Aloha San Francisco!

Aloha to all of our friends from beautiful San Francisco Bay! We passed under the Golden Gate on the morning of September 27th, eating sushi in the sunshine, after a 37-day passage from Kalalau Valley on the island of Kauai.

Jenine enjoys a calm sunset

Our trip was a long one but a good one and was characterized by very light winds throughout the passage, from the day after leaving Hawaii to just before hitting the West Coast. This gave us plenty of time for reading, writing, playing music, talking, swimming, eating, relaxing, thinking, and just sitting still. Sleeping was easy in gentle seas and the weather was generally quite pleasant: days were generally bright and without rain and nights were more often than not clear and starry. The heaviest weather we saw was about 30kt winds and 10ft seas but it lasted for less than 24 hours.

Duskin at the helm

Our stores were plentiful enough to get us through the passage, which was longer than we expected, and when we arrived in the Bay, we probably still had enough water and provisions to turn around and sail back to Hawaii. The early days in the passage were actually mostly a race to consume all of the fresh produce that was generously bestowed upon us by our friends on Kauai. By the end, however, we were on the rice and bean diet (and quite happy with it!).

Loaded with food and leaving Kauai

The boat did well along the way: our main issue was sail chafe in light airs as the swell moved us about. We had a few minor mishaps and gear mess-ups but for the most part Libertatia did quite well. She is not quite a light-wind speedster and it was nice that the long passage was peppered with days of decent breeze.

After a victory lap around the bay we returned to Aquatic Park off Ghiradelli square, where we had been one year ago, and spent the afternoon on the beach playing, swimming, and relaxing with friends old and new. A touch colder than Hanalei but the same idea...

Now we plan on being in the bay for a spell in order to attack the long list of boat projects while spending time with friends, saving up money, regrouping, and refining the vision for our group and our future together. 

The crew

Stay tuned as we will be updating the blog with more content including a more detailed log of our passage. Our apologies for the delays in blog posts. For more pictures click here

Mahalo nui (many thanks) to all of you who have helped us and had us in your thoughts during this last passage. See you out there...