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!