Murre and the Pacific

November 10

Once through the breakwater and into the Ala Wai basin, Murre was directed to the Waikiki Yacht Club instead of the municipal marina, which was accepting no more “transients” (Hawaii’s official name for the cruising lot) until after President Obama’s mid-month visit. What possible connection there could be between the arrival of a small yacht and that of a world leader went obstinately unexplained, and only later did I learn that the Ala Wai Harbor Master was famous for closing his marina to transients at every possible opportunity. Thankfully his spite had not infected the Yacht Club whose port captain gave Murre a luxuriously long end-tie and offered to help with the lines. The ladies at the office were equally gracious as they accepted the fee for the slip, the fee for the electricity, the fee for the pool and the showers. And I was allowed access to the bar and restaurant as if I were a regular member, except that I was made to pay my check on the spot. Past the club library, down the hall and by cases of trophies was the club’s private entrance. And just beyond, center-city Honolulu.

Honolulu from atop Diamond Head

The charms of a city open only to those who come in the company of money. While its sidewalks can usually be negotiated without a toll, they quickly lead into temptation. Glittering store windows, the aroma and amiable bustle of restaurants, the bright lights of movie theaters all tug at the wayfarer’s unguarded pockets, and even the aloof museum requires a contribution before unveiling its mystery. A walk in the woods may be free, but a city is pay-as-you-go.

And in a city the vulnerable sailor, so long unable to spend his coin, is immediately adrift. That the smell of coffee-house brew is far more attractive than his own pot seems perfectly natural, as is the fact that ship-board staples are suddenly but leather compared to the offerings that sizzle in a steak house kitchen. A baseball game can be heard at no cost from the radio aboard, but baseball on the large television of a nearby pub and with cheering companions is what he longs for. Inexplicably he finds he is buying a round. He is happy. Everyone is happy.

Honolulu is big and built for fun. It fills the low plane from water to mountain with highrises whose ground floors are full of shops of every sort and whose doors stream with tourists. Tourists fill the street and gather in hordes at the cross walks–American and Japanese mostly, though there are representatives from distant Europe and China. While waiting at an intersection, the rare working man in his dark suit is pressed on all sides by vacationers and the occasional bare-chested, bare-footed surfer and board. By sunrise the waves below Diamond Head are dotted with surfers and soon after the beach fills with bathers–the hotels disgorge their chaise lounges; umbrellas pop open like daisies; dangling tags reveal their hourly rate. Large day-boats glide over the horizon offering cruises to famous swim spots, but few want to leave the beach, and the boat captains sit in the sand playing their Ukuleles for a tip to pass the hours. Surfboards can be rented and lessons received. If you have failed to bring your snorkel gear, that too can be had for a nominal fee. Drinks are served. Here, where it is perpetual summer, the city is always open and ready; enjoyment is available at every turn; payments begin at once.

To Jack Tar, whose pockets piracy had topped with gold, the expenses of a city were at least briefly supportable. But only seawater had flowed into my pockets for a year or more, and I was not so flush with the city’s excitement that I couldn’t hear the urgent whispers of poverty.

Joanna Hiking Oahu Mountains

Fortunately, the weekend after landing in Honolulu this particular innocent was rescued by a Good Samaritan in the guise of his wife, who is accustomed to a city’s bazaar and has a knack for a deal. The Surfrider Hotel room she had booked for the two of us magically, inexplicably became free; for no apparent reason except her presence, the Budget car was upgraded to a luxury class; and at the Pearl Harbor Museum, the docent handed us complimentary passes. Being of the city, my wife is no longer gobsmacked by the glitter and can walk by a row of shops without becoming a berserker. I held her hand tightly as we passed the unlikely fortresses of Gucci, Prada, Hermes (what these stores sell I do not know) on our way to a breakfast at IHOP. Later we hiked the mountains and drove the entire island without spending a dime. But Joanna could not guard me forever. On Monday she returned to the States, and I was forced to plan my escape from Honolulu alone. For this difficult task I retired to the bar of the club where Tom was already in the habit of handing me a Gin and Tonic before I was well and truly seated. Maybe I’ll leave tomorrow, I thought. Maybe.

We motored down the Ala Wai Channel on November 6th headed for Pokai Bay, a tiny, rock-wall harbor near the small town of Wainea, chosen because of its reputation for being a calm anchorage and because it put us within a single night’s sail of Kauai. Even from two miles out, the Honolulu skyline seemed to go on forever. An hour later jets on final approach dropped their wheels right above Murre’s mast. Barbers Point and its refinery loomed ahead and here a tanker was moored to a bright yellow platforms far offshore in the brisk easterlies, swinging on a single line like a dirigible as its ebony cargo was pumped through floating pipes to distant tanks. Even more than the island below it, this ship, I thought, is what keeps the city afloat. Once around Barbers, the island’s terrain dried up. The mountains became dead grass and bare rock. We pulled into Pokai an hour before sunset and dropped anchor in ten feet of water behind the dilapidated sea wall, battered by the last hurricane and never repaired.

Pokai Bay and the Mountains of Northwest Oahu

Next morning I rowed ashore to explore the town and quickly found that the neat bungalows along the beach belonged to the Army and were on a large military compound as now was I. When I asked a young woman leaving one of the bungalows for the walking path to the exit, I received a strange look. How could such a disheveled, heavily bearded man have gotten into an Army compound in the first place, and should she let him out?  My explanations did not resonate, and the woman reluctantly pointed to a gate at the end of the sidewalk. “But it’s locked,” she said flatly. I was still plumbing the depths of my gratitude for the appropriate response when she continued, “Don’t you have a car?” I pointed to Murre, bobbing jauntily in the near bay, and reiterated the technicalities of my arrival. “I came by boat,” I said. “Well, if you had a car, you could go out the main gate.” Then she shrugged and walked away.

But Port Hilo had taught me that the tight wrap of security in Hawaii may be flappingly open at the backside. There an escort was required to ferry cruisers by truck from the pier through two sets of locked gates to the street, but to avoid this trouble one had only take his dinghy to the opposite beach and the same street could be achieved by walking through a field. The field was unfenced and required no government issue identification–in fact it proudly carried a banner: “Public Beach-Pedestrian Access”. And it was much the same at Pokai, where I returned to the beach, turned left, walked to the grassy park, down the drive and was at the main street in five minutes.

Here I discovered the unhelpful woman’s larger betrayal–leaving was not worth the effort. A handful of fast food restaurants decorated the roaring street along with a local grocery, a dentist’s office and a dog grooming shop. I returned to the beach and sunned away the afternoon.

Kauai is the last, most northwesterly of Hawaii’s inhabited islands. Long called the “separate kingdom”, it is seventy miles northwest of Oahu and across the widest ocean-facing channel in the chain, a channel whose roughness twice defeated King Kamehameha as he moved to conquer this final prize. How fast were Kamehameha’s canoes? I didn’t know, but conservatively Murre would require twelve hours to cross in the forecasted “moderate trades”, so we weighed as the sun set hoping for an easy passage and a landfall at dawn.

Rugged Kauai at Dawn

A night scattered with round cloud glowing in moonlight frustrated my attempts to identify the sky, but the passage compensated with other features. My course took us through an area noted on the chart as a “submerged submarine operating zone”, and I wondered how many and where and could they “hear” me. A light on the port quarter soon became a supply tug and barge on a parallel course but making nine knots to our five. It soon passed and I dozed in short shifts as Murre rose and fell, tugged along under jib alone.

An hour before dawn another light approached from dead astern; the Zaandam, a Dutch cruise ship. It became a lighted city as it neared, passing close to port as we entered Nawiliwili Harbor together an hour after sunrise. It spun on its heals to round the breakwater’s bitter end while Murre made a wide and lazy turn of it, and then I steamed into the protection of the tiny marina.

Zaandam entering Nawiliwili Harbor

This arrival carried with it the feeling of coming home, home to the island my wife and I have so often visited and where I now anticipated the welcome of Peter and Nancy, my father and mother-in-law, residents of Kauai now for many years. But there was no one waving to me from the breakwater and the couple on the boat ramp were unfamiliar to me. I motored to my arranged slip and docked. The parking lot was empty. I left the engine running and wondered if I’d got the wrong harbor.

Murre at Nawiliwili

One ocean passage is one thing, but three crossing allow for some comparison.   Here, then, is a summary of Murre’s Pacific voyaging with commentary on distances, daily runs, food and water consumption, sleep strategy, mechanical issues and the relative stresses of being alone at sea for a month at a time.

Returning to the Golden Gate Bridge

On November 11, 2012, Murre sailed under San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge, completing a two-year, roughly 12,000 mile loop of the central and eastern Pacific that included reaches south and below the equator to islands of French Polynesia, then north to the Hawaiian Islands, and north again to Alaska. Each long jump was punctuated by many months island hopping whose collected mileage and experience is noteworthy but not explored in any depth here

Murre’s Three Ocean Crossings of 2011 and 2012. Click for high resolution.

The chart to the right is a record of Murre’s daily noon positions while on passage. These positions were reported via Single Sideband radio to a non-profit, cruising resources organization out of New Zealand by the name of Pangolin and their yacht tracking tool called Yotreps. Those of you who were following Murre during her treks will recognize the chart’s format, but may not know that Yotreps does not maintain a permanent, historical record for the yachts it serves (it’s primary goal is to gather weather data). Thus, many thanks are due to my friend Kelton for saving to his home computer in Los Angeles a daily file of Murre’s Yotreps reports that he then, painstakingly compiling into one chart. The chart’s graphical differences (red dots, blue dots, and then blue lines) are a function of changes in Yotreps display strategies over the two years Murre was away. Click on the chart to enlarge; then click again for super-high resolution.

Into the Infinite Blue

First Leg: Mexico to French Polynesia, April 2011 

• Dates: departed San Jose Del Cabo, Baja at 0645 on April 28, 2011; arrived Hiva Oa, Marquesas Islands at 1303 on May 23rd, 2011
• Total Distance: 2757 nm
• Days at Sea: 25.5
• Average Miles per Day: 108
• Best / Worst Mileage Day: 156 miles on May 22 due to moderate wind and strong west setting current / 18 miles on May 15 due to calms in the doldrums at 01.14N by 131.02W.
• Weather: Though winds were generally light (avg. 10 knots over entire run), we were rarely becalmed, even in the doldrums where we spent only one night with sails furled.  The several squalls we encountered in the ITCZ were much more likely to be wet than windy.  Temperatures were consistently in the high seventies to low eighties.
• Food Stores Taken/Consumed: I used the calorie counting method to ensure 45 days of food aboard, not including fresh fruits and vegetables taken on at the last moment.  I ate fresh almost exclusively for the first ten days and well over half of the non-perishable items remained aboard when we made Hiva Oa.  I generally ate three meals daily.  Breakfast was fresh fruit, as long as it lasted, and a bowl of granola in water (no fresh milk–powdered milk was used for coffee).  Lunch and dinner were often the same: tortillas with Mexican canned meats or beans, lentils with rice, or pasta were the favorites.  When cooking I usually made enough for several meals.  Murre carried a generous supply of snacks in two categories: roasted nuts and packaged cookies, both of which lasted the voyage, but just barely.  I caught several small Dorado in the doldrums and one good-sized Wahoo later on,  half of which was dried into jerky.
• Water Taken / Consumed: Murre holds approximately 65 gallons of water distributed between a large and small  tank (40 gallons under starboard settee and 16 under the port) and several portable bottles.  I drew only from the large tank while on passage and was still drawing from it a week after arrival in Hiva Oa (at which point care in the consumption of water ceased).  Fresh water was reserved for drinking and cooking only.  I drank two litres of clear water per day and boiled approximately 16 ounces for coffee.  Water for cooking rice and pasta was usually a mix of half-fresh and half-salt water.  Salt water was used for all other needs: e.g. washing dishes, bathing.  This strategy meant I used approximately one gallon of fresh water per day.
• Sleep: In order to maintain what I thought to be an adequate watch, I slept in one hour intervals at night and rarely napped during the day.  I frequently began sleeping soon after dark and stopped when the sun rose.  Sleep was materially interrupted (e.g. reef sail, change sail) less than once per night.
• Engine Use: We motored for only four hours in the doldrums, ran the engine to top-off batteries three times and on multiple occasions to clear sea water from exhaust (see below).
• Boat/Mechanical Problems: 1) The main lazy jack parted a few days out of Cabo leaving a five foot length of coated wire rope dangling from just above the spreaders.  Care was needed to avoid fouling the main halyard during the many sail adjustments in subsequent days; 2) Sea water backed into the engine via the exhaust hose causing the engine to start roughly.  Resolved by running engine daily and, later, by building in an elbow between engine and exhaust through hull with PVC.
• Outside Contact: 1) Daily audio exchanges with SSB Radio Nets, most specifically the Pacific Puddle Jump Net, which was, at the time of our crossing, about five other boats headed from the States to French Polynesia and scattered over 1000 miles of sea.  2) Daily email exchanges with my wife and close friends, again via SSB Radio (Murre does not carry a satellite phone).  3) Daily emails to this weblog.
• Other Traffic: Murre saw no large ships on this passage but four fishing trawlers were encountered north of the line, usually on a course that seemed to approach.  On one afternoon I woke to a helicopter hovering close over Murre, a tuna hunter attending a large, Mexican trawler just over the horizon.  We were overtaken by one sailboat in the last few days of the passage.
• Health and Welfare: Other than a slight cold my first few days at sea (likely the result of worry), my only injury was a stubbed, very swollen, and probably fractured small toe.  This happened early in the passage and necessitated the wearing of deck shoes the remainder of the passage to immobilize the toe.  Psychological stresses on passage included “first timers” worry (anything could go wrong!) , Hurricane worry while we were above 10N and, in the final days, an emotional fatigue.  Many things contributed to the latter.  Probably chief among them was a lack of sleep.  While I never felt short of sleep, my one-hour-increment sleep strategy undoubtedly left me “REM deprived”.  This fatigue manifested itself as intense and often acted-out anger at Murre for her incessant, deep, uncontrollable, and uncomfortable rolling, a rolling that required I hang on at all times except when in my bunk.  I was also known to yell vigorously at the wind vane for small deviations from my desired course.  Also, Murre’s small space began to feel confining after a few weeks, especially given our downwind run and closed ports, which allowed no ventilation below.  Daily radio and email contacts combined with the utter novelty of the passage meant I never felt loneliness.
• Biggest Fear: Hurricanes and Tropical Storms.  My end of April departure meant we would still be within reach of north Pacific hurricanes when the season began on May 15.  I remember well asking for weather routing advice from Baja guru Don Anderson via the SSB radio several days into the passage only to receive a longish, public lecture on the dangers my passage timing had put me in.  As it turned out, we did race one depression just above 10N that was gusting 35 knots, but it never got closer than 200 miles.  While in French Polynesia, I met many boats that had departed well after Murre.
• Biggest Accomplishment: 1) Learning to change headsails and manage a jib pole in a sea way, also new to me.  The passage was usually down-wind in light airs, but we seemed to be switching between the jib and genoa or wearing frequently.  2) Just doing it!  This was my first long, solo passage aboard Murre–everything was new and exciting, and I spent most of the passage in a general state of jaw-dropping wonder–every cloud, every wave, every sunset, every flying fish, every squid and whale and dolphin and tropic bird filled me with intense delight.

A Fast Passage North

French Polynesia to Hawaii

• Dates: departed Bora Bora, Society Islands at 1200 on September 28, 2011; arrived Hilo, Hawaii at 0837 on October 20, 2011
• Total Distance: 2560 nm
• Days at Sea: 21.5
• Average Miles per Day: 119
• Best / Worst Mileage Day: 147 miles on Oct 15 in light wind and a strong, favorable current / 68 miles in doldrums at 09.09N by 146.24W.
• Weather: Generally light to moderate winds with the first two days of twenty knots on the nose being the strongest of the passage.  Doldrums were almost non-existent, but we picked up the ITCZ in 08N on Oct 12 and didn’t kick it until Oct 18 in 17N.
• Food Stores Taken/Consumed: There was no method this time; I just filled all the lockers, jammed cans under the floor boards and even had two boxes of canned goods I couldn’t stow lashed onto the starboard settee.  Not sure why I thought I needed more food that the previous passage.  I barely ate my way through the food within arm’s reach.  One tactical change was to bring more canned “meals”–lentil stews, white bean stews, ravioli in the can, etc.  I didn’t enjoy cooking on the passage down and was often too tired to do it well; I rarely cooked on this passage. Two fishes were caught, one small Tuna and one large Dorado, half of which was cut into strips and jerked.
• Water Taken / Consumed: No change from above except I was a tiny bit less regimented.  I checked the main tank upon arrival in Hilo and it appeared to be between a quarter and a third full.
• Sleep: Same as above.  Though I never gave myself the night off, I did over sleep the alarm on several occasions but, given the ocean’s emptiness, without much sense of consequence.
• Engine Use:  I motored for only two hours in the doldrums.  Ran the engine two other times to top off batteries and to ensure it would start.
• Boat/Mechanical Problems: 1) One night I tore the main sail while attempting to remove some of the bunched sail from the reef clew.  Patched the three-inch tear with sail tape and all was well.  2) Our first two days out of Bora Bora were twenty knots on the nose, rough and wet.  Leaks developed in the toe rail at the bow and around the anchor windlass–to the tune of about two gallons a day.  Waves frequently came over the cabin top early on and made their way in via the companionway sliding hatch, which is not protected by a dodger or its own slide-hide.  The entire forepeak was soaked and much of the rest of the interior that first week.
• Outside Contact: Same as above except no radio Net participation.
• Other Traffic: We saw one fishing trawler on one night early in the passage and not one other vessel the rest of the way.
• Health and Welfare: I experienced no physical problems, no injury or illness, on this passage and generally felt more relaxed than on the passage south.  The sense of awe remained but without the first-timer’s fear that anything could go wrong at any moment.  Our isolation was obvious and intense–we saw nothing but the one fishing trawler–but my reaction was not a sense of isolation but rather a sense of ownership.  The sea was mine; I would have resented seeing another vessel.   As the passage approached its last days, frustration reemerged.  I did a fair bit of yelling at the end.
• Biggest Fear: 1) Hurricanes.  The odds were extremely low that a north pacific storm was going to make it all the way to our longitude (only one storm had traveled that far west all year).  2) My route.   It was not at all unprecedented (Cook did it–Jimmy Cornell recommends it), but unlike Mexico to the Marquesas, which hosted some 300 boats this year alone, the Societies to Hawaii is an unusual route.  I was alone.  And it was upwind all the way.  Sailing downwind is like falling–you just have to let go–but upwind requires some work.
• Biggest Accomplishment: 1) I finally got to practice celestial navigation, sun shots in particular, for days on end and now feel capable of wayfinding with a sextant.  Not professional, but capable.  2) Just doing it!  This lost none of its charm, and I felt a Thoreau-like rapture much of the time.

Murre Charging Across the Pacific

Photographs of Murre and the Pacific are often posted here in sets at the end of a passage or specific island cruise with long, prosaic, picture-less articles in between.  This pattern is due to our only periodic access to WiFi and an on-board communications technology that allows text-only transmissions to this site.

For some a picture is the real deal when compared to the thousand words that comprise a typical Murre post,  so gathered here are the various sets for easier access. 

See the above tab entitled Photo Album or scroll to the below. 

Murre and the Pacific Photo Album

(most recent on top)

• Ocean Passage: Bora Bora, Society Islands to Honolulu, Hawaii
• Society Islands: Hauhine, Raiatea, Bora Bora
• Society Islands: Opunohu Bay, Moorea
• Society Islands: Tahiti and Moorea
• Tuamotu Archipelago: Makemo Atoll
• Ocean Passage: Marquesas Islands to Tuamotu Archipelago
• Marquesas Islands: Nuku Hiva
• Marquesas Islands: Ua Pou
• Marquesas Islands: Hiva Oa and Tahuata
• Marquesas Islands: Hiva Oa, The Mountain Hike
• Marquesas Islands: Hiva Oa, The Paul Gauguin Museum
• Marquesas Islands: Hiva Oa, That First Day
• Marquesas Islands: Hiva Oa, A Walk in the Rain
• Ocean Passage: Cabo San Lucas, Baja to Hiva Oa, Marquesas Islands
• San Francisco, California to Sea of Cortez, Baja (redirect to SPOT Adventures)

Here are a few photographs of the 2600 mile passage from Bora Bora to Hilo and then the quick island hops to Honolulu.

Entering Uncertainty in the ITCZ

Composite of Murre's Two Ocean Crossings

This is an odd way to explore Hawaii’s islands.

Each morning I rise well before first light to race the sun and its attendant winds across yet another reputedly nasty channel. Each evening I drop the hook into a bottom of uncertain holding along an unprotected roadstead or crowded and blustery harbor where I am disinclined to land because next day we race again. Except for a few hours ashore at Hilo (one hamburger, one world series game, one walk in the park), I’ve not been off the boat since September 28th and am thus like those old-time sailors who complained of having seen the world but all from the ship’s deck, the captain never allowing even a day of shore leave. It’s wearing. But it has two advantages: I get a preview of Hawaii’s coast for the intended later return, and I sleep all night.

Mountains of Northwest Maui

From Makena at Maui’s southeastern edge we jump to Mala Wharf (just beyond Lahaina) in the northwest, passing forbidden Kahoolawe and then tiny, crescent moon Molokini close to port with lumpish Lanai much further off. If Haleakala looks like the grasslands of the Sierra foothills, then the mountains one passes between McGregor and Puunoa Points are the same range as seen from Owens Valley, desolate, windblown, round in places, sheer in others with vast canyons dropping steeply to the sea. From the water Lahaina could be mistaken for Catalina Harbor without the casino or the breakwater, and the boats on moorings roll accordingly. Sun sets richly over barren Lanai and rugged Molokai, her tops in cloud, stands close to the north. The wind drops, the sea flattens to glass, and the sense is of being within a vast bay of which the islands are merely a part. Surely the continent lies just to the east.

In fact, that’s the predominant first impression. In a cruise that traverses each island’s lee, their proximity, their aridity, the landform along the unprotected coasts all remind of California. If a detailed log of twenty one days from Bora Bora didn’t inform otherwise, I’d say Murre and I were working our way north among the islands that decorate the coast between San Diego and Santa Barbara.

Early we rise on October 26th for the next leg from Mala Wharf to Kaunakakai Harbor on Molokai via the Pailolo Channel. The trades accelerate to twenty by 0900 without, as we pass behind the latter island, the usual swell. We are abeam Kamalo Harbor buoy by 1000 and have dropped the anchor into twenty feet, mud, behind the commercial pier at Kaunakakai by early afternoon. The south coast of Molokai is bordered by a fringing reef creating several well protected, flat-water harbors, but there is no relief from the wind, and all afternoon Murre’s chain growls in its chock. The supply barge arrives an hour after dark when winds have dropped to barely a breeze and offloads until midnight. When I awake at 0300 she is gone, but in her place is a three masted schooner, unlit, the crew asleep, and we motor quietly past.

I use the hours before sunrise to study the moonless sky where Jupiter is setting and Cassiopeia stands on her head. There are a few old friends, the Big Dipper and Orion, and I am able to grab Taurus and parts of Camelopardalis, but the two Leos refuse to be found, though I can see where they are hiding.

Famous Diamond Head

Today the sun does not bring a driving wind. The Kaiwi Channel is sloppy with steep chop anyway–out of spite, I think. We roll heavily and up comes that familiar rage at Murre for throwing me one way and then another. Oahu is clearly defined ahead, and though we are twenty-five miles from Makapuu Point, I can clearly make out both Koko and Diamond Head. But the five hours it will take to reach these landmarks seems like an eternity. I am weary, weary of the boat, of the perpetual motion when at sea, the sound of a slapping sail, the grind of the engine, the tiny, untidy space. I am tired of canned beans, pate and crackers, and the taste of powdered milk in coffee, of salt water baths followed by the donning of the same salt-soaked clothes. I am tired of sitting, hours upon hours of sitting, and a nearly equal number of hours standing in place. I need a change–I crave it. But the last twenty-five miles cannot be rushed, especially in light winds, so after venting my impatience at the auto pilot, I attempt a reconciliation with song sung at volume to pass the time. No particular song, but random bits of known tunes with filler. It’s kind of like Jazz without any of the fluidity or beauty, and the auto pilot is visibly relieved when I reach repertoire’s end.

Approaching Waikiki

Finally the close-packed mansions on the hills of southeast Oahu are in focus, then white Diamond Head light, and suddenly we are around. The chop subsides, the wind falls even further but is now judged as gentle rather than fickle. Ahead is Waikiki Beach and behind a colorful cityscape that reminds of the Las Vegas strip. Behind that the jagged, green and wild mountains of the Koolalau Range topped with cloud. The view is jarring, ridiculous, delightful. We motor slowly up the Ala Wai channel and into the small boat harbor, itself a floating city of several hundred yachts bobbing below the high rises, and we take our reserved end-tie on C dock. All around is Honolulu buzzing frenetically like any large city. The channel bridge pounds with traffic, the sound of horns. I could be on the Chicago River near downtown. By way of support, the water here is a murky and green. At the end of the pier is a bar where game six of the World Series starts in just a few minutes. I hope you’ll excuse me.

______

My wife, Joanna, arrived the next day. We visited the marina; I pointed out the high rises, the bridge, the green water and explained my sense of floating within Chicago, to which she laughed. “You’ve been in the tropics too long,” she said. “I left Chicago this morning. It’s forty degrees there today, not eighty, and it doesn’t feel soft or smell like flowers.” 

Sunset from Mala Wharf

Ala Wai Boat Harbor–Just Like Chicago

Our intense thirst for free water quenched and satisfied Hilo port security could not be compromised by irony, we departed at 0500 on October 23rd for Nishimura Bay on the west side of the Big Island’s Upolu Point, a run of twelve hours along a rocky, wind torn coast with no safe haven save Hilo.

Our final destination is Honolulu, 200 miles northwest and where, if fortunate, I will encounter the loving embrace of my wife next weekend, but we are taking this bit in shifts and anchoring at night where the land contours in a friendly way and the bottom will accept our hook. Nishimura Bay is an unsanctioned stop, called foul by the charts and not even named except verbally by local fisherman. It’s the slightest divot in a red and black rock coast, and is itself so rock lined there is no landing. Above it is an ancient rock ruin, a Stone Henge in miniature, a navigational **heiau** (shrine). Except that it is to leeward, it appears to have little to offer. But being leeward is quite enough.

Out of Hilo in the dark we glided under power for the sixty-five mile jump that we hoped to complete before dark. There was no wind. There had been no wind our three days in port. The sickle moon set over a glassy sea, I lowered the autopilot into its socket, and we settled back to motor the entire day. I wondered briefly what I would read while we were under way and whether or not I might have a beer with lunch.

Blustery Conditions on the Windward Side

By 0800 wind was southeast at ten knots. By 0830 it had risen to sixteen. It had shifted more into the east an hour later and was a solid twenty knots. By 1030 it was gusting twenty-six. Waves had built and were beginning to knock Murre sideways as they broke.

The Hawaiian Islands lie within the northeast trade wind belt, a factor that contributes greatly to their beatific climate. But their proximity to each other and their extraordinary height means the channels that lie between them catch and accelerate the prevailing wind, making channel crossing in Hawaii a thing to be reckoned. This was why I was headed to Nishimaru; I was positioning for the sprint to Maui. What I had not realized was that Hilo is in a dead-air pocket, though it faces the trades. I had assumed ocean winds had stayed as light as we’d experienced on our initial approach. But this was not the case.

We had departed under power because there was no wind and by noon we had plenty, but it was dead aft. I unrolled a piece of the jib, but kept pushing us on the engine. We had to keep our speed up; we had to get around the point before dark.

The coast between Hilo and Upolu is grand, even mythic, in its ruggedness. The heave of breakers and their white rage can be seen until the island dips out of sight. The rock cliffs look like the black teeth of a giant. Then just above them the scene is pastoral. Grassy fields or dense forest and brightly colored houses leaning out into the wind. Cattle grazing. But from a mile offshore you first see the breakers and know there is no approach, there is nothing for a ship here but to get away.

To my relief, the wind topped out at 20 knots, maybe even eased a bit as we rolled on and on. By mid afternoon we were abeam Kauhela light and here the great mountain began to withdraw some of its near height, to become rolling planes of golden grass and oaks, here and there showing its rocky volcanic spine. A small outcrop of windmills near a point. More cows. And then we were around Upolu, racing for the anchorage on flat seas with wind abeam and we dropped anchor in 30 feet, sand, beating the sun by an hour.

In the evening, the smell of warm dry grass, the song of land birds and the ocean lapping at a rocky shore. An invasion of flying ants after dark, and Murre rolled and rolled all night. But it did not matter; this was just a way station for the bigger crossing of the Alenuihaha Channel to Maui.

The Alenuihaha has the reputation of being one of the world’s worst channels. Trades blowing a steady fifteen will accelerate as they pass between the two tall islands by fifty percent or more and wave heights can be more than double their usual by mid afternoon. The typical crossing strategy calls for a night passage, or one that puts the boat close to La Perouse Bay on the Maui side well before noon. We chose the latter and were underway an hour before sunrise in very light winds from the east.

Leaving Nishmaru at Sunrise

Sunrise lit up the back side of Hawaii a bright orange, the effect of “vog”, a volcanic haze caught in the island’s lee, but Maui was entirely in cloud. Winds followed the previous day’s pattern: east at ten knots by 0600, to twelve by 0700, over sixteen by 0800 and over twenty by 0930. A tug and barged passed to the north for Hilo. A large tanker trended southwest. Thankfully both were well out of our path. Cloud began to clear over Maui’s southeast coast. Again I kept Murre on the engine and with a rolled jib, and our speed averaged over six knots. Waves ran in the six to eight foot range on our starboard quarter, but as we approached the coast some growlers topped twelve feet. Murre surfed to seven and eight knots often. Once she reached nine knots. Each rise and pivot over the breaking crest left me racing for the wheel, but the auto pilot, with no apparent effort, eased Murre back to her course. In this froth, a Tropic Bird sat bobbing.

We were passing the volcano fields of wind-wracked and empty La Perouse Bay by 1130, and by noon Murre was anchored in flat calm behind Pu’u Olia near the village of Makena, from where we write this note.

Today we move again and to an anchorage near Lahaina. Then, I hope, a short hop to Molokai so as to be positioned for the channel crossing to Oahu where arrival is slated for Thursday.

Progress is a state of mind. What feels rapid in the middle of a passage is a snail’s pace as one draws near land, and an island as big as Hawaii draws nearer and nearer forever.

Soon after dark the amber glow of Hilo’s lights began to bob above the waves, and in the dying breeze I ran under main and mizzen only. We needed slowing: I didn’t want to arrive until dawn. Gradually the town came closer and at twenty-one miles out I picked up red navigational beacons just to starboard, a fine thing if such existed, but they were no where to be found on the chart. The first flashed steadily at one second intervals while the other occulted at two and ten. Worse, they appeared to be well out in the water where I should find nothing but weather buoys with yellow lights. These littered the chart along the coast but were not to be seen as I peered into the dark.

I studied the red flashes for hours as we made our slow way and our breeze relaxed its panting to the faintest of breath. Approaching a populated, well marked port at night can be a confusing business for all the traffic lights that send their similarly red and green beams out to sea. I knew this, but the flashes I kept seeing appeared separated from land with no glow of civilization near them.

At midnight I came about more directly for Hilo, taking the still unresolved red lights well to starboard, and two hours later we were ghosting along under reefed main only. I catnapped more as a way to pass the time than sleep, and each doze brought dreams of going on the rocks. At 0400 I woke to the sound of a complaining mainsail and on deck found wind had freshened. Pleased, I began to adjust sail only to realize our new wind was off the island. Who ever heard of a northeast trade blowing from the southwest? Could an island this big send down a williwaw for twenty miles? And it was cold. I put on a sweater, wool sox and boots for the fist time in months.

This turn of events decided it. I made a cup of coffee, doused sail, started the engine and took my station behind the wheel as we bashed into headwinds the last leg to port.

Mauna Kea at Dawn

Dawn brought the Big Island big in view. Hawaii is a giant whose land area is almost twice that of the remaining six in the chain. It could hold all 109 islands of French Polynesia and half again as many. And it continues to grow. Sun striking the rocky summit of massive Mauna Kea glowed a warm, desert beige for half its height before the greens of jungle and forest took over. To the south the smoke of the live volcano mixed with low cloud.

A large cumulus cell approached from astern pouring rain in straight, gray columns, and I groaned, not wanting to kit up in oilies. But it ran into the off-island wind and diffused, evaporated as I watched.

We rounded the first green buoy into Hilo Bay at 0730, were gliding past Reeds Bay moorings on glass by 0800 and had our anchor down in Radio Bay by 0830.

I had chosen Hilo as a first port of call remembering it as a small, sleepy town where reentry into civilization could be made slowly, quietly. But my memory was mistaken. “Hilo Town”, as it is often referred to, is the second largest city in the state, and its port is professionally run and a major affair. A barge from Honolulu was offloading goods on the next pier. Forklifts buzzed about, cranes lowered containers onto waiting trucks with a clank and bang. A large immaculate Coast Guard cutter sat to one side like a guarding lion. And the entire area was enclosed by a tall green, barbed-wire fence.

I called the harbor master for instructions.

Radio Bay

“Hello, I’m a vessel anchored in your bay; have just completed a 21 day passage from French Polynesia; am hanging out here next to the Coast Guard Cutter. What should I do next?” I was smiling. It was so nice to speak English and know it would be understood.

“You’re not blocking the Coast Guard, I hope”, replied a female voice.

“No no. That was just an expression.”

“Yacht home port?”

“San Francisco.”

“Where in from?”

“French Polynesia.”

“But you’re not foreign are you?”

“Nope. American.”

“You’re coming in from a foreign country?”

“Yes. French Polynesia.”

“I see. Well, you will need to check in with Customs first. Their office is in the Homeland Security building just outside our gate; look for the big flag. They will need your passport and clearance papers from you last port of call, and they will charge a $25 decal fee which you must pay with a credit card. When you’re done there come to our office to pay your mooring and registration fees. Will you be using the showers?

“It’s probably wise.”

“Then there’s also a $50 deposit for the shower key, and we only take cash in this office. Water is free [I should hope so, I thought, as it rains 200 inches a year here] but electricity is twenty-five cents for fifteen minutes. You put coins in the meter at the pier. When you are ready, you will need to call the number posted on the gate nearest you. Millennium Security personnel will escort you to the main gate. You will need their escort any time you enter or leave the compound. Be sure to fill out their security form before you come to our office, and please be sure to read their rules and regulations letter. What time will you be coming up?”

“I’d just like to brush my teeth first.”

“That’s fine, but please remember that security is very busy, and our office closes for lunch at 12:30pm.”

In my naivete I had expected something closer to “Welcome home from great travels good citizen”, but that expression has apparently undergone some recrafting in my year’s absence. Now it is “pay your fees and follow the rules”.

Which I am doing. Happily. Because its a small price to pay for … free water and the pleasure of departing in the morning, unescorted.

end

Approaching Hilo

Anchored 0837, Radio Bay, Hilo, Hawaii, in 14 feet, mud.
Position: 19.43.94N by 155.03.15W

Up most of the night, so will keep this short.

end

Anchored Radio Bay--21 Days from Bora Bora

Day 22

Local Noon Position (1157):
By GPS: 19.29.66N by 152.39.23W
By Sextant: 19.30.5N by 153.38.0W

Course: 290 degrees true
Speed: 4.3 knots
Wind: 10 – 11 E
Sea: 1 – 3 feet NE
Sky: 50% occluded. Lots of lovely cumulus, a few are raining. Bar: 1013
Temp: 78 degrees

MILES
Since last noon: 102
Total for passage: 2493
Daily average: 119
Miles to Hilo: 61

DAY SUMMARY

It’s been a day of domesticity.

I bathed before breakfast in five gallons of fresh water, figuring that we are close enough now that I can afford to be lavish. Murre carries around 70 gallons of water, and we have yet to get to the bottom of the main, 40 gallon tank, so the five gallons I wasted on freshening up probably won’t cost us.

For breakfast I made a kind of hashbrown omelet with the last of the purple Raiatea potatoes, the last of the eggs, and other leftovers thrown in for good luck. When I grabbed for the potatoes three red and black cucumber-type beetles fell out of the hammock where they have, apparently, been swinging with the spuds and my almost untouched collection of onions these last 2400 miles. One was dead, two alive. The dead one is taped into the log for later investigation and the other two stouthearts went over the side. Unfair you cry–they having come so far with so little complaint. I admit to hesitating, they were attractive and amiable, but I had just the previous hour read Hawaii’s reentry regulations for singlehanders on small boats returning from strange lands, and red and black cucumber-type beetles from French Polynesia are not extended visas under any circumstances.

All this time the wind held at a modest but acceptable 10 knots; Molly kept her cool and her course. I took a morning sun shot and also shot the waning moon and spent an hour getting the day’s sights in order. This sun/moon shot gave a fix only out by six miles, which is improvement if not vast improvement. The ghostly galleon is a toughie.

Noticed a single jet contrail in the sky at 1100. No jet.

My estimations regarding when Mauna Kea’s summit would become visible were wildly wrong. It wasn’t until 1300 that I spied a long, low, hazy black mark about two fingers above the horizon just one point off port, and an hour later it was back in cloud. The chart plotter said the mountain was 100 miles away at the time. No island has been visible the rest of the day.

In the afternoon I moved the anchor back to its spot on the bow and rigged the chain; I replaced the cushions in the forepeak and moved all the sail bags out of the main cabin, where they have luxuriated in my sleeping berth since the second day of the passage. I even took a bleachy sponge to the mould growing on the main cabin ceiling.

At 1430 it occurred to me that I might get weather on the VHF radio again. In the states, automated, mechanical voices broadcast marine weather on ten different channels 24/7. One voice is made to sound male, the low, precise monotone of a man who hasn’t had a date in years and has given up. The other is female. She has an allergy problem that makes her difficult to understand, and she sounds terribly board of weather. Neither voice extended more than ten miles below San Diego as we cruised toward Mexico a year ago, and I haven’t had the pleasure of their company since. But today weather channel one was working. My two friends haven’t changed a bit.

I learned from them that an earthquake occurred not far from our location this afternoon. A small one. No Tsunami is immanent, but it does explain the extra bounce in Murre’s gait around that time.

I swept the floorboards and stowed books and cleaned out the garbage bin (tossing over the side any biodegradable items). I undid the lashing that holds the captain’s seat down and restowed the buckets that perpetually live under the wheel when we’re under way. I even brought in the fishing line, trailing five days now without a bite; and no wonder–there was no lure. Bit clean off on some previous day.

And with that I think we’re almost ready for our landfall.

Murre is on final approach. With Hilo bearing 280 degrees true at 54 miles off, we should make harbor by dawn. Ladies and Gentlemen, the captain has turned on the fasten seat belt sign. Please return to your seats.

end

Day 21

Local Noon Position (1153):
By GPS: 18.27.45N by 152.13.11W
By Sextant: 18.28.2N by 152.17.0W
NOTE: Took a moon shot as well, but was ten miles out. Can’t seem to get the moon.

Course: 300 degrees true
Speed: 3 knots
Wind: 7 knots E, down to 4 knots later
Sea: 0 – 6 feet NE
Sky: 10% occluded. Mostly clear.
Bar: 1014
Temp: 77 degrees

MILES
Since last noon: 108
Total for passage: 2391
Daily average: 120
Miles to Hilo: 163

DAY SUMMARY

Fighting light airs is like shadow boxing with intent to kill. The intent has no impact on the outcome because there’s no there there. Or in my case, there’s been no air there most of the day, and I fought like mad. Yes, seven knots is a fine velocity of wind if on the beam or forward. If seven knots is on the quarter and trending toward four knots dead astern, no one aboard is having fun.

The slapping of sails and banging of blocks, a wicked sound to a sailor, got me up earlier than usual. Besides being sky-is-falling loud from inside the cabin, the pressure of a slam could split a sail, could spring a mast. It’s like nails on a chalk board only it could actually do damage.

But balance as I may, nothing worked until I lowered the main and poled out the jib. That had the blessed effect of quieting the boat. It also slowed us to a crawl, specifically to four and then three and then two knots. Every cruiser has his lower limit, the speed below which firing up the engine is the obvious choice, is honorable, is not a sign of giving up. Mine is three knots. At three knots we make 75 miles a day, a respectable number, but a half knot less (only fifteen fewer miles in twenty-four) and I begin to fret and do fuel to range computations over and over.

I fretted for hours, but at 1300 wind moved more NE and picked up a tad such that we’ve been averaging five knots. The sun is setting. We’ll have to see if this holds; it’s not promising at present.

Sadly, this also means the island of Hawaii will come up above the horizon after dark. I had wanted to see Mauna Kea, the island’s tallest peak at 13,795 feet, rise out of the ocean. It’s a strange effect of sailing on a round planet–it doesn’t matter how grand is your landfall, if it’s a clear day, it will start as a bump no bigger than a rock island. In fact, you’ll be amazed that a bump no bigger than a rock island can become, for example, Tahiti several hours later.

In Mauna Kea’s case, it would have materialized as a bump no bigger than a rock island around 140 miles out.

Figuring the greatest distance the curvature of the earth allows an object at the horizon to be seen is fun and easy: it’s just the square root of the object’s height times 1.17.

Mauna Kea Height
Square root of 13,795 feet = 117 x 1.17 = 137 miles

Randall’s Height on Murre (when he’s not pouting below)
Square root of 8 feet = 2.83 x 1.17 = 3 miles

Total = 140 miles.

Wind is easing off. I’ve reefed the main simply to flatten it and keep it quiet.

I must admit I’m disappointed this cruise is ending with such a whimper.

end

Day 20

Local Noon Position (1145):
By GPS: 17.15.21N by 150.47.90W
By Sextant: 17.16.7N by 150.46W
NOTE: Missed the morning shot due to cloud and rain and having to steer.

Course: 310 degrees true
Speed: 5.1 knots
Wind: 11 knots E
Sea: 1 – 6 feet NE Big rollers continue.
Sky: 70% occluded. Cells on both sides though clear directly above now. Bar: 1014
Temp: 77 degrees

MILES
Since last noon: 129
Total for passage: 2283
Daily average: 120
Miles to Hilo: 279

DAY SUMMARY

That great wall of cloud we had been tracking for two days dissipated in the night, I thought. The sky was dark and full of stars. I shot Vega, Deneb, and Fomalhaut and got, after considerable head scratching, reasonable results. I found Cassiopeia, that inverted, laddered triangle, the simple hook that is Ares, the cup of Perseus with Mirfak brightly in the middle. Deneb lead to Cygnus and Kochab to a confirmation of the North Star (Ursa Major being well below the horizon). It was a productive evening and I went to my bunk feeling satisfied. Each time I rose, new arrivals presented themselves, but I was too sleepy to greet any but Orion with confidence. And I smiled, looking forward, for the way was clear.

I rose with first light and the great wall of cloud had not dissipated, it had grown leviathan and we had approached. Somehow we had snuck up. Now it had the definition of a mountain, high, white elevation–I had to crane my neck to see the summit–and low curtains of lead pouring rain covered our way from horizon to horizon. I listened for thunder but heard none. Against this grayness, the black silhouette of a frigate bird flapped its paper wings to make distance between it and the great wall. Flap flap flap–awkward in a bird built for soaring–but it was desperate to flee. It was the only other creature. This did not fill me with confidence.

But our choices were to stop and wait or go, and one does not stop and wait for mountains that fill the horizon. So I made another cup of coffee, donned oilies, dropped the mizzen, and at 0800 we went. Inside was all rain. Winds jumped to 15 knots immediately, but not much more, and we frothed along for a time. Then they eased to almost nothing. Then rose again and then eased again so that I had to take the wheel from Molly before she ran us the other way. Rain gushed off the main boom but mostly missed the bucket I’d placed at the gooseneck for catchment. Fresh water poured off the edges of the upturned dinghy. It poured out of the scuppers. Then all the pouring stopped and there was silence. Between squalls the cloud ceiling vaulted like that of a cathedral. Then all closed in and another squall released. This was the pattern inside.

At noon we exited almost as abruptly as we had entered. The way ahead was not clear, but it was blue and white and there was no grey. And then I thought of the mountain more as a river of cloud and rain flowing west, and we had forded, swimming.

During the remainder of the day winds have been light, from the east, dead on starboard quarter, and it has been torture. We are so close to our goal and now our propulsion fails. It is like being on the last lap of a footrace you are winning only to look down and find your legs are in big pots of glue.

Worse by far is that Molly has spent the day a befuddled, blindfolded donkey. Our heading should be 302 degrees true for Hilo. Graciously I will settle for 300 degrees true. Molly can only give me 270 tending toward a jibe or 330 rounding up to a luff–each with the requisite whackity crash and bang of sails and blocks. No matter what I do. Mizzen up; mizzen down; mizzen in; mizzen out; main in; main out; vane adjusted; wheel adjusted. Each element played against the other results in the same–a prettily held course until I look away. Then we are charging off for god knows where.

To be fair, in quartering winds this light there is simply not enough feedback for Molly to get what’s going on. Several times true wind has been on the quarter, but apparent wind, well forward of the beam. And with the frequent wind accelerations/decelerations today, even I got confused.

This, however, has not prevented me from venting richly and at great length in Molly’s direction. Where I have acquired this vile temper I do not know, but I’m grateful for the lack of witnesses, because all day I have been a mother yelling at her young child in the park: “Why do you act like that?! What am I supposed to do with you?! WHAT THE F*** DO … YOU … WANT … FROM … ME?!

end

Day 19

Local Noon Position (1142):
By GPS: 15.53.61N by 149.05.25W
By Sextant: 15.53.7N 149.05.75W

Course: 310 degrees true
Speed: 5 knots
Wind: 10 knots NNE
Sea: 1 – 6 feet NE Some big rollers coming down from the north.
Sky: 20% occluded. Clear everywhere but ahead, and ahead is a wall of cloud; we trend alongside. Bar: 1014
Temp: 78 degrees

MILES
Since last noon: 136
Total for passage: 2154
Daily average: 120
Miles to Hilo: 408

DAY SUMMARY

Woke to a brilliantly sunny day after having slept through my alarm. The last turn on deck I recall was at 0300, and then suddenly I see light filling the cabin. Wind tailed off dramatically overnight, so even before coffee I raised the mizzen then moved to the captain’s seat from which I could adjust Molly’s vane. Here I saw a remarkable thing. High up on the vane, a collection of fish scales. Some hapless flying fish escaping the shadowy hulk of Murre’s hull had flown smack into the vane and left a significant portion of its armour behind. It got away, however, unlike the two unfortunates in the lee scuppers amidships. Some cruisers eat the fish their boats collect overnight. I don’t. Flying fish are just tiny bones covered in scales.

Very light winds–6 to 8 knots most of the morning–from E or NNE. The first is challenging because it’s light wind on the quarter; sails fill, running the boat away from the wind, and then they slam around like wild horses. And the second means we’re close hauled again. Poor Molly can’t figure out how to handle this, so I’m up several times an hour resetting the vane to what seems to be ever changing conditions. Still, we move forward, and that’s what counts. Large swells are now rolling in from the north due to a gale in the region of 30N, deep valleys, long periods between, and heavy, but without any savagery left. We haven’t seen swell like this since coasting from San Francisco to Baja last October. I’ve spotted only one other life form all day–a storm petrel that came to inventory the edibles turned over by Murre’s wake. She found none and wandered away.

Weather forecasts have shown wind softening now and over the next several days between here and Hawaii, which means our record runs are history–we may limp into Hilo.

I rely on two pieces of weather information: 1) the East Pacific Weather Discussion (from NOAA), a longish text email describing main weather features between here and Mexico with specific emphasis on east Pacific hurricanes, and 2) a GRIB file, a graphical representation of forecasted winds for the next several days for my sector. If you are interested in seeing what my GRIB wind forecasts look like, visit http://www.passageweather.com and zero in on my region. The first chart is a wind forecast and is very similar to what I study each day.

In case you are unfamiliar with wind charts, the lines followed by hash marks that dominate the chart are called WIND ARROWS. The long line, the arrow, points in the direction the wind will flow and the hashes on the end, the feathers, indicate wind velocity. One full hash mark at the end of a wind arrow would be 10 knots of wind. One hash mark and a smaller one above it would be 15 knots, etc. These are automated predictions and the GRIB people go out of their way to say that the data is probably worthless and shouldn’t be trusted, but GRIBs are by far the most popular weather tool among cruisers I’ve met because, correct or not, they’re easy to grok.

The great wall of cloud that was ahead of us at dawn is still ahead of us and even appears to be running away. Let it. Good riddance.

end

Day 18

Local Noon Position (1134):
By GPS: 14.21.84N by 147.17.18W
By Sextant: 14.24.0N by 147.14.0W

Note: First two sights I wrestled with cloud. The afternoon shot was clean.

Course: 315 degrees true
Speed: 6 knots
Wind: 13 knots NNE
Sea: 1 – 2 feet NE
Sky: 50% occluded. Lots of cumulus puffies, rank upon rank of soldiers marching across the sky. Bar: 1012
Temp: 77 degrees

MILES
Since last noon: 147 (!)
Total for passage: 2018
Daily average: 119
Miles to Hilo: 544

DAY SUMMARY

Clear skies lasted until early morning, and then a layer of cumulus came in, but nothing heavy or threatening or wet, and the day’s winds followed into the night and on into today. Which means I don’t know when we left the ITCZ exactly, but we are in the NE trade belt by now. Remarkable is that in this crossing of an area so famous for calms, for trapping wind ships for weeks on end, we experienced almost no true dead air and motored for only two hours. Murre has been under full sail most of the day and on a fast close reach (not close hauled, neither too free). Interestingly, almost no birds today; then an hour ago, an entire fleet of Sooty Terns heading NE. Molly has been acting more civil, and as reward I’ve left her alone for nearly a day and a half.

Ate the last apple yesterday. Murre had tossed it to the floor a couple times over the weeks, so it was both rubbery and mealy but somehow still quite delicious. One French Polynesian grapefruit (pamplemousse) remains as well as three oranges. But the oranges have betrayed me. They were my last purchase in Raiatea, were the freshest fruit on board–bright, shiny, and cool–and so I was saving them to the end. But I noticed last week that two of the ten had gone bad, and the others are mushy inside–still edible, but far from satisfying. One looks forward to the taste of fresh fruit on passage, this as an antidote to all the canned foods, the rice and the beans, that are the staples. So the failure of the oranges is deeply disappointment.

By way of compensation, however, I discovered that packages of air-locked bacon with “Keep Frozen at 18*C” printed boldly on the back side don’t even need to be refrigerated. I’m not a great fan of eggs and bacon, but fell victim to the *one should have variety aboard* fallacy and so bought, at the last moment before departure, a dozen eggs and two sleeves of frozen bacon. The bacon thawed ten minutes after leaving the store and was never again so much as cool, but always looked as rosy as it did on the first day. I tried one sleeve with a scramble of eggs shortly after leaving Bora Bora. The eggs did not worry me. If purchased unrefrigerated to begin with and then turned three times a week so as to keep the inside of the shell moist (i.e. sealed), eggs will last as much as two months, even in the tropics. I was less sure of the bacon. But the opened packaged smelled as it should and the meat felt as fresh as bacon ever does. And once fried and tasted, it was obviously edible. It was also obvious why it lasted–the bacon was 99% salt. Terrible–awful stuff to call food. I ate all four scrambled eggs and the entire sleeve in one morning and felt wretched for the rest of the day.

When at all, I learn lessons slowly. On top of that I hate wasting food. So the second sleeve of bacon, just as fresh-looking and smelling as the first, went into the pan two days ago. For the sake of clarity, that was over two weeks after purchase/thawing. It tasted identical to the first sleeve, but this time I stretched the eating of it over a couple days. Remind me not to buy bacon again.

One might call it irresponsible for a man to experiment with foods who is well out of reach of the nearest MediVac helicopter, but I remember reading of an arctic explorer whose company was lost and hungry when they happened upon a beached, long dead and mostly decomposed whale, which they immeditely consumed raw, and whose virtues they extolled. In fact, it was this explorer’s most cherished and most proclaimed discovery–humans can eat anything. It didn’t get him invited to many parties.

end

Day 17

Local Noon Position (1126):
By GPS: 12.40.43N by 145.25.75W
By Sextant: 12.42.8N by 145.24W

Note: All sights today in cloud, and I was surprised how well the sun shades work to pull an orb shape out of a grey sky.

Course: 310 degrees true
Speed: 6.8 knots
Wind: 10 knots NNE
Sea: 1 – 2 feet S
Sky: 100% occluded. Entering yet another large, dark cell now (noon). Bar: 1011
Temp: 79 degrees

MILES
Since last noon: 145 Best single-day of Murre’s cruising career! Total for passage: 1871
Daily average: 117
Miles to Hilo: 691

DAY SUMMARY
Our remarkable mileage for yesterday is due to sailing fast and having a current with us. Wind has been steady now for two days at 9 to 12 knots from ENE to (briefly) NNW, and as I write, it appears we may be reaching the edge of this frontier of deep cloud cover–nothing but open sky ahead–which could announce the end of the ITCZ. We shall see. Today wind has moved more into the NNE than I could wish; we are close hauled, and I am glad I made all the easting I did. Some light rain today that, in combination with the heavy rains overnight, which I caught in a five gallon bucket at the main mast goose neck, allowed me to wash face and hair in fresh water for a change. This morning a blue footed boobie attempted to land on the main mast and got a good thwack when the mast head rolled back off a swell. I heard a squawk, saw a ruffle of feathers as the bird tried to recapture itself in flight, and then off it went. No more attempts. Other birds in groups: fairy terns and sooty terns with my gadfly petrels. A pod of eight dolphins played at Murre’s bow wave for an hour some time later, and just now (dusk) I saw a large pod of dolphins on the hunt and cutting up the water something fierce. All of which makes me feel like we are getting close, though Hilo is still nearly over 700 miles away.

+_+_+_+_+_

(Note: Spending so much time in conversation with itself, the mind of the singlehander comes to regard its own fascinations as necessarily fascinating to all. Along those lines I have been contemplating a series of short articles on Celestial Navigation that, you will be relieved to learn, are unlikely to be birthed. However, this first little piece I have been wanting to share for some time.)

CELESTIAL NAVIGATION, PART 1–CREDIT WHERE IS DUE

My fascination with seafaring I owe to my father, who was a merchant marine the first half of his working life.

The frame of his tale has classic elements: born poor in the midwest; unhappy childhood; at twelve ran away to the big city (Chicago); searched-out by his father and forcibly returned home; at thirteen hatched a better plan, took a menial job on a Great Lakes coal ship and never came back.

Later he joined the deep-sea merchant service. He was enterprising; he studied his craft, and, when age allowed, took his exams and passed for mate. Over time he advanced to captain. He was in the merchant service during WWII, serving on ships whose routes passed into threatened waters. One hit a mine and was sunk. Another caught a torpedo. He has been rescued from the icy Atlantic by a submarine.

His early mentor was a captain with the salty name of Jellison, a terse, demanding, but even-tempered northeasterner whose only display of emotion was, when angry, to walk to the bridgedeck and “spit dry”. Another captain for whom he served was a drunk who secretly stowed cases of whisky in his cabin, which he rarely left. During one passage, this man shot dead one of his crew for insolence. As an officer, my dad often carried a large, metal flashlight in his hip pocket to aid with the enforcement of discipline and for self defense.

For years he was on the Boston to Seattle run for a company called Luckenbach. He has seen winter storms whose waves were so great that the whole ship dropped into the trough at a 45 degree angle; green walls of water bodily over the bow would send a shudder through the superstructure, and to those on the bridge, her resurrection was not at all certain. “I have held onto the bridge railing so hard, I left a hand print,” said my dad.

To a boy, this was like having a dad who was an astronaut. It was excellent. Nothing seemed more exciting or manly than being a sailor, nothing bigger or more important than a ship. By the time I was born, my dad had retired from the sea: he went to college, started a family, got regular jobs like other men. But select artifacts of his early life remained in the house like treasure. In his closet hung his officer’s uniform and medallioned hat, which I often wore when he wasn’t around. In the cupboard where mother kept the vacuum was his set of large black bridge binoculars. For a time, his mates license hung from the wall looking like minted money. On the bookshelf was a fat Maritime Dictionary in blue cloth with drawings of hoists and great metal bulkheads and engine rooms and diagrams of tall masts with their yards and rigging and sails. Next to it was an old copy of Moby Dick, illustrated by Rockwell Kent, whose pictures were so evocative I never tried to read the book–pine tar and whale fat and danger oozed from the pages.

On the shelf above these books was the most mysterious of dad’s sea-faring items. Its varnished mahogany case was propped open and tilted back and on a wooden frame inside the box rested his brass sextant, held as if it were a museum piece. The handle was polished wood and the mirrors of a mercurial silver. Filling the frame were diagonal supports that looked like flying buttresses. At the end of the index bar a tiny scope hung over the micrometers whose minute, engraved numbers spoke of precision and care. It was so heavy I struggled to hold it to my eye. “With this arm you bring the sun down to the horizon,” my dad would say. And I was amazed. I had thought only Joshua could command the sun.

A father does not teach celestial navigation to his young boy when the family lives in forested mountains hours from the sea and when the boy’s enjoyment of mathematics is in grave doubt. I was taught other things. On clear nights when we were sitting in the front yard dad would talk about the constellations and show me how to find the North Star. He taught me the proper, seaman’s way to tie a bowline, a clove hitch, a reef knot, that buoys are always “Red Right Returning from sea”, and that compass variation is “East, add it on.” He taught me that when given an order, the sailor responds with “Aye Sir,” and repeats the order. “Aye Sir, go clean my room.” I always thought he was overly fond of that particular sailor’s rule.

Dad never spoke of the sea romantically. Sailing was a job and seamanship a serious, uncertain business. He never waxed poetical over sunsets or moonrises; he never talked of the dazzling colors of waves or flying fish as a spray of diamonds, but I know he felt it, a sense of deep wonder. Over the years his sextant has come to symbolized both, the serious side of seamanship and the grandeur. For as Cunliffe says, “Only the most cynical never felt a tingle of awe at the thought that they had fixed their position to within a mile or two on the planet we call home by observations of stars and galaxies marching in silence through the infinity of space.” And so as I bring the sun down to the horizon each day I am reminded of my dad. I hope he is enjoying this passage as much as I for I would not have done it without him.

My old man was born in 1921 and turns 90 this month. Please join me in wishing him a happy birthday.

end

Day 16

Local Noon Position (1119):
By GPS: 10.55.19N by 143.47.67W
By Sextant: 10.48N by 143.54W

Note: Not a good day for navigation. I actually forgot the noon sight–had my head buried in one of the food lockers trying to organize what refuses to be so, and suddenly it was too late. Then cloud obscured the 1430 shot, though I was able to get it. So, the noon sight is by Dead Reckoning, and the GPS position is for 12:00 time zone noon.

Course: 330 degrees true
Speed: 5 knots
Wind: 10 knots ENE
Sea: 1 – 4 feet S
Sky: 80% occluded. A very large cell we are intersecting soon–biggest I’ve seen this passage. Bar: 1011
Temp: 79 degrees

MILES
Since last noon: 91
Total for passage: 1726
Daily Average: 115

DAY SUMMARY

Notice that we have made the turn. After two weeks of climbing northeast and a couple days of due north, our bows are now pointed just to windward of the island of Hawaii. Hilo is less than 800 miles away; Honolulu, less than 1000.

Up and down night, as usual, but woke at dawn to Murre making 5 knots in the right direction on a wind from the east that built all day. At first I thought we were out of it, out of the ITCZ. The sky shown blue and cumulus puffed white in a friendly way, but after a time I realized that at the horizon in every direction sat solid, complex cloud, as if we were in a large, circular valley surrounded by mountains.

But the wind stayed good, fresh from the east and often north east, and built to 15 knots by early afternoon when we sailed into a large and ragged weather cell that we are still in. High pillars of white, but heavy, low below and with rain. It looks infinite in size and nasty.

And we have been flying, averaging over 6.5 knots for hours on winds gusting to 17 in very lumpy sea.

The only difficulty has been that Molly refuses to hold a course for more than fifteen minutes. I want 325 degrees true. I will happily settle for 320 or 330, but after pretending to comply for a short time, Molly refuses to sustain any course but 310 or 345. No matter what changes I make to sail or the position of the vane or its hold on the wheel, a few minutes after I am satisfied that *this* time we have it, a few minutes after I’ve gone below to brush my teeth or make lunch or just relax, Molly ever so quietly wonders off.

I have yelled. I have yelled at the top of my lungs and made a fist. I have made threats I am too ashamed to admit and promises I can never keep. I have even pleaded, a little. Molly appears to listen attentively and then she does what pleases her, which seems very obviously to be whatever does not please me.

In truth it is a difficult day for sailing to a course. Wind velocities are changing frequently; the sea is tossing every which way, often pushing the boat bodily off her line. “See,” says Molly, “It is not my fault.” “Well it’s not my fault either!” I shout from the cabin. So we have stopped talking, at least until morning.

The night is dark. With cloud down to water-top I see nothing from the hatch but navigation lights. I don’t even see our wake. Now rain.

end

Day 15

Local Noon Position (1119):
By GPS: 09.22.31N by 143.28.13W
By Sextant: 09.24.60N by 143.29.50W

Celestial Nav Note: the sun was solidly behind cloud for the 0930 shot but just visible enough at noon and 1430 to get a tentative running fix, represented above.

Course: 350 degrees true
Speed: 5 knots
Wind: 10 Knots NE
Sea: 1 foot S
Sky: 100% occluded. Low cloud all around. Very dark cell ahead–am trying to slip behind it. Bar: 1012
Temp: 79 degrees

MILES
Since last noon: 68
Total for passage: 1635
Daily Average: 117

Mileage Note: the following question came in yesterday and is answered at the bottom of this post. “When you refer to making a certain number of miles a day, are you referring to nautical miles or statute miles? You talk about knots, so I assume nautical, but don’t know.”

DAY SUMMARY

Winds were light and variable over night, and in the morning our course made good on the chart plotter screen looked like a child’s doodle, a collection of figure eights and a lazy S going nowhere. For a time wind was light from the south, then light from the north; I would dutifully rise, adjust sails and the vane, and race back to my bunk only to wake an hour later and find Murre gliding in the opposite direction. I finally gave up and slept. In the early morning before dawn, heavy rain for several hours with no wind.

Daylight brought a view of nothing: low, featureless cloud in all directions, a close horizon, and drizzle. Winds were light from the south and then southwest but couldn’t fill the sails, so at 0930 I started the engine. Which brought wind: by noon we were under full sail in a NE breeze of 10 knots…which slowly, slowly faded to nothing three hours later. But threatening to motor, I have decided, is good luck. So in the late afternoon and after an hour of flat calm, I began to rig the autopilot and we were immediately gifted with ENE winds at 10 knots (which are still blowing nicely as I type).

The sky has been a crazy collection of cloud all day: towers pouring rain; low, flat cells with torn or hazy edges that just drizzle, and when the sky opens, a hodgepodge of cumulus in all direction.

During one moment of sun, I noticed that the near water had about it a coppery-orange glow, and then as I stared, the glow expanded in size and became coppery-green at the center but hung right above the water’s surface. It could only be a water-top rainbow, but I half expected a space ship to slowly descend through the cloud.

A short while later I was relashing the main boom vang when I noticed just off to port and in the water below me a large portion of the water that had suddenly turned a light, effervescent, sherbet blue. Panic. It could only mean one of two things. The first was that we had just discovered a subsurface, uncharted reef, and I held my breath. Seconds later a great rush of bubbles broke the water’s surface, and the light coloration rapidly moved away from Murre. It blew a short distance away, and its companion, whom I had not seen, blew almost simultaneously some fifty feet behind us. The boat had barely any way at that point, so most likely is that these two whales were coming back up from depth and hadn’t noticed Murre until the last moment. The only distinctive feature, beyond their black coloration and their size (think school bus) was a tiny, hooking dorsal fin, like that of the Minke or Bryde’s whale. Two deep breaths and they sounded.

Tonight, a full, butter-colored moon rises over an inky sea and a swell from the north. Below it, Jupiter shines warmly, and around in all directions, stars, an open sky, just whisps of cloud at the margins.

Could it be? Have we escaped?

_=_=_=_=_

Question: “When you refer to making certain number of miles a day, are you referring to nautical miles or statute miles? You talk about knots, so I assume nautical, but don’t know.”

Answer: I’ve only ever met one sailor who insisted that the unit of measure for navigation at sea was the statute mile. Our two boats were anchored in Turtle Bay, on the Pacific side of the Baja Peninsula, next to a very brown town, and his wife was serving up a lovely Christmas dinner of roasted chicken and potatoes with red wine, so I thought it impolite to disagree at the time. But he was wrong. Sea miles are, by definition, nautical miles.

I’m not sure why the statute mile was invented, but its 5280 feet don’t relate to anything salty that I know of. The 6076 feet in a nautical mile, on the other hand, trace off one small part of a great circle which, in total, is the measure of the globe. One nautical mile equals one minute of latitude and 60 nautical miles (60 minutes) equals one degree of latitude. We get to 60 by dividing the earth’s rough circumference (21,600 miles) by the 360 degrees in a circle.

So, if I’ve made it from 08.00.00N to 09.00.00N, I’ve traveled 60 nautical miles (assuming my course is due north). Just so, when you see (as above) that my noon position by GPS was 09.22.31N and my Sextant reading gave me 09.24.60N, you know the sextant has missed the mark by just over two minutes/two miles (24.60 – 22.31 = 2.29 miles).

By the way, a knot is a unit of speed equal in distance to one nautical mile. Leave it to the sailor to invent two same-sounding words for similar ideas that bear no etymological relationship. *Nautical* is from the Greek *nautikos*, of or pertaining to ships, and *knot* references the old device used by sailing ships to measure speed, the chip log–a spool of line with knots tied at regular intervals whose end was tossed over the ship’s side and her speed measured by the number of knots that reeled off the line in s set period of time.

I hope that answers the question, Judy. Thanks for asking; it was a fun exercise.

end

Day 14

Local Noon Position (1119):
By GPS: 08.15.33N by 143.15.55W
By Sextant: 08.17.1N by 143.13.0W

Course: 5 degrees true
Speed: 5.4 knots
Wind: 11 SSW
Sea: 2 – 4 S
Sky: 20% occluded. Clear and open astern. Torn and low but not overly dark cloud ahead. Bar: 1011
Temp: 78 degrees

MILES
Since last noon: 138
Total for passage: 1567
Daily Average: 121

DAY SUMMARY

Woke at midnight to a speeding freight train. Murre had taken increased winds and was racing off on a course of about 45 degrees true, way too far east. Had full sail up at the time. Took in all but the main and was still making nearly 6 knots over the ground. Noticed when I came below that the cabin lights on the port side have stopped working. This in case I was short of things to do. The joys of an old boat.

Murre rolled and rolled overnight, which made sleeping difficult because I have not set up lee cloths for my port side berth on this passage (not needed when on starboard tack in both south and north trades), and the lee cloth berth on starboard is full of sail bags from the leaking forepeak. Finally figured I could sleep on top of the sail bags–lumpy but soft, and the lee cloths kept me from spilling onto the floor.

By morning the sky was ripped and flattened and gray in all directions. Winds were over 15 knots from the south and had built a steep chop, so I continued on with main only. Ate the last of the Dorado with rice for breakfast, then spent most of the morning attempting to identify the many petrels that played over the near ocean. Most were of the Gadfly Petral group, of which there are twenty or so species, and I was entirely unsuccessful in positively identifying a single one, even though several came very close to play in the disturbed air on the back side of the main. (More on this later.)

Wind softened and veered into the SW in the afternoon, so I wore to port tack, but we couldn’t take the wind shallow enough to warrant the jib. Am currently under main and mizzen only with wind between dead aft and on the deep port quarter. An odd sail configuration, but it keeps us going at around 3-4 knots in 7-8 knots of wind, decreasing. Main slating away. At this point it’s either a slatting main or a slatting jib, take your pick.

In calm seas late in the day I moved the anchor off the bow and calked what I could. Won’t know if was successful till we get back into wet-ride weather, unlikely before 11N.

Cloud everywhere now and complex: lumpy, torn, flattened, dark. With the loss of wind today I feel certain we’ve entered the ITCZ. How to get out is the question.

Hello again folks!

As you can see from Randall’s post below, there was just a data entry error when updating the map. Lucky for us, Randall has a friend who’s re-jiggered all the coordinates and created an updated map for everyone. Look! He’s heading the right way now. Phew!

The good news for me is I get to start looking at flight options to Hawaii. Ah the terrible life of the wife on the mainland.

J

Day 13

Local Noon Position (1119*):
By GPS: 06.02.25N by 143.54.85W
By Sextant: 06.03.2N by 143.52.0W

YOTREPS Position Report Note: Those following Murre on the WHERE’S MURRE tab of this blog will notice that over the last two days we appear to have lost ground significantly, to the tune of 80 to 100 miles to the SW. This is due to my error in reporting latitude to YOTREPS on those two days as SOUTH latitude when in fact it was NORTH. I cannot change what is posted but will correct for future reports.

Course: 20 degrees true
Speed: 5.7 knots
Wind: 12 S
Sea: 2 – 3 S
Sky: 40% occluded. Sky filled with light, puffy cumulus. Nothing heavy in sight at noon. Bar: 1011, falling. 1010 by 1430
Temp: 79 degrees

MILES
Since last noon: 128 (good total given the night of light and variables) Total for passage: 1429
Daily Average: 119

DAY SUMMARY

Wind died in the night as we sailed into a series of large cumulus cells. I’ve come to refer to these cells as HOOVERS because they suck up all the wind. The phenomenon is simply that hot air is rising off the ocean and condensing into cloud, and the bigger the cloud, the more air is rising. Air that goes up can’t also go sideways, and I need it to go sideways for me to go forward. You see the problem, I’m sure.

So from about 0200 to 0430 I was often on deck attempting to keep Murre going in what variable wind there was or at least quite her flogging sails.

By day break the heavy stuff had cleared out and we had wind at 13 knots from the SE that has backed into the S and softened as the day has gone on, but not by much. Am sailing Murre like an old Square Rigger, that is, with wind deep on her starboard quarter, the main and mizzen steal most of the jib’s wind, so I’ve got it over half rolled up and sheeted in hard, and the main and mizzen are full out and lashed down. It’s not the speediest sail configuration, but we now have just under a knot of current in our favor, so are still averaging around 6 knots over the bottom.

Two white tailed tropic birds have dropped by today, one at 0700 and another at 1300, and over the many days of such visits a pattern is emerging. Invariably the birds circle several times, then swing in close over me (30 feet above the boat) and give me (me?) a good long obvious stare. Then they do the same with the bow (the bow?). Not sure what they are assessing. I thought at first they might be eyeing the drying Dorado pieces on top of the dinghy, but I think not.

Three large porpoises galloped within range at 0730 but failed to come close enough for a chat.

At this point, we’ve made all the easting that was planned. I set a goal of reaching 145W by the time we’d reached 5N, but we beat that goal handily, and as wind is still favorable for easting, I’m letting Murre slip a little more. Easting is insurance against a rough ride on the last stretch to Hawaii. The North East trades are usually heavier than those in the South, so the further aft we can carry the wind the better everyone will feel. The risk is that we make the passage longer than it need be, for every mile of easting must be resailed as we turn to Hawaii, now significantly west of us.

Dead ahead as I type late this afternoon is a large area of undefined low cloud; it is downwind of us yet we are catching it. May be more light wind in our future. Hope not. I could do with some sleep.

*For those interested, this number is the time of local noon on that day–by definition, exactly (within a minute or two) of when the sun is directly overhead. It is usually expressed in Greenwich Mean Time for the purposes of working it into a latitude, but I’ve backed it into the local time zone, which is GMT – 10. Local Noon is earlier by four minutes for every degree of easting we make.

end.

Hey folks!

This is Jo. For those of you that are worried about the map coordinates on the YoTreps “Where is Murre page” do not fret. I’ve already let Randall know and am pretty sure he’s not heading in the wrong direction. We’ll keep you posted.

J