Tied up

We are tied up at the Waikiki Yacht Club. Passage summary later. Aloha!

Almost there

I had a rather naive notion that somehow once we were east of the big island we'd have an easy ride into Honolulu. Ha!

First, the dead zone in the lee of the big island turned out to be much smaller than on the charts. We carried 20-25kts of SE wind much farther past the big island than we expected. Finally the wind died and we motored for about two hours where the weather forecast had suggested we would motor for ten hours . Then the wind filled in from the NE at 15-18 and we had good ride though the seas were a crossed up combination of the the big swell that wrapped around the south end of the big island, and the swells coming through the pass between the big island and Maui. When the two swells and New Morning met up the water would really fly and New Morning would usually take a pretty big roll.

But while we seemed to be moving briskly, our SOG (speed over the ground) was too low. I eventually discovered that there is a current which circulates counter clockwise as a sort of counter current to the larger Pacific current flow. So it flows down from Kauai, turns east to the big island, then eventually north to Molokai and west past Oahu back to Kauai. We were in the portion running east and the current really slowed us down for about five hours. Eventually we got to where the current was pushing us north, so it was helping us.

As the sun began to set, with a large area of squalls to the west, the breeze began to build. By 7pm we had a steady 20-25, gusting to 28. New Morning was blasting along, but it had the feel of impending disaster. About 7:45 I asked Dan to come on deck and help me set the staysail. That went smoothly and was a good choice as the breeze continued to build. With the double reefed main and staysail we were making a steady 8-9kts without too much drama. From 8:30 - 11pm we had 26-30kts, gusting to 33; a lot of breeze! New Morning carried it well, blasting along and throwing tons of water into the air and across the decks in the process.

Wouldn't one sail configuration for 12hrs be boring? Between 11pm and midnight the breeze started dropping and by midnight we were down to 12kts from well aft. We gave up and started the motor and by 12:30 had only 8kts of breeze from almost dead astern, nothing that we could sail with. So now we're motoring along with a slatting main trying to consume the remaining 40 miles to Honolulu as quickly as possible, while also being prepared for another blast of wind as we cross the channel between Molokai and Oahu.

All the while we've had an almost full moon lighting the sky. The first half of the night it was an almost entirely clear sky the moon lit New Morning beautifully. Now we have almost total cloud cover, but the moon still provides a soft backlight. And with a few squalls beginning to appear on the radar, it looks like the last 35 miles may provide some further entertainment this evening.

Home stretch

The squalls disappeared about 5am. We've got mostly sunny skies, but there are big thunderheads on the horizon all around.



We're now 150 miles from Honolulu. We're west of the big island, but it's shrouded in clouds and haze so we can't see it yet. There is supposed to be a dead spot in the lee of the big island, but we've still got 25kts of breeze, no shortage of wind here.



At some point we'll adjust our speed to time our arrival with sunrise, but right now the waves are quite steep with a short period and are creating a cork screw motion so this is not a good place to go any slower. Coming down a wave about 10 minutes ago we were doing 11.5kts. Reminds me of finishing TransPac.

Squalls again

Last night's squalls continued until about noon, then things cleared up and the afternoon sail was very pleasant. The early evening was also nice with the almost full moon illuminating cotton ball clouds. But by midnight the squalls were back, the moon and stars were gone and the wind was more unpredictable than ever. So this will again be short.



For the last three hours the wind has cycled from 12-30 and shifted 40 degrees in as little as 30 seconds, accompanied by some impressive blasts of rain. The aft half of the cockpit cushions are again drenched as the wind went aft for five minutes and blew rain in under the dodger. I've given up trying to adjust the sails. The main is double reefed and so is the jib. We wallow when the wind is 15, but we're ok when it's 25. It's pretty much impossible to react quickly enough to have the correct sail area for each wind. I'm looking forward to reaching the lee side of the big island.



Yesterday's noon to noon run was 186nm. We are now only about 40 miles from the big island and less than 200 from Honolulu. As you can see, the continuously unsettled weather dominates life onboard and I'm unable to write of much else.

Squall

I had composed in my mind a whole blog entry on weather and why so many of these entries go on and on about weather. But I've spent the last hour and a half coping with a very large squall that totally pre-empted my time. Seems to be the story of this passage, never more than a few hours without a weather change. So this will be short.

Our noon to noon yesterday was 180nm. We had a squally morning, then a good afternoon. We actually decided to slow down this afternoon, we shortened sail, since our ETA was about 1am on Thursday and I don't want to enter the marina at night. The early evening was also nice with a brilliant moon and fairly clear sky. But a large squally area on the radar about 30 miles away slowly came to dominate the rest of the evening. Dan is now coping with the squalls and I'm ready for some sleep. The weather discussion will wait until tomorrow.

We may be able to see the big island by late tomorrow afternoon if there isn't too much cloud cover. About 370nm to go. We plan to motor through the lee of the big island (it creates a very large wind shadow) so we'll adjust our motoring speed to time our arrival in Honolulu for first light.

While dealing with the squall there was a spectacular moon set as the moon dipped below the cloud cover for about 20 minutes before dropping into the ocean. Nice.

Boat in a Bubble

For the last 4-5 days we've been the boat in a bubble - a bubble of unsettled weather aka ITCZ. The problem was that as we moved north, so did our bubble of unsettled weather with squalls, then no wind, then squalls, etc. The NOAA surface analysis confirmed what we were experiencing and showed the ITCZ bending all the way to 12N. But yesterday evening we escaped.

Yesterday morning we were motor sailing in clear skies, scorching sun and a light breeze from the south. Our noon to noon run improved to 176 miles. By early afternoon we had about 8kts from NNE, nothing we could sail with (at least not towards our destination), but enough to boost our motoring speed a little. Then about 5pm the wind suddenly spiked to 18, but still from much further north than expected. We started sailing uncomfortably close to the wind into choppy confused seas. Within an hour the radar screen was covered with squalls and from 6pm - midnight there was a continual series of squalls and the wind varied from 18-24. Now at 2am we may have passed the last squall. The wind has moved further to the east to be just forward of the beam and dropped to a more comfortable 16-18kts. But the squalls have left behind a horribly lumpy sea so we are lurching around a bit and occasionally we abruptly either fall off a wave or slam into one; neither of which is comfortable.

The cloud cover is partially broken and allowed me to see the moon set. Now some stars are mixed in with the clouds where earlier it was just blackness.

It feels like the home stretch as we have less than 600 miles to Oahu. I'm anticipating two days of close reaching in 15-20 which should produce good speed. We still have to negotiate the wind shadow to the west of the big island which will probably necessitate some motoring again, then the final reach into Honolulu.

Dry

When I went off watch last night at 3am, the cockpit was soaking wet. The cushions were wet, the towels were wet, the deck was wet, and water has accumulated on the ledge where I store my glasses and the VHF microphone. You get the idea, it was wet. Tropical downpour fresh rain water wet.

When I got up at 7am, it was dry. Bone dry. The water was just gone. In the short period between sunrise and 7am, everything had dried out. There was not a cloud in the sky and the sun was already blazing down. The poor squid and flying fish that had landed on the deck during the night were already dried and stiff.

All day long it was like sailing through a desert of rolling hills, but the hills were made of water. We had a swell from the NE, another from the SE and then just some random stuff. The swells were still pretty good sized, as much as 2.5 - 3m, but they had a long period and thus a fairly gentle roll. None the less they were rolling us around, some current was pushing us back and in general the sea state was slowing us down. Our noon to noon run was only 159nm, one of our poorest days in a long time. And this despite motoring at a higher RPM than usual and burning more fuel in the process.

Through the day it just got hotter and hotter. It was impossible to walk on the deck without shoes. The fresh water out of the faucet was easily 100F. And there was just the barest breath of wind. The sea was almost glassy, and actually was glassy for about two hours. The lack of wind and thus salt spray, plus no rain, allowed us to open up the boat for the first time since we departed. We opened the hatches and let the air flow through the cabins; we opened up the dodger window and let the air move through the cockpit. It was a nice day. Finally in the late afternoon a few clouds began to appear on the horizon so I took a shower at the back of the cockpit around 6pm because it might be the last outdoor shower for awhile.

It's now about 8:30pm and a gentle breeze of 5-7kts has definitely begun to fill in from the east. This is a welcome development because it has stopped the monotonous and damaging slatting of the main sail, back and forth, back and forth on each roll of the boat. The forecast is that we'll go through another band of rain, possibly later this evening or in the morning, then emerge into the trades with 17-23 from the NE which will put the wind pretty much on our beam as we sail the final 600 miles to Honolulu. So we've cleaned up a bit, closed most of the hatches and generally prepared for a few days of brisk sailing until we reach the lee of the big island when things will lighten up again. We expect to reach Honolulu and the Waikiki YC early Thursday morning.

Nice sunset tonight as the sun lowered into the heavy clouds way off on the horizon. The half moon is overhead and there are some stars playing hide and seek with the scattered clouds.

Wet

We've been motoring for the last 24hrs, but during the squalls we've tried to opportunistically sail to take advantage of the big winds, usually sustaining 20-30kts for an hour or so. This netted a noon to noon run yesterday of 184 miles. But for the last 12hrs or so the squalls have had no big wind, just lots and lots of rain. In between the heavy rain in the squalls is lighter rain and no wind so that New Morning is now pretty much salt free. We've also now encountered the equatorial counter current which runs west to east, pushing us away from Hawaii at over 1kt. I'm anticipating the combination of counter current and no wind means that today's run will show a very slow 24hrs.

As I mentioned yesterday, Fay confirmed that the only place to get the main repaired was in Honolulu at North Sails. That changed our destination from Kona to Honolulu. Then I spent a lot of time studying the forecasts this morning and found that we were traveling in our own ITCZ weather system. As we moved north, it moved north. The NE trades were always a couple of days out of reach, most recently at 13N, far north of their usual location.

After using MaxSea to work out the course alternatives, it became clear that we should abandon the plan to go north until we reached the trades and instead turn towards Honolulu immediately. If the forecasts are reasonably accurate we should hit the trades earlier and still have a good sailing angle for the last 700 miles, though we'll probably need to motor a few hours when we're in the lee of the big island. So we turned this morning and now have about 930 miles to Oahu, including an estimated 240 miles of motoring before we reach the NE trades. This is so much more motoring that we anticipated, but New Morning has plenty of fuel so it's not a problem, just less enjoyable than sailing.

With lots of cloud cover this is another black night, though I do see a morning star poking through the clouds near the horizon, but I don't know if it's Mars or Venus. In either case it is very bright.

Two nights

What a difference a day makes.

On Wednesday afternoon the wind started to drop and move slightly aft. Through the late afternoon and all night the wind slowly dropped and moved aft. The sky was absolutely clear and as darkness fell the roughly half moon was sparklingly brilliant on relatively calm seas. Once the moon had set the canopy of stars extended right down to the horizon. We had a beautiful sail all through the night with dazzling stars. On more than one occasion I thought I saw a ship's lights, only to realize it was a star. A few shooting stars added to the display. Shortly after sunrise the wind had become so light that we were forced to turn on the motor. But the seas were calm and it gave me a chance to take a shower in the cockpit, wipe away the salt, rinse the salt out of some clothes and spread them to dry in the sun.

Then yesterday afternoon (Thursday) the sky grew cloudy, the seas confused and the radar turned red with storm cells and squalls. When the first squall hit the wind jumped from 11kts and almost behind us to 28kts on the beam. With the double reefed main it was not a problem and we got a good ride for about 45 minutes. After that squall I could see a few holes in the cloud cover and look up at towering thunderheads all around. As evening fell the sky had a soft back light from the moon, but there were no stars to be seen. More squalls, some measuring 30 miles long and 10 miles wide, passed through rinsing New Morning with more freshwater until the moon had gone down and the soft glow extinguished. Now the wind is gone entirely, there is a light rain failing and the seas whipped up by the squalls are rolling us around as we motor through the night.

Sailors used to call the area around the equator the doldrums, but this has been upgraded to the Inter-Tropical Convergence Zone or ITCZ. Bigger name, same lousy weather. We had expected to pass through the ITCZ from roughly 5N - 8N, only 180miles, roughly a day or so of unsettled conditions as we would transition from the SE trades (which were really East for us) to the NE trades that would carry us to Hawaii. But this is weather and it never seems to be "normal". The squally weather began about 4N and the NE trades are at about 11N, over 400 miles of "unsettled" weather.

And I've just learned that we're going to need to go to Honolulu, not Kona, to get the main repaired. More on that after I adjust the route.

Change "S" to "N"

Last night was very squally and the squalls packed a punch. We'd have 15kts and within 3-4 minutes it would be 33kts. Very difficult to set sails for those conditions. We had the second reef in the main, too little at 15kts, but in the squalls (steady 25-30) we would roll up the jib and sail with just the main for 30 minutes while the squall passed by, then unroll the jib. After midnight the squalls ended, but the wind was fairly erratic until early morning; we'd have 20 minutes of 16kts, then 20 minutes of 24kts; too many sail changes. It finally settled down to a more manageable 18-23kts and that has continued through today.

At the same time the wind direction has varied from 070T to 120T which is a pretty big range. The seas are somewhat confused with waves from the ENE on top of a swell from the SE. As long as we keep the boat speed up New Morning moves well through the seas, though there is a fair amount of water flying from time to time when New Morning, the NE waves and the SE swell all try to occupy the same space at the same time. Through it all we have made 191nm each of our last two days, essentially an 8kt average.

The forecast for the current time period is 13 at 095T when in fact we have 18 at 095T. This what the cruisers refer to as "GRIBs + 5". The GRIBs (gridded binaries - digital forecast we receive from NOAA) always seem to be about 5kts below the actual wind. This is a pretty big bias error, but manageable as it seems to be fairly consistent.

We expect more squalls tonight and should reach the ITCZ tomorrow night. When it gets too light and variable we'll motor for a day or so until we reach the NE trades at about 7-8 degrees north. And did I mention it was HOT? The sun is very nearly directly overhead so the solar panels are very happy, but the crew is baking. For entertainment we've seen three Korean fishing boats, although only one would acknowledge our radio call. Lots of flying fish, but none land on the deck, unlike our passage to the Marquesas when we had a dozen or so flying fish and squid on the deck each morning.

Earlier today, just before 9am, we crossed the equator. There was no sign saying "Now Leaving the Southern Hemisphere - We Hope You Enjoyed Your Visit", I just saw the plotter change "S" to "N" on our latitude. It's nice to be back in the Northern Hemisphere.

Rough ride, but fast

After a very fast first day, then the clew failure we had a very slow second day with light winds and several stops (fore reaching) to lash and secure the main below the 1st reef. Once that was all sorted out, the wind filled from the east and we've had 20-29kts of true wind roughly on the beam. We also have 2.5m seas on the beam so there is a lot of boat motion and flying salt water as we charge forward. We're gotten one good squall rinse, but we were coated in salt again within a couple of hours. We're hoping for a few fresh water rinses in the ITCZ.

We've had two reefs and the staysail for the last 24hrs. We're a little underpowered at the low end, but just fine when the breeze is over 21kts. The wind is ramping up and down very quickly, sometimes we'll have 10 minutes of 18-20, then 10 minutes of 24-26. We're not racing and are short handed so we don't attempt to make constant sail changes to optimize our speed. Overall we've averaged 184 miles / day for the last 4 1/2 days, and that includes a few hours spent stopped while we secured the main and sorted out a problem with a reefing line. So we're making good time and at this pace we'll be in Hawaii next Tuesday the 28th.

The wind generator loves the big breeze and this would be no fun without the hard dodger. It's nice to be sitting on watch, have a big wave smack the boat and then hear and see the water run across the deck, splatter over the windows and rain down on the top of the dodger while not fearing that we'll get doused as well.

The sky has been mostly clear the last two nights with a spectacular array of stars. The waxing moon is climbing a little each night and kept me company last night for a few hours after sunset, reflecting off the waves and white caps.

Saturday

Today was a bit of everything. From 3am to about 1pm we went through several lines of squalls. We never actually got enough rain to wash off the boat (which would have been welcome), but we got wind from every direction and speed.

Mid-morning we hove to (essentially stopped the boat) and Dan and I climbed up on top of the dodger and house to tie up the dangling sail remaining from yesterday's clew ring failure. We were well tethered and it took us about 20 minutes to lace a line around the sail and through the reef grommets all along the foot of the sail. Then the next squall line appeared and we were off again.

After that squall line things went light (10kts from the NE) so we took the opportunity to motor sail for two hours and charge the batteries. By 2pm the batteries were in good shape and we were beating into a strong NE wind. All afternoon we were pretty close to hard on the wind (true wind angle of 50-60) with 15-20kts of true wind (20-25kts apparent), hammering into very confused seas created by the waves from the NE wind meeting the prevailing SE swell. While always having the first reef in the main probably cost us a little speed at times, it saved us a lot of putting in a reef and taking out a reef since the conditions were quite variable today. Our noon to noon run was still 181nm, not bad considering the variable winds and half an hour spent hove to.

The skies are now almost entirely clear and we're beating into a 15kt NE breeze which is supposed to shift a little south by morning. Dinner was flank steak with rice and black beans, pre-prepared by Fay and only needed to be heated up in the microwave. Today wasn't a good day for broiling.

It's getting warmer and warmer. At 6pm as I write this entry, it is 86 degrees in the salon and the water temp is up to 83. I'm looking forward to the cool of the evening; there should be a full sky of stars tonight.

Day one - 195.6nm

Today we completed our first full day at sea with good news and bad news. The good news was that from 2pm yesterday (first entry) to 2pm today we covered 195.6nm; New Morning has just been flying along on a broad reach in 17-22kts of true wind. The bad news is that shortly after the watch change at noon the clew pulled out of the main sail.

I was taking a shower when I heard a loud "bang", followed shortly by Dan knocking on the door of the aft head. We had 19kts of true wind at about 120 degrees at the time that the clew clew pulled out, not an excessive amount of wind. We immediately shortened the main to the first reef and continued on.

Now we have a lot of sail hanging below the boom which is primarily a cosmetic issue, but we'd like to tidy it up. We expect the winds to ease a bit within the next few days and when it does we'll heave to, roll up the extra sail and lace it up into the reef grommets.

Fast start

We're off to a fast start. We departed the marina about 11:50am and spent the next 40 minutes or so winding around Tahiti to the pass. As we went out the pass our friend Richard was bringing the Pilot boat back in and we got a big toot of his horn and waves from the crew.

Out of the pass we had light and variable winds for about half an hour, then as we began to get some distance from the island we picked 15kts on the beam. This afternoon we sailed out to Marlon Brando's island (Tetiaroa), roughly 30 miles, then turned north. We averaged over 8 knots all afternoon. Now we expect to be heading due north for at least the next week.

Departing today

Departing Tahiti today at about 11:30am local time. Follow us on "Where's New Morning".

In the Marina

Today we moved from Cook's Bay on Moorea to Marina Taina in Papeete. The sail to Papeete was much better than expected. On Saturday when I took the ferry to Papeete the seas were very confused and rough between Moorea and Tahiti. Today we had 8-11kts of wind from the NNE which put the true wind about 70-90 degrees on our port bow so we made a very pleasant 6.5-8.0kts in 2m seas after we cleared Moorea and had a steady breeze.

At the marina we topped up the fuel tanks and secured a nice side tie on the south side of the marina so the gentle northerly breeze is holding us off the dock.

Tomorrow Dan arrives, my crew for the trip to Hawaii. We'll wash down New Morning, put away the dinghy, and make final preparations for a departure on Thursday or Saturday.

Fresh shrimp and stingrays

 Yesterday we moved from Cook's Bay to Opunohu Bay, about a one hour slow motor boat ride from anchorage to anchorage.  This morning Fay and Caitlin took the dinghy up to the end of the bay and bought fresh shrimp at the shrimp farm; only open on Wednesdays from 10-2.  They had cleaned about half the shrimp before we departed for the NW corner of the island to snorkel with the stingrays.

We offered the shrimp heads to the stingrays and they were a hit, the rays were practically climbing up into the boat to claim them!  We enjoyed petting the rays but stopped short of feeding them by hand as they have very strong jaws for crushing crustaceans and didn't want our fingers confused with shrimp heads!  And of course the feeding stingrays also attracted a few black tip reef sharks.  After we had distributed all the shrimp heads we had to wait a few minutes for the stingrays to disperse a bit so we could enter the water without landing on top of one of them.

We then kicked out towards the reef and spent an hour snorkeling.  While everyone seems to come for the stingrays, the snorkeling is excellent among the coral bommies with a good collection of reef fish, including bat fish, moorish idols, box fish and the usual collection of trigger fish.  We were a little surprised to see a few reef sharks weaving in and out of the coral, far away from their usual spot near the stingrays.  Coming back to the dinghy we saw a large (roughly 2') titan triggerfish whipping through the coral at high speed; a rare sight.

Tonight's dinner is shrimp scampi on a bed of tagliatelle with a bottle of Taft St. Sauvignon Blanc; a real treat!

New Morning is for Sale!

New Morning has been the primary focus of our lives for more than eight years. Beginning in 2004 we spent four years planning, designing and then building our ideal cruising yacht. Since 2008 we’ve sailed over 11,000 miles, visited countless anchorages and watched hundreds of sunsets from Maine, across the Caribbean, through the Panama Canal, and finally across the Pacific via the Galapagos to French Polynesia. We have had an incredible adventure and now other adventures off the water are tugging at us for attention.

New Morning has been our home for the majority of the last four years so it is with very mixed emotions that we’ve made the decision to sell her. But she is designed for ocean cruising, not sailing on our home waters of San Francisco Bay. In keeping with our desire to work with only the best, we have selected Terri Watson at KKMI in Pt. Richmond, California to offer New Morning. She is also listed on Yachtworld. We believe New Morning provides the discriminating cruising couple with unparalleled safety and performance on passage coupled with an elegant and comfortable home when at anchor. Contact Terri Watson for a first hand look and we think you’ll agree.