Hilo-Oahu

17 December 2008

It was a morning of low cloud, drizzle, and little wind. Arnold downloaded a GRIB file that indicated better winds the following day, so we decided to postpone our departure. The postponement suited me fine because there were a few things that I wanted to do before we lifted our anchor.

The first thing I did was to gain access to the stern gland coupling and squirt 8 shots of grease into the packing via the grease nipple. This had not been done since Tahiti. At about 11 AM Arnold and I went ashore. The plan was for him to get some lunch at the local shop then return to the boat while I caught the bus to the shopping center. Unfortunately the free bus service shuts down for lunch and I had to wait two hours for the next bus to arrive at 1.25 PM. So I had lunch too and spent my time reading a newspaper that Arnold left me. The enforced wait had benefits: I was able to sit on a bench in front of the shop and observe the comings and goings of the locals.

I made it to the shopping center and got a shock at how the phone cards operate. For $5.00 I got a card good for 720 minutes. (WOW!). When I dialed Australia a voice message told me that I had 240 minutes of talk time. That was still good. After my 10-minute call I had about 120 minutes left. (Huh?) I then made another call and was cut off less than 15 minutes into the conversation for lack of funds. I went back into the shop and purchased two more $5.00 720-minute cards to guarantee me two phone conversations that I wanted to have with people in Australia. This activity took time and I was left with only 40 minutes for a quickie trip to the grocery store (onions, olive oil, beer, muesli bars, etc) and managed to get back just in time for the last bus of the day.

Just before nightfall I rowed over to “Sugarcane” to drop some information that I had promised to give to Heather, one of the crew, and when I knocked on the hull Jerry came out. I told him how happy I was to find someone on board, explained about the information, and asked him if he was also going on the extended cruise. Yes, indeed. In fact he was the owner and Heather and the younger very competent fellow were non-paid crew. The next thing I knew I was on board having an ice cold German beer out of an ice bucket. Jerry hails from Atlanta, Georgia and appears to be good, solid, and reliable man. His boat is large and beautifully equipped, with “two of everything”. He said that they have an ice maker that produces of 25 libs of ice every morning if I remember correctly. Anyway, after exchanging some of our experiences and picking up fishing tips from him,l a wildly successful fisherman, I departed for Pachuca promising to return the next morning for some valuable information that he had on boat accommodation and services in Honolulu (e.g. names of rigger and electronics person.). (Their first fish, a Tuna, was so large that they could not get it on board. Eventually they reduced the size of their lures an started catching 30-40 lb Wahoo, Mai Mai, and the like. They caught so many fish that they could not store any more and gave it away wherever they could.)

We then paid an unannounced night visit to Jeff on Allegro to see if it was OK to make that house call that we had promised to give him more help with his laptop-Iridium system. By then he had mellowed out with his evening whiskey and was not in the mood but he invited us on board and we drank out of the half-bottle of Napoleon brandy that we brought and he worked on his whiskey. He shared his stew with us insisting that there was plenty (and there was) and the evening was very pleasant indeed. Jeff's boat is beautiful: 46-footer with a center cockpit and a spacious aft cabin, and has a great fitout of wood.

18 December 2008

This was departure day from Hilo and everything went well.

We topped up our water tanks and filled our two 10 liter containers to join the three 6 gallon containers already in the hold. While we were doing this we saw Time motoring out and exchanged waves. We were not sure where Tim was headed, nor was Tim himself. Our guess is that he will sail back to Chile. Jeff paid us a visit to see our alternator setup and I gave him information on our MasterVolt hard-wired battery charger. It was a bit difficult to say good bye to him and the others but all we can hope is that our paths will cross again somewhere. Arnold and I then went ashore for the final time. Arnold went to the public phone to telephone Sandra his wife. I visited the harbor master for the departure process then visited Jerry at Surgarcane to get the information that he had ready for me.

The day was superb for our exit: sunny day with only a few white puffy clouds, and a moderate and fair wind blowing from the East. I took the 45-lb plow anchor off the roller to make retrieval of the Swarbrick 35-lb fisherman's anchor easier. We then cleaned the Zodiac and hoisted it up on the davits. We thought that it would ride OK to Oahu given that the outboard motor was still clamped to the rail. We unzipped the mainsail cover, loosened a few ropes, then started the engine. I then went forward and started cranking in the anchor chain by hand using a winch handle. The anchor broke very easily then Arnold put the engine in gear and did a tight u-turn to the right and soon we were on our way after waving good bye to Jerry. Three days ago there were four yachts at anchor at Radio Bay. With our departure only Jeff remained. Other yachts, notably Richards and Jerry's were tied to the wharf Mediterranean style.

While Arnold motored us out toward the heads I took the Swarbrick anchor off the roller, unshackled from the chain, then lay it on the foredeck. I then removed the plow anchor from the spare rode of 10 meters of chain and 60 meters of rope and shackled it to the 38 meter rode to be used as our primary anchor while we are in this part of the world. I then stowed the Swarbrick down below. I must admit that it is a relief to manage the plow anchor rather than the fisherman's anchor because the plow anchor is on the roller ready to drop with little preparation.

We then motored through the heads and continued motoring until one hour was up to give our batteries a good charge. In our 7-day stay at Radio Bay we had not had to start the engine to charge the batteries but on this morning they were down to 11.9 volts. We sailed NE against a splendid 15-kt easterly wind with jib only. Then we slowly altered course 10 degrees to the north then west at a time over the next two hours until we were sailing almost downwind will full jib at over 6 kt with 19 kt of wind over the mast and a robust following sea making for Maui which we planned to skirt on its east side. After Maui we would alter course a few degrees to the west to skirt Molokai on its east side then the next island would be Oahu.

The wind picked up during the evening. Arnold copped the worst of it during his watch. We were getting winds consistently at over 30 kt over the mast which meant true wind speeds of over 35 kt because we were moving downwind. The sea built up and it got as rough as I've seen it except in a gale. The waves were huge and the boat was being thrown all over the place like a toy. But we managed have a pretty good spaghetti dinner while Vistarr the auto pilot carried on. Vistarr handled the rough following seas magnificently. Unfortunately he dropped off to standby without notice with no warning, causing Pachuca to round up into the wind, resulting in a mad scramble by the helmsman to reestablish the course. We plan to discuss this problem with Raymarine.

19 December 2008

I took over the watch at midnight after several frustrating hours of trying to get too sleep. The conditions had been too rough and perhaps I was not tired enough after our stay at Hilo. Arnold described the sea as “spooky” and I know what he meant. He gave the good news that the wind had started to moderate. The boat was still moving fast – over 6.5 kt – even though we had reduced the jib to very little. As the night wore on the wind continued to moderate from the mid 20's to the low 20's then to around 20 kt. The sea started to settle down so I let out jib to the no. 2. At 5.15 AM I jibed the boat to lay a course across the northern side of Molokai. At sunrise I was able to see the tall mountain of Maui and later in the morning we saw Molokai. When I got up after a short sleep Arnold told me that there were dolphins around leaping out of the water. Two of them had leaped simultaneously across each other as though they were in a marine park. Unfortunately even though I saw the dolphins I saw no leaping so put my camera away. It was evident to us that at the current pace we would make the entrance to the marina at about midnight and agreed to stooge around outside the entrance until dawn.

I noted that the Zodiac had survived the night on the davits OK. Had I known that we would have to deal with such strong winds I would have stowed it away but fortunately no damage was done.

We sailed throughout the day across the northern side of Molokai, with with a moderate easterly wind and still running with jib only. The island was shrouded in mist and cloud as seems to be typical of tropical islands. At the rate that we were traveling we expected to arrive at the entrance to the Ala Wai Boat Harbor, on Oahu between Honolulu and Waikiki sometime during midnight. To avoid mindless stooging around waiting for dawn I proposed that we slow the boat down. After a simple meal of rice and chilli beans I hit the sack expecting to take over the watch at midnight. At 10 AM Arnold woke me up stating that there was a ship coming down on us from the stern and only 8 minutes away. I spoke with them on VHF 16 and soon they were veering away from our track. It is clear that they were oblivious to our presence until we called and we wondered when they would have seen us. I took over the watch Arnold turned it.

20 December 2008

I deliberately slowed the boat down by cutting down sail. The trick was to do it in such a way as to not get caught short if the wind dropped down. I got a fright in the middle of the night when the wind dropped to 7 kt and the boat speed got down to a dismal 1.4 kt. Somehow Vistarr the auto pilot managed to continue steering until the wind picked up two hours later.

It was a clear and starry night and I could see the southern side of Oahu unfolding before me. Soon I could see Waikiki with Diamond Head clearly silhouetted against the lights of Honolulu further to the wast. It was a wonderful experience given the clear sky, gentle breeze and quiet sea now that we were getting protection from being on the lee side of Molokai. I felt sorry for all of the tourists in the hotels that I could see who had paid serious money for the experience of seeing this part of the world that I was getting it for free! - all I had to do was to put a yacht together and sail it half way around the world. At 5 AM we were 2 nm south of Diamond head and only about 4 nm from the entrance to the boat harbour. I woke Arnold and we hove to and he took the watch while I got some sleep. At 6.30 AM I was up and we made our run into Ala Wai while I produced hot oat meal porridge for our breakfast. We had trouble-free entrance amongst scores of Hawaiian-style canoes being paddled by teams in some sort of competition. The area reminded me of Hong Kong: a large marina surrounded by high-rise apartment and office buildings. At about 8 AM we were tied up at the fuel jetty. We had made the journey from Hilo, Hawaii to Ala Wai, Oahu along a crescent course on the windward side of Oahu, Molokai, with Lanai and Kaoolawe tucked behind them to the west, a distance of approximately 200 sea miles, in less than 2 days under jib only – 1.5 days if one discounts the deliberate slowing down of the boat in order to make a daylight entry.

We were very apprehensive because we had heard stories of boat accommodation being very hard to find. We didn't like our chances of finding a berth withing walking distance of Waikiki and only a few kilometers from Honolulu. Nevertheless we had to try. Soon after we tied up at the fuel jetty Kerry came out of the shop and said that we were at a private marina and that she could offer us accommodation but that it was a bit expensive at $30 per day plus tax. She said that I might want to try my luck with the government marina which would be cheaper. I visited the harbor master about a government pen and was asked to fill in a form and that they would let me know in a few days if they could accommodate me. They said that in the meantime I would have to find my own accommodation for the boat. I returned to Kerry. We liked her and liked some of the people staying there. They offered their little store, a laundry, free Internet wireless, and a free bag of ice every day. Arnold and I liked the place so much that we decided to stay there. We also had further discussions on a change of plan that we had been considering if we could get long-term accommodation and we decided to implement the plan.

We have received strong advice from several people not to venture into the NE Pacific ocean in mid-winter. The latest such advice came that very day from a yachtie from Victoria, BC who said that we would experience one low pressure after another making life miserable for us. To be fair to ouselves the initial play had called for a crossing to Seattle in October, a full two months earlier. Well, we figured that the earliest that we would be able to leave Oahu for Seattle would be mid-January. If we could postpone that departure for two months we would be able to make the crossing in safer and more comfortable conditions. So the following is what we have decided.

We will keep Pachuca in a pen at Ali Wai for 90 days. During that time Arnold will visit Seattle for about six weeks. In fact, he was fortunate enough to get a flight to Seattle on 23 December and we would be able to surprise his family. He, Sandra, and his children Elisa and Andrew will be together for Christmas. He has booked a return flight for 7 February 2009. I will stay with the boat and spend my time tending to repairs and preparation of the boat for the next crossing. I'll have the rigging, wind vane, and HF radio issues dealt with. I would also like to have a crack at fiberglassing the anchor well and try to get rid of that persistent leak when we sail to windward once and for all. I have also identified the staunchion bases as the source of leaks into the shelves in the head and wet weather locker and I will attend to that. I will also do something about the drips coming from the cabin hatch. We would presumably leave for Seattle in late March in a much better prepared boat. Work that I will have done in Hawaii will be work that I would not have do in Seattle freeing up time for some serious sailing in Puget Sound and up in the San Juans on the Canadian side.

It was a jammed-packed day for us. We met Ron, a shipwright and rigger originally from Chicago, Illinois, who visited Pachuca and agreed to (1) check out the rigging (2) replace the damaged inner forestay (3) fix the problem of the loosening grub screws on the Profurl roller furler once and for all. Regarding the Profurl furler, he agrees that it is a design problem and has found a fix: use a different kind of screw. He brought to the boat Robert, a boat broker who lives on his own boat at the other end of the island, and seemed very interested in Pachuca. We met Mike, who sold us a 30-amp plug which we will use to adapt our cable supplying power to Pachuca. The plan is for Pachuca to be supplied with 110V power. Her MasterVolt charger will provide the boat with plenty of 12V power and we will probably use one of the internal GPO plugs to supply power to a 110V toaster and kettle. Mike also loaned us his car to go out looking for bits for Pachuca. We also me Sherri, who had spent 6 months in Opua, NZ with her husband in 2002. They had a lot of work done on their boat, including having the engine refitted. She agreed with us that Opua provided boating services of a quality that is not available anywhere else that we have seen. She remembered Bruce and Christine of Seapower and had the same good feelings about them and their dog as Arnold and I do. Ron, by the way, said that a couple sailed out of Oahu a few years ago for Seattle in December in a Westsail 33. The were fairly experienced, having sailed down to the Sea of Cortez in Mexico, across to the Galapagos and Fr Polynesia then to Hawaii. They were lost at sea. Ron said that the only things found were a life raft and an EPIRB.

In the evening Arnold confirmed that he had his return air tick to Seattle and we watched the annual parade of Christmas-decorated boats pass by. One of the boats Christmas boats pulled in. The skipper went to the shop looking for beer. One of the pubescent elves asked for a flashlight to shine on her decoration. I provided her with Pachuca's spotlight. Arnold didn't think that the light would be returned to me. I told him that elves never lie to me. Sure enough at 7.30 PM the boat returned and we got our light back. The sweet elf assured Arnold and myself that we would not have holes in our stockings this year.

The night view from the Ala Wai harbor is stunning. The milt-colored lights from the surrounding buildings reflecting off the water result in a world-class experience that would stack up with anything that Rio or Monaco would offer.

So that is it. Pachuca has a superb berth for 90 days nestled between Waikiki, Diamond Head, and Honolulu, Arnold is going home for Christmas, and all is well with the world.