North from Kona - May 2011

Goodbye Kona Vog! (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vog)

(Note: See below for a more recent post. Sorry things are out of order!)

We left the mooring in Kailua Bay on May 18th. By this time we had begun to make friends, we knew where all the good coconut palms were, we had dialed in fishing from the boat, and we had settled into routines of yoga and pick-up soccer but it was time to get out of the city. We said our goodbyes to our friends on shore and spent a good long time stowing the live-aboard mess we had created by staying at anchor for so long.

Lowell even had time to squeeze in a small repair on the starboard cap rail where the old teak had given way. When we built the new toe-rail, we pulled out the old teak cap rails and Vincent spent some time filling checks with epoxy, sanding, fairing, and sanding again. We ended up using all but one of the old sections. Although a lot of the wood is still quite sound, there are a lot of places that look a bit rough, especially where the wood is stressed by the lifeline stanchions. For now, I suppose we'll just keep repairing sections as we go.

The morning of arrival we were joined by our friend Taylor, who we had met along with his lady Lara, in Hilo some months ago. Lara and Taylor had been traveling around the big island in their Westfalia Van and weathering their "saturn return" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturn_return). Taylor had expressed interest in traveling with us so we invited him for a northward jaunt.

We dropped the mooring in the early afternoon and sailed north with a fresh breeze, out past the "Pride of America," a cruise ship. We stopped at Honokohau Harbor for water and fuel and after we were all tanked up, we cruised around the harbor harvesting coconuts. Unlike in Kona-town, where most every tree was trimmed, at the harbor we found many trees loaded with nuts and aided by our friend Shane and his pick-up truck, we got plenty.

As it was late in the day, the harbor was quiet and we had some space to get in and out. Our boat is big and heavy and we are still learning how to manuever in tight spaces, under power and sail. As the sun set and we prepared to leave, the wind died and we got a good chance to try pulling Libertatia  wih one of the dinghies. It was hard work but we had the boat moving until we ran into the chop just outside the harbor. Maybe two dinghies! We are also thinking of a sculling oar and large sweeps that we can row from the side deck. One day ...

Auspicious signs on the way out of Honokohau

We left the harbor and sailed into the night up to the familiar anchorage at Makalawena. We spent the next morning swimming, yoga-ing, and hanging on the boat until we were joined by our friends Dustin and Angelique who had walked down from the highway. We all piled on the boat and we were off bound for Puako.

The weather was a dream, clear and blue, and the wind picked up to a steady 10-15 knots as we pulled up the hook. We sailed off the anchor, a la Eric Hiscock, tacking back and forth and pulling in the slack as we sailed forward, eventually popping the anchor out of the sand. We scooted downwind for about five hours, cracking and eating macadamia nuts, drinking coconuts and making coco coir cordage from dried husk. We were able to make about six feet of twine from about one eight of the husk of a medium sized coconut. Pretty good.





We arrived in the evening in Puako and anchored off Neil Young's house. We took Dustin and Angelique into shore and picked up a few more friends, who we had planned to meet. A few weeks earlier, Lowell and I had been hitchhiking in Waimea and we were picked up by a woman named Amanda. We only rode with her a short way, but we hit it off talking about voyaging and farming and she took us down to check out the anchorage at Puako. We exchanged info and we gave her a call on our way to Puako. She, her sweetie Kehea, and their friend Matt came out to see the boat in the half-light  before we all went back to their house for dinner. We had a great time talking and eating delicious food but the highlight certainly a late-night mango and coconut harvest mission while the homemade mango ice cream thawed. Very very fun. These are the kind of people we want to be hanging out with. The night was then topped off with an exciting two-pudgy row back out to the boat.

The next day it was off to Mahukona, again a delightful sailing day. We arrived at our destination in the early afternoon so we decided to keep sailing a bit and dip out into the famous Alenuehaha channel. Sure enough the wind quickly switched and came on strong from the northeast. We sailed out towards Maui for a while before turning back. It was great fun and good practice to go for a sail in heavy weather with out any particular destination in mind. We have had figuring out our best sail arrangement going to weather in a heavy breeze and we got to try all possible combinations. Although we did well with what we've got, another reef in the mizzen would be nice to have.

After our little runabout, we cruised back into the lee of Hawaii Island, arriving at Mahukona in the near dark. We could see any good sandy patches and soon enough it was too dark to see so we went around the corner to the north to Nishimura Bay. Our friend Chris, who we met on Molokai, gave us GPS coordinates for the place he anchored in Nishimura and we dropped the anchor in the dark (Since we met Chris we have been recording our anchor coordinates; you can tell if your dragging and anchor, you can safely anchor in the dark, and you can share them with your friends!)

We awoke to find ourselves alone in a beautiful little bay with a nice sandy bottom, surrounded by fish, and under Hawaii's navigation heiau on the hill to the north...