Fire Water

Yesterday morning Richard motored out of Ala Wai Boat Harbor aboard his ketch Fire Water. Arnold and I had met Richard and his wife Doris (who flies in and out) at Hilo. Fire Water has a full length keel and is extremely solidly built. It weighed in at 33,000 lb fully laden, which is considerably heavier than Pachuca, which is about 5 ft longer. Richard says that it is a relatively slow boat but extremely stable in a storm. Last year one of the competitors in the biannual TransPac race abandoned (and scuttled) his boat in a storm between Hawaii and California. Richard and Doris were about 200 nm away in the same storm relaxing inside of the boat. He's been around the Pacific Ocean about a dozen times and has made the Hawaii-Juan de Fuca run sixteen times, if my memory serves me correctly.

Richard is headed to an indeterminate Hawaiian Island (Maui, maybe, or perhaps Molokai) for an indeterminate amount of time. However, it is likely that we will both be sailing the NE Pacific in May and we plan to keep in daily contact. Starting on Wednesday by which time I might have my new communications system working, he'll be trying to hail me at a particular time on a particular frequency. Richard has also provided me with all sorts of radio schedules for Armed Forces Radio, ship-ship communication, "Summer Passage" radio for good advice from Don the operator, etc.

Richard will be heading to North of Juan de Fuca, to an Indian reservation in Canada where his wife Doris' people live.

Enlarge the middle photo (double click with left mouse button) to get a nice closeup of Richard on his boat. He has Aries wind steering at the back. In the background is the back of The Fuel Dock, one of my favorite places in the entire planet. (There is enough material in The Fuel Dock story for an excellent Steinbeck novel - "Fuel Dock Row"? "Of Mice and Mariners"?)

The bottom photo is of Jerry working on the radar yesterday. (I document everything!)