The night was marvelous and although the wind was quite light, we moved along steadily as the seas were very calm. We got a final send off as we left the bay from a large group of humpback whales who were crossing our path as we headed southwest. Looking at the chart it is no wonder that Monterey Bay is a destination and home for so much marine wildlife: the bottom is composed of a series of underwater canyon-like formations that stay quite deep even closse to shore. One must imagine that this provides a unique microclimate, a mixing between the deep ocean and coastal waters. We heard whale spouts through the night as we crept along and by morning we were out of sight of land.
The next few days were a dream: a 10-15kt with very calm seas that made for 6 kt under full sail. We were on somewhat of a close reach and balancing the sails allowed the skipper to read a book, only checking the compass from time to time. In our rush to make it to Hawaii before the our weather window closed, we had foregone the set-up of our self-steering gear and had to hand steer. Although, hearing this elicited a groan from most sailors we met, I think that it forced us to pay closer attention and helped us to learn to better sail the boat, still quite new to us. The conditions of these first few days were the type of weather that, as Lowell said, "allowed people to sail a West Wight Potter across the ocean." Truly very nice.
Over the next few days the wind and seas built as we listened to forecasts for a spell of heavier weather coming from the north. Soon enough the wind had reached 30-35kt and we were sailing under only our forward stays'l, cruising down the roller coaster of 15-20ft seas. Although the conditions were more extreme than any we had faced before, we had got a good taste of larger seas and breeze from behind on our way down the coast and we felt generally quite comfortable in the situation. The boat performed very well although the waves appeared large and steep, they were actually quite gentle. The most difficult part of the situation was the rolling that came along with having little lateral stability due to only having one small sail up, sheeted out all the way. At times, we would be pushed by a wave in such a way that the boat would heel over to the point that the toe rail would go under, scooping up water and sending it rushing back towards the cockpit. Every step taken on the boat had to be carefully planned and in sync with the roll of the boat and sleep was only made possible by cramming ourselves into our berths with anything we could find. Sailing during the day provided a fun challenge of trying to steer the boat for maximum comfort and sailing at night was generally quite easy: driving by the compass, free from the stress of seeing the waves rise up from behind. Daybreak was probably the most difficult time as we had to readjust to the sight of monsters looming up from behind, only to pick us up and then slide away to the south.
After about three days of heavy weather, the wind began to slack and the seas followed. We continued on as conditions changed but the wind remained steady from north. It was very interesting to feel the difference in sea state as we passed through the ocean, sometimes gentle, long-period swells, sometimes snappy, jumpy waves that made the boat feel as though we were bouncing and skittering along.
Shortly thereafter, the wind died completely, as did the swell and we were left on one particular evening in glassy conditions, barely any perceptible swell and not a breath of wind. Halfway between Hawaii and the mainland, we dropped all sail, made a nice dinner, and watched a remarkable sunset (pictures of which we would share were it not for some malfunction of my cursed camera memory card). We all slept, with Lowell on deck in the event of a rise in the wind, and by morning we were crusing along slowly. The wind proceeded to die again for a spell and we were concerned that we had strayed to close to the north Pacific high pressure systems and had not initially gone far enough south before heading west. We actually did at one point fire up the engine to charge the batteries and began to head south under power before realizing that we didn't have the fuel capacity to get too far along anyways: a funny and cool realization that made us truly appreciate the concept of voyaging long distances under sail.
Reporter Jim Marrison visits the crew for a mid-ocean interview
Part 1
Part 2
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| Laundry at sea |
Luckily, we did not have many other sail related problems over the course of the passage. We did chafe a small hole in the mizzen main with a bracket on the spreaders (which was quickly removed) and we ended up doing a lot of restitching of seams on the tris'l, understandably though, as it is about 50 years old.
Some of the most enjoyable times of the trip for me were during this time, mostly spent hanging my head over the side and staring at the blue as we crept along, neon and alive like the red of blood. At one point I saw a yellow-fin tuna cruising past but that was about the extent of the mid-ocean wildlife. We saw porpoises and whales as we left the coast and two large dolphin-like characters a few hundred miles out but that was about it, aside from the schools of flying fish that skittered out of our path (it was truly remarkable to see the flying fish as they rocketed out of the water and then flapped their tail to avoid landing and continue on over thenext trough before dissapeared like darts into the water. We would occasionally find them on the deck in th morning and they provided a tasty addition to our diet). We saw several solitary tropic birds out in the middle, a few lone tern-like birds, and gooney birds as we approached Hawaii but not much in the way of avian life either.
Emmett plays banjo on watch as Lowell narrates
Many people have heard about the existence of the mid-Pacific trash gyre and have asked us about the garbage we saw out in the ocean. Although we didn't travel through the gyre (situated in the middle of the windless north Pacific high pressure system), we saw plenty of flotsam as we sailed. Mostly the garbage was composed of broken-down plastic items such as detergent bottles and milk crates scattered about. We also saw a fair amount of fishing related trash, rafts of line and nets drifting about. These rafts were actually the source of much amusement as there was not much else to look at, water and sky aside.
Not an uncommon occurence, Lowell sings on
watch with "Why do Fools Fall in Love"
The clouds were a source of constant enjoyment as we cruised along. Sometimes fuzzy, gray masses covering the blue, sometimes tremendous dream-like mountains towering above and constantly morphing and moving in illogical ways. My favorite were the processions of cumulous characters marching south: people, animals, bells, umbrellas, cars, planes, an endless stream of fantastic cartoons. What's more, I found that I looked to the clouds, as I would look to land, for a sense oof direction and progress. Sometimes I felt as though we were traveling through giant valleys of Colorado, mountain ranges in the distance on each side, and sometimes I would feel as though we had made a 90 degree turn, only based on my observance of the cloud formation and orientation.
Lowell Goofs Around
During this entire time we had been watching the clouds carefully in hopes that we would see the "popcorn cumulous" clouds that tell the mariner that they are in the trade winds. It was a long time in coming but one evening we saw them, holding up the tradewind cloud diagram in our marine weather textbook just to make sure. It was quite the relief, as inexperienced ocean travelers, to know that we had made it into the trades and we continued along as the wind built.
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| Another day in the office for Lowell |
The trades stayed with us right up until reaching Hawaii, blowing a steady 20-25kt from behind. This took about a week or so and was relatively smooth sailing aside from the rolling that we experience head dead downwind. We experimented with different sail configurations, especially interested to try out the square sail but ended up mostly wind the mizzen and mizzen stays'l wing and wing. We found that although this set-up required more attention from the skipper, we moved faster that with any other arrangement, mostly because we couldn't put up as much sail without having sails block eachother. So down we rolled, excited to be making good progress and to feel the warmth of the water.
As far as other ships went, we saw cruise ships and freighters every few days. We did see a few fishing boats a few days out from Hilo but for the most part it was just the big guys. Often we would call on the radio to say hello but our conversations were generally brief as the captains didn't seem too exited to talk. On one occassion, however, Lowell got talking to an indian captain aboard a cargo ship bound for Mexico in the middle of the night. They went on and on reminiscing about India and talking about our journey until we lost VHF contact. Vincent also had and interesting experience with a cruise ship who stopped less than a mile directly in front of us. After making radio contact, the captain inquired about our running lights, as he had see the green of our starboard light as well as Vincent's red headlight as he sat and read in the cockpit. The mystery was solved and we went our separate ways.
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| Vincent at the helm |
The weather changed and the wind lightened as we approached the big island, moving from our plotting sheets to our chart of Hawaii. We could tell that something was different by the quality of the clouds but we couldn't see land, even the nearly 14,000 foot summits of Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa. Finally on Halloween, we caught a glimpse of the northwest side of Mauna Kea through a hole in the clouds just before dark. This was reason for much celebration as we broke out celebratory bars of chocolate, drank tea, and were even able to make a few phone calls to our families from 60 miles out. We reduced sail in order to avoid approaching land in the dark moved steadily towards the glow of Hilo in the distance. In actualality, we should have kept speeding ahead as the wind died and we found ourselves the next more, flopping around in the rain with choppy seas, still thirty miles out. We inched our way closer but as we were being set quite rapidly by the current to the east, we fired up the old iron spinnaker and motor-sailed towards Hilo bay. On the way we enjoyed a squash pie and orange sodas and soon enough we were inside the breakwater.
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| Emmett on the bow, approacing Hilo |
We dropped anchor in Reed's Bay, as that is where we saw many boats moored, and after taking a breather and talking with some passers-by, rowed to shore in search of coconuts. We promptly discovered several trees and downed a few before wandering, exhausted and and bit wobbly, into town.
