the mainland to go to my niece Katya’s bat mitzvah.  I now think this might have been the real reason why we had to turn around!  I had been bummed about not being able to attend this momentous occasion with my family.  It turned out to be such a lovely experience – a real treat to be able to share this event with my niece and to have a visit with my family (including my sister’s mother in-law from Bolivia) – it’d been over a year since I’d seen my nieces!  I also took the opportunity to stop over in Seattle on my way back to Hawaii to take care of some Doctor appointments, and the timing happened to coincide with my honorary niece Maggie’s 10^th birthday party.  It was a sleepover with 11 girls – I’ve never heard so much giggling or screaming!  Suffice it to say, I had a great time on the mainland, catching up with friends and family.

Me with my nieces Katya and Jennifer

Me with my *nieces* (they call me aunty!) Maggie & Kate

Now, after being back in Hawaii for a bit over a week, we are seeing a good weather window for our departure.  If the forecast holds, we’ll let you know when we are at sea!  While I was on the mainland, Tim spent his time fixing up the boat further.  We added Radar to our new boat equipment.  Tim was up on the mast for better part of a morning, but he got it up and running in one day!  It’s going to be a huge relief in case we end up on the foggy California coast.  It’ll also be helpful for avoiding other vessels and even understanding squally weather we may be approaching.  We’re pretty psyched to have this new tool!

Timmy up on the mizzen mast, installing the radar

We also made some real lee cloths (tarps for the side of the cockpit), and a tarp to cover the gap between our dodger and bimini.  On our previous passage, Tim had gone to extraordinary measures to try to keep the sea from invading the cockpit – using all means of spare canvas, and cushions, and fenders.  And Tim has been working tirelessly to re-bed hatches to fix the leaky leaks, and to generally tighten up ship (screwing down floorboards, checking over the engine, adding weather stripping to the anchor and propane lockers on deck, etc.) , always good to do when you are heading offshore.

Block that wave!  No water allowed in our cockpit!

So, if it still loooks good, we may be heading out very soon.  We'll be posting blogs underway, and look forward to getting back to Mexico, althought it does feel like we're leaving paradise here in Hawaii.

Back Safe in Hawaii!

Deja vu - waking up at the dock again this morning. We're back the same slip at Kewalo Basin in Honolulu. Great sail back, a bit tricky identifying the channel markers at night against the backdrop of the city lights but then our friend Skip was here to catch our lines and welcome us. It feels right and good being back. More later...
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About Face -- Back to Hawaii we come

It's been an interesting trip... Maybe we're just finally tuning into our intuition that it wasn't the right time to go, maybe the boat isn't as ready as we thought (several annoying leaky hatches -- not serious safety issues, but also not making things easier), maybe the weather didn't cooperate as much as we'd hoped. Whatever the reason, we decided yesterday to do an about face and head back for Hawaii.

After a two days of nice sailing (despite my feeling seasick), on Friday (first night of Passover) I was seasick and went down for a nap early afternoon. We were headed along with nice Easterly breeze, but seas were growing. By the time I got up a few hours later, we were already pounding into it with seas up to 8 feet and the winds turning more on the nose. Needless to say, we decided to skip an at-sea Passover seder this year. After my check-in on the Pacific Seafarers net at 6pm, we were really uncomfortable, and things were banging around and Tim was studying the growing confused seas and dark clouds as darkness set in. We decided that the best thing to do was to hove-to for the night. The weather picture looked good if we could continue North for another day or so, but we just didn't feel comfortably continuing through the night given the conditions. So we hove-to (meaning we set the sails and rudder to keep the boat pretty much stationary, with the seas just passing calmly under us -- for the most part). And it immediately felt good not to have the seas pounding over the bow, and washing down the deck into the cockpit. It's amazing the fixes Tim had already come up with to keep the cockpit dry! We decided to sleep through the night and make a decision after checking weather again in the AM. Which we did, and have been heading back south ever since... smooth sailing when we're going with the seas! We should be back to Oahu on Tuesday.
Happy Easter everybody!

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Day 2

Just a quick check in. About 30 hours out and we're at 24 degrees 00 min north, 156 deg 39 min west. Things have been smooth so far, except some small leaks on our port side, but hopefully nothing serious. Just took a look at the weather and everything looks good. Leaving Honolulu at 4am yesterday, we motored around Diamond Head & up to Koko head crater with the full main, then the wind filled in and we got up the staysail, jib and mizzen. We've had good winds and been making good time (average 6.5 knots so far).

All's well, except dealing with the fatigue - but we're trying out a new watch schedule (4 hours each instead of 3 hours) so we each got a few hours solid sleep last night. I was seasick much of the day, but seem to be feeling much better today, let's hope that lasts!

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Leaving Hawaii

After a few weeks here on Oahu, we've got what looks like a good weather window to head offshore for Mexico.  Depending on the winds, we'll either land somewhere in California or head directly for Mexico.  I've sent an email already to most people receiveing the blog, but wanted to post that we're currently anchored in Waikiki (left our safe little dock slip in Kewalo Basin) and as soon as we're done cleaning the bottom of the boat and getting the anchor stowed, we'll be underway!

It's hard to leave Hawaii - it's such a great place.  And we'll especially miss our family (THANKS FOR EVERYTHING KEV - WE LOVE YOU!), and our friends here.  But, I guess this is the weather we've been hoping for, so it's time to set sail!

We'll be checking in on the Pacific Seafarers net daily, so you can check our position on their website at pacseanet.com under the current roll call or http://www.pangolin.co.nz/yotreps/pacseanet.php.  We're the call sign KF7OHO.  I'll also post blogs once in a while :-)  Ok, gotta go get in the beautiful water and help Tim clean the bottom - we miss already our friends on Scotch Power II who were here to help us last time!