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.
