Chickens, Astronauts and the Great Garbage Patch

We left Honolulu to make room for the Trans-Pac race boats to enter, 

And glad to leave the city behind, where the high rises seemed to dwarf Diamond Head Crater.

A short sail to the west side of Oahu brought us to Pokai Bay where the locals raced outriggers.  

We have seen outrigger races and practices in EVERY port we have visited except tiny, little Toau with its population of ten. We have seen soccer fields, but never with anyone there. More often, a horse might be grazing in it and always chickens scattered in the field. Speaking of chickens, they hide under the trees from the heat, excepting this farmer's yard where they each have their own shade spot.

We left Pokai and traveled through the day and into the night, arriving in Hanalei Bay about 1:30 in the morning. We woke to find why we had been told over an over to stop here. Exquisite beauty,

This side of Kauai has been the filming location for Jurassic Park, Avatar, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Pirates of the Caribbean, and many other films. It has breath-taking beauty. 

We leave in the morning for Washington, a trip of 2600 miles of open ocean. For much of our journey, the closest people to us will be the astronauts in the Intenational Space Station.  That sounds like hyperbole, but they are only about 400 kilometers above us, reminding us of how very thin and fragile our atmosphere actually is. 

We will travel almost due north until we are level with Vancouver Island and then turn east as prevailing winds will turn from the east to the northwest. That will keep us out of the North Pacific high where there is no wind, but not out of the world's largest garbage patch. As we traveled through Polynesia, we saw some bit of floating plastic more days than not. Globally, the South Pacific has the least plastic and other garbage, while the North Pacific has the most, and has since long before the tsunami in Japan. Curbing plastic at its source is critical, for example, San Jose, CA found 60% less pastic in its creeks and rivers ( which empty to the Pacific) after instituting a plastic bag ban.  There are so many ways to stop the pollution at its source.

Tonight we'll enjoy a nice dinner in town, then our last night sleeping through the night until we arrive home.

Fair winds to you all.

Go away! Welcome!

Our first two dives near Lahina on Maui were sobering.  The ocean had very little life to it. We learned later that many of the easily accessible dive spots have been killed by all the sun screen in the water.  Later in the week, we traveled to an under water spire off of the island of Lanai which showed only slight coral bleaching. Sea turtles, parrot fish, and much more abounded.  We were joined by our daughter Margot and her sweetheart, Desmond.

We took off for the island of Molokai escorted by a pod of Spinner Dolphins.

Desmond was treated to his first sail ever, which included a full drenching as he sat in the cockpit, winds blew at 27 kts. and waves slammed over the rail. It was a fast trip and we slid into the quiet, small town harbor of Kaunakakai at sunset.

Young men were swimming to a buoy and back.  We waved a warm "aloha" and one of the young men shouted to us, "Go back! Go back home where you came from!"  Our hearts fell.  We were so saddened by that reception, we talked about pulling anchor in the morning and leaving without going ashore. A man we had met in Lahina had told us he never traveled to Molokai anymore as he didn't like going where he wasn't welcome.  Interestingly, the nick name for Molokai is "The Friendly Island".

Instead, we decided to at least check out the famous pillow bread from the local bakery.  At night, they close the bakery and sell the pillow bread out of the back alley. Walking down the long narrow, dark alley, we were confused and wary, unsure if this could really be the place.

Far down the alley, a passage way branched off and we could see a light at the end.

  People were gathered, chatting with each other, waiting for their orders. Still thinking of our encounter in the harbor, we were surprised to find folks cheerful and curious about our journey. It was welcoming.

 We got cinnamon, butter and sugar on a soft round, 12" loaf and like our new acquaintances, tore into it with our hands.Yumm!

A car rental from Dusty's Repair, the local (rather than Alamo) fellow allowed us to wander the island.  At 10 by 35 miles, Molokai can be traveled slowly in a day. The farmers market added fresh tomatoes, onions, bananas, oranges and cucumbers to our provisioning. 

We traveled the narrow roads

 To the east, we saw a pristine valley.

To the north, we stood at the overlook to see the old leper colony below, and we're disappointed at first, as it was cloaked in the mist.

But moments later, it cleared showing the community below the cliffs, said to be the tallest sea cliffs in the world.

Finally, the west side of the island has the longest white sand beach in the state and it was nearly deserted.

We were so glad we hadn't let one unhappy man spoil our visit. We were met by warm and kind people everywhere. We hoisted our anchor the next morning and motored past the rugged terrain of the sea cliffs.

We arrived in Honolulu at night, wowed by the immensity of the city!

Honolulu, even more than Lahina, is brimming with tourists parting with their money. Cranes sprout on nearly every spot as new hotels, condos and retail space soar into the air.  The architecture is creative, but who knows about sustainability.  Hawaii has met or broken its own heat record 20 times in the past month. The island has an excellent recycling system and a state bottle deposit law that provides a steady 5 cent/bottle or can income for the homeless who abound here. On the other hand, Waikiki sports stores for Gucci, Rolex, Christian Dior, and more.  It's a plethora of who's who of expensive fashion. The wide open doors lure people in with the air conditioning that pours onto the sidewalks. On the lighter side, the local ABC Stores, a kind of liquor/convience/tourist trinket chain offers Obama options.  You can get an Obama bobble head for your car, or a can opener in surf board or ukulele style.

Just what I needed?

We got the "kids" off safely after a delightful nine days with them.  They chipped in at every turn and learned new skills along the way.  It was a joy to be with family! We completed a few minor repairs (remember: the reason people sail is to be able to fix their boats in exotic places!). The sailmaker put a third reef in the mainsail to manage storms more easily. This form of removable nip and tuck allows much more flexibility, especially with the large mainsail of a J Boat. Here's hoping we don't need it. Here I am replacing the back stay onto the mast.

We had a delightful and delicious dinner aboard Desmiada (Portuguese for "Too Much") as the guests of the commodor of the Hawaiian Yacht Club and his wife, whom we had met in the harbor at Molokai. They were kindred spirits, understanding the the fragility of the world and refusing to be in denial. They also turned us on to some of the local spots

and gave us suggestions for our next leg to Kauai.  We sail in the morning, making way for the Trans-Pac race boats starting to arrive from the mainland.  The 105' trimaran, Lending Club 2 arrived two nights ago, having dropped out of the race before it began to take advantage of a weather window.  They set the new course record of 3 days, 18 hours from Los Angeles to Honolulu.  We hit 12 kts twice in 10,000 miles, they averaged 24.6 kts. for over three days. We do 150 nm on a good day, the averaged just under 600 a day! And we are considered a fast boat!

Wish us fair winds and following seas.

Contrast: Real Town vs Fantasy Land, Hurricane?!?!???

We stayed two weeks in Hilo, mostly doing repairs.  We put in a new windlass to lift the anchor, mended the steering and replaced bushings on the gooseneck of the boom.  We took three days to be tourists and saw the all time best food truck, a pizza oven!

Complete with wood pile 

And sink

We traveled to Mauna Loa and saw the complete power and destruction of the lava flow as well as the night time glow of the hot lava in the cauldron.

The nene, national bird of Hawaii, is still threatened but is coming back from the edge of extinction. It still has many loses to vehicles and the mongoose.  We saw several of these fast creatures, brought here on the 1800's to deal with the rat population in the sugar cane fields.  Unfortunately, this diurnal animal did nothing to control the nocturnal rat and instead, decimated ground nesting birds like the nene, a long time descendant of the Canadian Goose.

At the National Park, displays about CO2 emissions of volcanoes vs people helped folks think about their carbon footprints.

vs the carbon footprint of the volcano.

While we found there was good recycling for homes, almost no businesses used recycling and the harbor only recycled bottles and cans.  Hilo had almost no public transportation and we ended up needing to rent a car to go for the hardware store, used book store, groceries, and volcano exploring. 

We enjoyed eating in restaurants again, but here's one we skipped for some reason, specializing in chocolate "donkey balls".

We have seen amazing trees on both islands. I will save the most spectacular for last, but here is the first, an eco system all its own in Hilo.

One defying gravity in Kona.

A banyan tree we thought was amazing,

Until we found this tree which we were drawn to briefly for its gnarled shape,

And then learned that what we thought was a tree, was actually one of 43 different trunks of the same banyan tree covering an entire city block/city park. It's main trunk was amazing, but only the beginning.

There were trunks everywhere!

And from outside the park you could see the whole, but only if you went to both sides of the park! These next the pictures together are just one tree!!!

We left quiet, unassuming Hilo mid afternoon and sailed through the night to Lahaina on Maui. What an amazing contrast! Hilo was full of folks working, farmers markets, and day to day life.  Lahaina is a tourist attraction, full of mostly Americans spending money like water, having arrived by plane, an expensive carbon footprint! Restaurants, gift shops and hawkers of "adventure activities" abound. The next bay to the three miles north is packed with high rise hotels, white sand beaches, and golf courses.  What a contrast from some of the tiny islands we have visited. There are a thousand ways to part with your money here and the sidewalks and shops are teeming with people doing just that. I can't help but wonder how even a small economic downturn would affect this community which is so reliant on tourism. No sign of farmers markets here.

One of our daughters and her sweetheart are coming to spend a week with us and we will be tourists, too, riding bikes down into the volcano (dormant!), snorkeling, diving, and more, but take a pass on the sport fishing, helicopter rides, golfing and zip lines and more.

Then, weather permitting, we will sail to quiet Molokai and see the lepper colony which is surrounded by the tallest sea cliffs in the world. Historically, people of any age suspected of having leprosy, even young children, would be taken from their families and shipped near the shore.  They were forced to jump from the boat and swim to shore if they could.  Many never survived the trip.  Leprosy, now known as Hanson's disease, is a germ which damages the most remote nerve endings on the body, causing people not to be able to protect themselves from the normal injuries of life. Lack of pain created loss of fingers and toes by undected accidents and thus, many leppers were disfigured.  Today, there is a drug cocktail which can cure leprosy in 24 hours! A few of the members of the colony still live there.  For these elders, it has been home since they were children and they have no desire to move away, even though, as of 1962, they are now allowed to leave.

Today we teeter between preparing for family to arrive, and preparing to leave them in the lurch.  A storm is brewing off of Central America and we have been on every weather site we know of to determine if it is a danger to us.  It is truly to far to predict for sure, but currently appears to come this way at severe storm level, but not hurricane level.  If you re interested in such things, I recommend www.windyty.com or the NOAA hurricane prediction center.  Early this morning it said we will be hit, and so should leave now, later this morning, it said it will go north of us and we would be safer to stay put.  We are watching carefully.

A Hard Slog

We left the quiet atoll of Toau

and continued further north east, wanting to get as far east as possible  before we cross the ITCZ (Inter Tropical Convergence Zone). The very first day out, the weather turned hard against us which we had braced for, as we track the weather any time we are planning a passage.  My cousin Tom, an amazing scientist with NOAA, had told us to expect the El Niño year would likely bring lighter trade winds in this area.  Coming from the Marquesas to the Tuamotus in April had proved him right, but this past week was the exception to the rule and we faced hard winds of 18 to 22 kts. against us as were the current and up to 10' waves. Sailing hard against the weather brought heavy seas crashing over and into the boat.  The worst days had waves jumping right into the cockpit, 5 to 10 gallons at a time, every ten minutes or so.  Last year's fad of the "Ice bucket challenge" had nothing on us.  While the water crashing over us wasn't icy, it happened over and over and over again.

With so much salt spray, the boat soon became encrusted with it and every time we touched anything, our hands would come away full of salt crystals. Likewise, our clothes and hair were crusted with salt, it was everywhere.  In spite of the dodger covering the hatchway, one wave managed to drop a huge gush of water into the cabin, soaking everything!  The shower drained got clogged, allowing water to flood the aft head. It needed on going pumping out.  Cooking was a major challenge, with the stove at a 25 degree angle in it's gimble. The stove was level. It was the rest of the boat that was tilted.

The gentle Palouse-like swells of the week before were just a memory.  Heavy seas made the boat slam from one wave to the next with violent thuds, shaking us to the core.  Sleeping was nearly impossible and sleep deprivation the norm. For the first time ever, we put a second reef in the mainsail, reducing its size as far as possible.  We also put up our smaller jib, which we had never used before, and kept it partially furled. It is an older sail, and two days out, the bottom seam tape started to unstitch.  I crawled out to the bow and cut off 12' of it to prevent it from turning to tatters. Every trip forward, meant we needed a fresh water rinse as we would be drenched, head to toe.  We turned to our secondary navigation system as our main system crashed. The rule of thumb on a boat is you never rely on just one system for something important.  

Just twenty miles out of Nuku Hiva, the head strap at the top of the jib broke, leaving the sail useless and flapping wildly. We worked as a team, crawling out to the bow, bringing the sail down to the foredeck and tying it down.  We went the last part of our journey without any jib sail.  As we moved into the lee of the island, the seas calmed somewhat. At sunset, the steep, barren cliffs of Nuku Hiva were a welcome sight. 

We pulled into the harbor just after dark, set the anchor, did a little clean up of ourselves and the boat, and crashed. Sleep never felt so good! During the night a hard rain helped wash away much of the salt and we woke to a new day, knowing that had been our last stretch where the weather is against our route.

Jerry mended the stereo, we have music again. A call to the tech at the nav system company brought a simple, half day project that fixed the glitches we were experiencing on our primary navigation system. Blowing air though the shower drain cleared the clog and back flow problem. An 8 hour day at the Internet cafe gave us our new chart download for Hawaii.  (People with dial up internet don't know what slow is until they try using Polynesian Internet systems!) Tomorrow, I go up the mast to retrieve the jib halyard.  We will put on our original, larger jib, and top off the fuel by bringing 4 five gallon cans to the fuel dock by dinghy.

June 2nd

We leave Nuku Hiva in the morning.  As two early hurricanes have already formed off of Central America, Andres and Blanca, we have hired a weather roouter for this next leg of our trip.  Rick has masters degrees in oceanography and meterology and will give us weather reports as we travel north.  We may go as far as 5 degrees north, then wait for a good window, stalling just above the ITCZ, then shoot for Hilo. Today we do a last minute fresh veggie shop, take ourselves out for dinner and a shower, then stow the dinghy and get a good night's sleep.  In the morning, we must pull up the anchor chain by hand as the windlass (the motor that lifts the anchor) is broken.  We will replace that in Hawaii. The sailors mantra is you sail in order to be able to fix your boat in exotic places.  So true!

Change of plans, change of direction!

May 14, 2015, S 17d 32' 26" W 149d 31' 11",  Papeete, Tahiti, French Polynesia

Happy Birthday Anna May!!!

Last week, Jerry and I spent several hours with Jimmy Cornell, talking about the direction of the Blue Planet Odyssey.  Jimmy is the organizer of the rally and has written the most definitive book on sailing routes of the world.  Initially, the Odyssey participants planned to go through the Red Sea, into the Mediterranean, then on to the Caribbean, Panama and home.  However, with the current multiple crises in the Middle East, the group has decided to go south of Africa instead of the Red Sea, a route known for its length and difficulty.  Jerry and I have decided we will not take that route, which leaves us with three alternatives. One, continue west as far as we'd like through the Phillipines, and Indonesia, then return back, against the winds, an incredibly difficult slog home.  Two, continue west as far as we'd like and then sell Heron Reach. Three, as Jimmy suggested, go north from here, and return home via Hawaii, Alaska and Vancouver.

This was a VERY difficult decision, but there are at least a dozen reasons we are choosing to return home now. We are missing the first years of our new granddaughter, Vivienne, who wasn't even thought of when we first committed to this trip. We don't enjoy the really long passages, which the trip around Africa would be some 14,000 miles in one year.  To our surprise, we find we both miss working! Tropical beaches are beautiful, and many are endangered by climate change, but neither of us is the sit around the beach type. It feels a little like playing the violin while Rome burns, or in this case, working on our tans while the world fries.  Part of the reason we joined the Odyssey was to bring awareness to the dangers of climate change, and we wonder if we can't be just as effective at home. 

So. . . We leave Tahiti in the morning for Hawaii, a trip of about three weeks and 2,200 miles.

To our surprise, Hawaii is west of Tahiti! Prevailing trade winds mean we will first travel northeast until we get to the equator.  That will give us the luxury of heading northwest with the prevailing winds north of the equator. We will try to send a post en route. To do so, we send a radio based email to our friend Alicia, who then will post it on the web.  It cannot take any pictures or attachments and is MUCH slower than the slowest dial up. When any pictures are included, it means we found Wifi on one of the islands.

Meanwhile, I am inspired by the students in our daughter's classes in the Highline School district who brainstormed a list of changes they could make in their lives to limit their carbon footprint. I know we are all culpable for the state of the Earth. I am going to try to commit to as many as possible. How many can you commit to?

Drive less, ride your bike

Hang your clothes up to dry outside

Turn the heat down in the winter

Don't take plane trips

Play outside instead of electronic games

Don't practice "retail therapy", buy less

Eat locally

Eat seasonally (no tomatoes in winter!)

Eat organically, for your own health, and your grocery dollar won't contribute to poisoning Mother Earth

Buy locally, your dollar stays in your community instead of going to large corporations for CEO salaries

Don't buy plastic, especially single use plastic, get a water bottle and refill it

Decide what you want to eat BEFORE you open the fridge

Start or join a Transition group to build a supportive community (see www.TransitionWhatcom for an example)

Don't limit yourself, come up with more ways to live lightly on the planet.

May 19, 2015, S 15d 48' 09", W 149d 31' 11", Toau, an atoll in the Tuamotus, French Polynesia

We arrived just before dark last night in the small bay at Toau.  

This atoll has only one extended family of ten people and they have put a few mooring buoys in the bay to help prevent damage by anchors to the coral beds.  They charge 500 Francs for the night, or a little over $5  U.S.  They prefer to trade if they can as it is so very difficult to go to an actual store of any kind.  The last time we were here, we traded a pair of sunglasses my eye doctor had given me and a half bottle of ibuprofen for our stay. They have a series of fish traps that make it easier for them to provide for the family. Fish, chicken, and coconuts provide the mainstay for their diet.  Other than coconuts and breadfruit, they have no fruit or vegetables. With rising seas, this island paradise is in peril.  We went ashore for dinner with folks from two other boats.  They bar-b-qued all you can eat lobster and parrot fish fillets for 17 people, along with a raw tuna served in coconut milk.  You may notice the phone booth in the left side of the picture.  The French government put it here several years ago, but not all of the parts arrived, so it doesn't work.  Instead, they borrow the electricity that the phones solar panel makes for a little light at night.

The woman, Valentina, told us about one night several years ago when all the hermit crabs climbed up the big tree in their yard, something they never do. She and her family took refuge in their boat and went out to sea for the night.  The tsunami from the earthquake in Chili hit at four the next morning!

The next day we went ashore and did some more serious trading, this time for the local black pearls. Valentina and Gaston showed us a vast collection of pearls they had harvested.

We brought 10 lbs. of flour, 2 lbs. of sugar, yeast, two bars of soap, 25 meters of new rope, coloring pens and book for the two children (thank you Alicia!), new reading glasses, some fresh fruit, and four small Twix bars.

We are coming home with a handful of black pearls which our knome, Lief was admiring.

Later, Gaston took his skiff out of the lagoon for a short, 45 minute fishing trip, and returned with three small tuna, which he shared with us! Yumm!

Tomorrow we leave for the Marquesas, 543 NM away.