Tahiti-Hawaii 4 and final

9 December 2008

The previous afternoon Arnold had downloaded a GRIB file that showed some high winds (35-40 kt) approaching the Hawaiian Islands to be affecting the northern islands on 11 December. Hawaii, the “Big Island”, our destination, would escape the brunt of the high winds. Nevertheless Arnold and I resolved to enter the safety of Hilo harbour as soon as possible, even if it meant a night entry.

Early in the morning I discovered that our inner forestay had been destroyed by the weather jib sheet which had been shortened by wrapping around the boards that we keep on deck, putting a lot of pressure where the wire is swagged to the tang at the deck. Metal fatigue must have caused most of the individual strands to part from the swage. I disconnected the forestay with its loose and very sharp exposed wires and tied it to the mast. I then brought on the running backstays to give lateral tension to the mast though on reflection I do not think that this was necessary.

However, that evening the magic spell of the steady, reliable NE trade winds was broken and we entered a period of rain squalls and variable winds, no doubt as a consequence of the approaching bad weather. By 8 AM on the morning of the 9th we were running before a weak SE wind, mainsail down, jib down to a no. 2. There was lots of rolling and flogging of the sail. Our boat speed was down to 3.7 kt. Yes, the magic spell was broken. Instead of our previously planned entry on the night of 10 December we were now hoping to get into Hilo Harbour on the morning of 11 December, 24 hours ahead of the expected blow.

There seems to be a time lag between a failed wind and the realization by the crew that it is a hopeless situation and to give up. We put up with several hours of winds that would come then go leaving a floundering boat with thrashing sails and rigging. It got to where when the wind would come up to 10 or 11 kt I would tell Arnold “Here comes another teaser wind.” This would last for about 15 minutes then it would begin to die down until we were down to a 6 kt wind trying to make something out of nothing. In the late afternoon we gave up and dropped all sails. If you can't change reality then change your thinking. We decided to use this laying ahull as an opportunity for some R&R after over two weeks of drivng ourselves and the boat hard. I had one of my beloved ocean baths with a 20-minute swim around the boat. I then shampooed my hair with fresh water in the cockpit and rinsed myself totally with fresh water. Arnold did a similar thing. We then had a quiet evening meal and took to our bunks with me saying rashly that no matter what wind came up I was going to stay in bed until I was really, really sure that the wind was reliable.

10 December 2008

At midnight I woke up to the sound of the wind charger humming. This meant wind. It wasn't much of a wind – maybe ll kt, and maybe a teaser. But I'm too much of a sailor to let an opportunity pass. Even though it was midnight I felt remarkably refreshed and alert (which I realized later was due to the fact that I am now accustomed to waking up at midnight for my watch), so I decided to give sailing a go. We had discussed the possibility of motoring in the last 100 nm to Hawaii which we could have done because I have a range of approximately 400 nm with the engine. However, I wanted to avoid 20 hours of motoring if at all possible. So from midnight until dawn I really worked the system. No longer the luxury of tweaking the sails while the boat hurled along at 6.5 kt. It was a case of rolling out the jib when the wind came and rolling it back a bit when the wind died down. In this way I managed to nurse the boat at an average rate of about 1.5-2.5 kt.

In the early morning Arnold took over the watch and the situation was slightly better. He carried on and as the day progressed conditions improved steadily but very slowly. In the afternoon we were doing a respectable 4 kt with jib only and wind almost from the stern. In the late afternoon I went to the foredeck and set up the anchor for a drop. This meant dangling the anchor just off the roller then putting in the cross piece and (to my later regret) clipping on the trip line with buoy. I then used the trip line to pull the anchor back against the bow of the boat to keep it out of mischief with the waves.

The evening turned out to be brilliant. I was as though all of the sailing spirits had worked together to give us a perfect entry into Hilo. The moon was nearly full, the sky clear, and we were sailing at 4.5 kt with a 12-15 kt wind in a falling sea with the island of Hawaii on our port side. We eventually identified the white flashing light at the end of Blonde Reef and the green flashing light marking the entrance to the harbour. Two hours later we were rounding the green light into the harbour with a gentle and favourable south wind and the moon directly above us. By previous calculation we steered 156 degrees magnetic and soon were in a large splendid anchorage with no boat or mooring in sight. We dropped anchor in 5.5 m of water with 20 m of chain out. It had been a perfect entry. We then celebrated by finishing off a bottle of French red wine, a meal of potatoes and fish, then the last of our Cointreau.

11 December 2008

I woke up after a restful night and saw a tug entering the harbour with a large barge in tow. I switch on the AIS and to my delight saw their details on the chart plotter. This meant that it was the ship that we had failed to see with AIS a few days earlier that had the problem, even though they insisted that their AIS was on. We soon started to try to get instructions via the VHF radio. We got no response from the Hilo harbour master via VHF ch 16. We tried the coast guard and got a response from the Honolulu coast guard to go the “22A” I replied that I was going to “VHF channel 22” and then got nothing. Arnold became irritated and got on the radio as the assertive “bad guy” in contrast to the polite an compliant “good guy” visitor Robert. After trying several working channels it was found that channel 09 was a good working channel for us. The coast guard did some checking and got back to us with the instruction to contact the harbour master on VHF 12. The harbour master instructed us to anchor at Radio Bay, a tiny little bay around the end of the commercial wharf, and close to the authorities.

We weighed anchor at about 10 AM against a wind that was up to 22 kt in strength. As we approached the bay we encountered apparent winds of 24 kt. Nevertheless we persevered and entered the bay with no problem – other than to find another three boats already at anchor, cutting down our options in that tiny bay. We had a couple of go's at positioning ourselves and soon had the anchor bedded down OK, or so we thought. Fortunately we hung about and noticed that we were too close to another boat. I shortened the scope and that is when the problems started. We started to drag the anchor. I asked Arnold to go forward with the engine so that I could retrieve the anchor then noticed the float of the trip line moving toward the stern of the boat. I went down to get the boat hook to retrieve the line but by the time I got back on deck I had lost sight of it. We continued to retrieve the anchor then Arnold heard the thump thump thump of the float hitting the boat. The trip line had fouled the propeller. There was nothing to be done but continue and hope for the best. We redeployed the anchor in a better location in time to see bits of the trip line float drifting away. The line had wrapped around the propeller shaft, broken, and I was able to retrieve part of it and remove it from the anchor. We saw later from the Zodiac inflatable the other part of the line wrapped around the propeller. I don't think that there was any serious damage done because the line was relatively thin and the engine would have stopped had there been a serious load put on the propeller shaft. However, it meant that I had a dive job ahead of me to cut away the line around the propeller. It also meant that I will have to reevaluate my use of trip lines because they do introduce another complication into the anchoring process. The most likely outcome is that I will use a trip line only when in suspect areas.

We inflated the Zodiac and went ashore in the early afternoon. The entry process went very well. To my great relief because I have a US passport I will be able to freely cruise American waters without restrictions (i.e. Notify the authorities every time I enter and depart a port), even though Pachuca has Australian registration. This would make life so much easier for me! We then visited the harbour master's office and paid a princely sum of $8.70 AUD a day for the anchorage and access to hot showers. The security is outstanding: a gate staffed 24 hours per day and photo id required for entry into the dock area. We paid for 5 days. Along the way we met Dieter a lone sailor in his beautiful cruiser from Victora in British Columbia, Jeff another lone sailor out of San Francisco, and Richard with his double ender ketch also from the west coast of the USA. Dieter and Richard are not totally alone. Richard's wife Doris flew in from the mainland a few days ago and Dieter's wife will join him soon. This seems to be a common modus vivendi that we also noted in New Zealand.

After the processing we visited a local shop and got two cans of Brazilian corned beef and a six-pack of Heineken. By then the drizzle had set in so we retire to the boat for the night. We lowered our Q flag and replace it with the Stars 'n Stripes. That evening I quaffed down three Heinekens (hic!) and Arnold cooked the dinner of white rice and corned beef.

The weather was drizzly and was expected to be so for another day. That was too bad because parts of our boat and gear were damp – not soggy damp like the bad old days, but damp enough to be noticed.