fetchinketch

We are in our slip at the Ali Wai Boat Harbor just off the bustle of Waikiki. We had a good dinner, and are going to dive into bed for an UNINTERRUPTED night’s sleep.

It is just shy of sunrise, and the flashing of Moloka’i Light has be visible for many hours. O’ahu is off our starboard bow, and Moloka’i to port as we are getting lined up on the Kaiwi Channel on the final approach to Honolulu. I can’ t yet see the shore in the dark, but the eastern coast of Moloka’i is bright on the radar screen just 12 miles away.

We where cheated out of seeing the peak of Haleakala on Maui yesterday by haze and fog. Right now it is clear, and the wind is only 15 knots, but a rather nasty looking line of showers is bearing down on us from the east. If they carry much wind, they might make or passage through the channel exciting.

In half an hour, the coast will be visible in daylight, in 8 hours we’ll be at the dock.

Yesterday we had the traditional sailor’s end of passage conversation about what you will do first on land:

Bill: A beer
Karen: An ice cream
Bill: Just enjoy standing up without holding on
Karen: A walk that is longer than 40 feet

So it is settled then. We are going to standup, then walk until I find beer and Karen finds ice cream.

Last night the wind gods had their fun with us.

We were sailing on a fast comfortable deep reach on a course just north of west. I was expecting the wind to clock a bit more to the south to set up our final approach to the channel between O’ahu and Moloka’i. At about 10pm it happened! The wind went from 60 degrees to 90 degrees, setting us up for a fast and comfortable reach straight in. All we needed to do was gybe and set off on port tack.

Now gybing a boat like the Fetchin’ Ketch with a shorthand crew, a poled-out jib, at night, in 30 knots of wind, in 8 to 12 foot seas is not something you do on a whim. Quite a bit needs to happen right and in the right order to do it safely. So after the wind shifted, I held off, following the shift, taking us farther from our destination, holding off to be sure it wasn’t a short term fluke.

After about twenty minutes I decided to go for it. A quarter hour later I had the boat settled in on port tack on a shallow broad reach aimed right where we wanted to go. I was so pleased with my weather forecasting skills. Everything happened just like it was supposed to… Yeah, right.

Within 15 minutes the wind backed to its original angle, leaving us sailing on a course further east than we had hoped, with two more gybes in our future. Arrrrgh! Never get too pleased with yourself!

Over the course of today, the wind did ultimately shift around, although not as far as I hoped. We are now on a dead run, on a good course. The wind is blowing fast enough that we are making hull speed, so we’d gain no time by heading up a bit. To get there faster we’ll take the straight on downwind course and suffer the rolling that comes with that.

Even with the dog leg in our course last night, our straight line 24 hour distance was 147 miles, with 282 left to go. By this time tomorrow we should have the highest peaks on Maui above the horizon. Our first sight of land in 17 days.

The Cushmaker paid us multiple visits last night.

The waves had laid down a good bit, and the wind was still pushing along at good speed, consistently at 7 knots or more. The smaller seas had the boat more stable than it has been in many days.

Apparently the Cushmaker hides in the smaller waves. As we are racing along, suddenly there is a loud THUMP, and 13 tons of boat jumps 3 inches sideways. Now wait for it…. 3… 2… 1… CUSH! As 1000 pounds of water that were thrown in the air by the collision do what they have to do and come crashing down on deck like a ton of bricks. (Can a half ton of water crash like a ton of bricks? That’s one for the philosophers.). If you are in the cockpit you are going to get very wet. If there is a hatch open, the cabin is going to get very wet. This process repeats about once an hour.

Waves in the open ocean aren’t a regular row of symmetrical bumps on the water. Here we have local wind waves coming from the northeast, waves coming from huge gales in the Gulf of Alaska from the northwest, and waves from a distant typhoon from the southeast. Add them all together and you get lumpy chaos. In such a random system every once in a while a bigger fast wave appears and disappears almost as quickly. If the boat happens to be at the right spot at the right time, CUSH!

We are now west of 150 degrees of longitude, so I am now working on a much larger scale chart, #19007, Hawai’i to French Frigate Shoals.

Tomorrow morning we change our clocks for the second time on this trip, this time to Hawaii’i Standard time. Except for one lucky crew member getting an extra hour on their watch, the time zones slip by without the pains of jet travel.

From the perspective of the Navigator things are about to change. Navigation for most of this voyage has consisted of plotting a position once a day on the chart, deciding on a course for the next 24 hours, and that’s about it.

Tomorrow’s position plot will be the first on the first of the local scale Hawai’i charts. As we approach land, being “about here” is no longer good enough. More frequent fixes, more frequent decisions, just plain more busy.

We confirmed with the Ali Wai Marina by Satphone that we have a slip available, and now have our slip assignment. Between 4 and 5 days will have us on land again.

Today’s run was 132 nautical miles, with 587 as the crow flies to Honolulu. We have a little maneuvering to do to deal with the wind, so our distance to sail will be a bit longer than that.

The offshore forecast out of Honolulu is consistent for the large patch of ocean surrounding us:

NORTHEAST TO EAST WINDS 20 TO 30 KNOTS. SEAS 8 TO 12 FEET. SCATTERED SHOWERS. CONTINUING FOR THE FORECAST PERIOD.

Same thing every day. We have gotten used to the conditions, which would have been a bit intimidating 2 weeks ago. The “scattered showers” are mostly small. Some barely sprinkles, others dump buckets for 15 minutes. Mostly from sunset to midnight. Sometime accompanied by more “interesting” wind of up to 38 knots.

We average about 6 knots with a reefed, poled-out jib as our only sail. It makes for fast, easy passage. Our 24 hour run today was 142 miles. 714 miles to go.

Today’s excitement came when I went to start the engine to top up the batteries. When I turn the key I get nothing. No crank, no click, no nothing. Getting access requires emptying the cockpit locker, crawling down and tracing wires while folded up into a shape the would do a Chinese gymnast proud. Before too long I find the broken wire and have things running again.

The plan is to continue for another day on a deep port broad reach, which will run us a little south of our target, then gybe and head for Oahu.

Yesterday we covered 155 miles in 24 hours. The strong trade winds are pushing us along at a fast clip.

It might be worth mentioning what that distance means. There are a number of different ways that a distance like that can be measured. The boat’s speed and distance through the water are measured by a little paddle wheel that sticks down in the water. The GPS also totals the distance that it has moved. Both of these suffer from a similar problem. They don’t care if the boat is moving in a straight line, or in circles. They total the distance moved. Since the boat doesn’t travel in a perfectly straight line, both of these tend to overestimate the distance covered, at least a little.

When boat’s were guided across the ocean by sextant and stars, the “noon sight” taken when the sun was at it highest position in the sky for the day was usually the best fix taken during the day. So distance sailed was reported as the distance between the two noon fixes. This is basically what I do, although with GPS I can pick any 24 hour period.

I have a little spreadsheet that I use where I enter the longitude and latitude positions of two points and I get the distance between them. I double check with the dividers on the chart to make sure everything agrees.

Of course, I could run 100 miles in a day and get no closer to my actual destination if I wasn’t going in the right direction, but that is a whole other problem.

Today’s run is 146 miles, with 853 to go. Six or seven days left. We are both looking forward to life on a level floor where we don’t have to hold on every step!

The Honolulu branch of the National Weather Service says it best:

.SYNOPSIS…FRESH TO STRONG TRADE WINDS ASSOCIATED WITH HIGH PRESSURE NORTH OF THE OFFSHORE WATERS WILL CONTINUE THROUGH THE WEEK.

.”Fresh to Strong” translates as 20 to 30 knots, which is pretty much exactly what we are seeing.

We are settled into a routine for the stronger winds. The boat is set up to ride them comfortably, and we are on a fast course straight to the Kaiwi Channel east of Oahu. We are now closer to Hawaii than San Diego, and moving faster, so we should be more than half way by time.

This afternoon was a study in blue. Of course out here there isn’t much in the way of other colors, but the variety of blue can be breathtaking. It was sunny and bright, the waves big, but more awesome than scary. There was the deep rich blue of the sunlit ocean, the darker gray-blue of the ocean shaded by a cloud, the infinite variety of light blues in the sky, and the very light blue of the clouds. I know, you are going to argue that clouds are white, but that word has to be saved for the patches of foam on top of the waves. When it comes to “white” they put the clouds to shame!

Last night was slow. Winds were light and in consistent. Never totally calm, but there were times where we struggled to keep the boat moving at more than 2 or 3 knots.

Most of the day was glorious. The first day we really had horizon to horizon blue sky. Not a lot of wind, but enough to move the boat steadily. Fishing lines out, ocean calm, boat sailing smooth and happy. Warm, but not hot. Pretty awesome!

Before lunch we hooked our first mahi-mahi. We get him up to the side of the boat and then lose him in a bit of a Chinese fire drill at boat side. It’s not easy getting these wild fish up on deck! He wasn’t a huge fish, maybe 15 pounds. A few minutes later before we get lines sorted out and back in the water Karen spies another one taking a pass at our teaser.

Shortly after we finish lunch: another bite. Right away it is obvious this is a bigger fish. Fifteen minutes later we have another mahi-mahi alongside. This time we both have a better idea of what to do, and soon we have a 30 pound bull mahi-mahi on deck and, shortly later, cleaned and in the fridge. (Pictures when we get to a real internet connection!)

A spectacular sunset capped a beautiful day. The evening weather forecast had a fast moving cold front developing nearby. It was not clear at the time if we we going to skirt it, or end up in the middle of it.

Now, at about 2AM, we know. The last couple of hours have been quite gnarly. Wind to 35 knots and buckets of rain. On the bright side we are moving fast! Hopefully it will settle down before too long.

The passage from the west coast to Hawaii is one of the longer open water passages. Almost three weeks of continuous sailing. Something both quantitatively and qualitatively different from regular day sailing.

Imagine a sailboat in San Francisco Bay. One that is sailed three days a month for eight hours a day, quite a lot by most standards. Every month this boat sails for roughly 24 hours. It would take a year and a half for this boat to accumulate the sailing hours of one trip to Hawaii.

It’s the little things that add up. Things you would never notice in a day. That line in the steering system, it rubs against its block just a little tiny bit. Not hardly anything at all. Except… It it happens for every minute of every hour for a week, the line chafes through and breaks. If you see that first little fuzzy spot that tells you the line is chafing, you can fix it before it goes all bad. But you have to look.

Every day I spend an hour or two going over everything on the boat I can see or touch. Is it exactly as I expect? Is anything loose? Any two parts rubbing that will damage each other? In the category of learning from past problems, yesterday I saw a loose bolt on the wind vane steering system. If it had come loose all the way, it would have lead to total, unrepairable failure. Tightened early, non issue.

We covered 136 nautical miles in the last 24 hours. We are now 904 from San Diego, and 1385 from Hawaii. Some of you more anal retentive types might have noticed that these distances don’t always add up in a rigorous way. The reason being: we don’t always go in a straight line!