What Is Almost As Good As Making Landfall? (by Ann)

Posted on September 1, 2015 by bob

After a 22 day passage, the third long passage in the last 105 days, there does not seem like anything could equal the joy of making landfall. Well we were wrong. After getting safely tied to the dock at Neah Bay and properly celebrating with a bottle of bubbly (put in the icebox only when the final decision to stop in Neah Bay had been reached about 10 miles offshore) we went to the Marina office and checked in. We were a bit disappointed to find out that our cell phones would not work due to lack of service. How was I going to make a few phone calls? I was directed to the pay phone in front of the grocery store a few blocks down the street. No bueno. The phone was broken. So the Marina office/bait store attendant offered to let me use the store’s phone.

Lisa and John on Orcinius had asked us to please call them before we took our much deserved naps. They had left Hawaii with us but made landfall in Astoria four days prior and wanted to make sure we made it in before the two big storms coming down the coast. So, with a not-so-quick call home and then another not-so-quick call to Lisa I had worn out my phone welcome and left the office. Even though there was a celebration of Makah Days down the bay further, filling the air with carnival noise and shotgun discharges to start canoe races, I finally laid down for a nap. Bob had found the bed earlier and was deep in slumber. Aw, sweet rest.

My deep sleep was penetrated by someone calling “Charisma, Charisma!” Such familiar voices. So hard to focus. We both climbed out of bed and up to the cockpit. As the Christmas poems goes…”and what to our wondering eyes should appear?”…Lisa and John from Orcinius!!!! Not being totally familiar with Northwest geography I was confused. Wasn’t Portland pretty far away? That’s where they live. And the answer is yes. About five hours away. And when I called to check in with Lisa as requested, they were at the ticket counter of the ferry about to purchase passage to Victoria, BC. That was our original destination. They were hoping to be there to grab our lines as we arrived. How very lucky it was that I borrowed that phone and informed them of our new location.

What a treat! (even if they did wake us up)

How very happy we were to see them! Joy, joy, happy tears! Celebration, laughter more bubbly and stories ensued. How different our two passages had been. We knew we were going to sail over the Pacific High and make landfall further north. Orcinius knew they were going to motor through the High and make landfall in Astoria. Other than leaving from the same location four hours apart, our passages were similar only for the first two days…when they passed us and never looked back. They were sailing brilliantly. We were too. But it seems that a few degrees of longitude made all of the difference. They had some squally weather but nothing like we kept finding. They encountered some lightning, but not three solid nights of it. They never saw the 40kt winds we found. They caught lots more fish than we did. They had more boat issues than we did. Score one for Charisma. But we all win when we make safe landfall. And we can’t do any better than celebrating together!

Landfall in North America! (By Ann because she is still barely awake)

Posted on August 30, 2015 by bob

I think we would be pinching ourselves still if we were not so exhausted. We arrived at 6:30am local time… 3:30am local Charisma time.

We're here! 2600 miles up and over the Pacific High and into the Pacific Northwest. (The heavy dotted line is our planned course, the light one is our actual course)

Someone's very happy to see land.

Actually both of us are damn happy to be in!

Just inside Cape Flattery is Neah Bay where we stopped.

So happy to get in here to hold up between storms.

So, let's pop the Champagne...

...and toast a sometimes boring, sometimes fantastic and sometimes difficult trip!

Our new neighbors.

We tucked into an open slip in Neah Bay, tied up and shouted gleefully..not knowing the boat next to us was occupied. Oops. No worries, they were actually up and getting ready to move out so were happy to share our joy. Although on a trawler they had previously circumnavigated on a monohull so appreciated our feat.

Bob is sound asleep …deservedly so as he was up from 5pm to 3am through a very stressful night. I just went to scope out the facilities (not very impressive and the laundry is actually four blocks away…I will definitely need help getting three weeks of laundry there). Unfortunately AT&T does not exist up here and Internet is spotty. Oh well. Time to sleep and worry about all of that later!

We promise to give details on the last two days when better rested. Thanks for cheering us on!

Getting Ready To Leave Hawaii

Posted on August 6, 2015 by bob

I just did the trip plan to get us to the Pacific Northwest, which is the usual route back to the mainland from Hawaii. 2440 miles. So, we continue to prepare.

First up, the new exhaust mixing elbow. Here's the newly welded one with the bit from the old one on the left.

Phew, glad that's done. Grimy and sweaty down there!

Next up, Malo and Moses kindly came over and help Ann clean the waterline so we'll have a smooth fast hull.

Ann went up the mast to oil a squeaky sheave. That's Malo, Me and Moses waaaay down there.

Ann can't resist a selfie, especially with such a great view!

Here's our marina from above. That's Orcinius (the catamaran) in the background

We’re planning to leave Saturday if weather conditions hold, so Ann’s out doing some final provisioning and I’m fixing a few final things around the boat.

Pearl Harbor

Posted on August 6, 2015 by bob

Hard to believe that all the times I’ve been to Honolulu and never seen this. Ann saw it many years ago, but much has changed – so off we went with John, Lisa, Malo and Moses from Orcinius.

John with Moses and Malo.

We started the tour with the "Mighty Mo", the battleship Missouri. Not yet built when Pearl Harbor was bombed, but it was completed in time to see action in the WWII as well as Korea and even re-commissioned for the Gulf War. She is best known however, as the place where the Japanese officially signed their surrender on board in Tokyo Bay.

Battleships were known for their 16-inch guns which could accurately fire a 2700 pound armor piercing shell, over 20 miles. In this case, nine of these could blast away at once.

The gang on the deck. Amazingly she has teak decks!

The very spot of the historic surrender.

Next up...the battleship Arizona memorial. Almost 1200 lives lost (many still entombed in the ship) when she blew up and sank right here as Pearl Harbor was bombed.

At one end of the memorial are the names of the fallen.

From the middle of the memorial you can see the remains of the ship under water and this bit of superstructure as well as oil (sometimes called "black tears") that is still leaking from the ship's tanks.

Inside the memorial...

...and open to the sky.

Next up on the day, the submarine Bowfin.

The Bowfin sank quite a few ships during its tour.

Bob and John on the stern.

Watertight hatches every 20 feet or so. I could barely contort myself enough to get through them. Not a place to be if you suffer from claustrophobia.

This thing looked extremely complicated to operate. I think I'll stick with sailboats.

Malo preparing to take the helm.

Hike Up Diamond Head

Posted on August 6, 2015 by bob

Well, when you’re in Honolulu, you’re supposed to do this hike to the top for the view. Here it is:

Diamond Head is an extinct volcano. Not named for its shape, but for the fact that crew from sailing ships believed the rocks they found on the volcano were diamonds.

Looking at the caldera from the beginning of the hike. You go up to the highest peak where there are remains of the artillery bunkers built to protect Honolulu back in the early 1900's.

Going up the side of the caldera. Very hot day! We brought and drank a LOT of water! You can just see the trail in the bottom of the photo.

Toward the top and after going through a 75 yard tunnel rough hewn into the rock, you are faced with 100 very steep stairs.

Al...most...there!

Made it!

View of Waikiki.

Honolulu and Koko Head looking back toward Molokai Channel.

It’s Pronounced; “Ook”

Posted on August 6, 2015 by bob

There’s a fantastic ukulele shop here on Oahu called Kanile’a Ukulele. They hand make gorgeous “ukes” and have a great tour of their facility. It’s family owned and operated and the pride they take in their hand-made instruments is so palpable – well, I had to have one. More about that later, but here’s some pictures of the tour.

Here's the start of the tour. Our guide is holding a newly milled uke neck.

Their ukes are made from the local Koa wood only found in Hawaii. They have a giant bandsaw that cuts the wood to about 1/10" thick, then they "book match" it. After they are dried, they are put into production here.

Laying out the pattern on the book matched sections of wood.

After the top and bottom are ready, the sides get bent and put into a mold for assembly.

The sides go into this machine which is a custom shaped mold with electric heating pad...

...the wood gets sprayed with water and then clamped down and the machine is plugged in. You can see the wood relax and bend.

After popping the sides out of the bending machine, they are carefully sanded until you can't see a seam, then glued together into this mold.

In the mean time, the top is getting it's "structural pieces" and put in a suction gluing machine that holds all the pieces down while the glue sets.

Once all the pieces of the body are prepared, they get glued together. Here you can see how the book matched wood really makes for a stunning pattern. Each one is absolutely unique.

On the other side of the room, the headboards are being glued to the necks.

Logos are cut out of contrasting wood...

...and inlaid into the headboard. Each piece of the uke is carefully matched and has a serial number on to ensure the best combination of wood color and pattern is built in.

Fingerboards and frets being prepared. Mine will have a rosewood fingerboard with mother of pearl position markers.

Once the parts are all joined, the uke goes upstairs to the finishing area. The first phase here is to progressively sand it from it's rough form (left) to a ready for finishing stage (right).

These are all sanded and ready for finishing. I was able to order one of these and customize the finish (gloss body with "silk" finish neck). Mine is the second row from the top, fifth one in from the right. It will get finished over the next couple weeks and sent home. Really fun to look through all the wood to find one that really jumped out at me. It has an amazing, shimmering burl type of grain pattern. It is a piece of art as well as a beautiful, hand-crafted instrument.

The first stage of finishing is to apply three coats of UV-cured filler...

...then the gloss finish is applied in the spray booth.

After the finish, there's progressive sanding all the way up to 1600 grit sandpaper and then two different grades of polishing compound on polishing wheels. Then it comes to this man for final finishing - applying the bridge, tuning keys, nut and strings. They put the strings on one at a time and test each for the best "feel" and adjust the nut and bridge height as needed. The result is a really easy "action".

So of course my camera battery died before I could take a picture of the one I picked out, but this is an example of the kind of grain and finish (but not the heart shaped sound hole - that's custom to this one).

Some Silliness

Posted on August 3, 2015 by bob

Our new tradition is some Ukelele playing around the BBQ.

It starts with a warm-up while dinner is cooking...

...very serious business, this uke playing...

...after dinner the music really gets going...

...Ann has perfected the horizontal drum beat.

So, a continuation of the tradition we started in Fiji. Early last year while anchored off the village of Naividamu we had a “Uke-Fest”. The next morning the men in the village all commented that we were making “some noise last night” out on our boat. The women were more diplomatic noting that they heard us “making music”. I’m not sure which was more accurate, but we ARE getting better!

Boat Work Never Stops

Posted on July 31, 2015 by bob

Just when you think…oh never mind.

Ann’s up in the BBQ area doing some sewing to repair some of our canvas stuff. It’s easier to spread everything out on the tables and now that we’re back in the US we can use our sewing machine off the boat (120 volt here – 220volt everywhere else in the South Pacific).

Sewing in the parking lot - no - it's the BBQ area up near the parking lot.

So, the last thing on my list was emptying the lazarette to do a couple projects. Re-attach the corroded leads on the hydro-generator and check the fluid level on the transmission. While down there I notice a fine salt film covering the transmission. Uh, oh…I turned on the engine to see what was going on and saw saltwater bubbling out of the exhaust water mixer. This is the set of pipes that pass saltwater through engine baffles for cooling and then pass it out through the engine exhaust. Crap! This area is very difficult to get into much less use tools in. Very cramped and right now down in the lazarette it’s gotta be 100 degrees! Anyway, it has to be fixed so here’s a look at the problem.

The dreaded lazarette. First I have to squeeze down this thing - it's about five feet down to the engine.

Yup, down there...

...then in there - yeah, that hole. You go down here feet first, then you have to contort your feet/legs the other way around and get one arm at a time in throughout the hatch since my shoulders won't fit in all at once.

Once inside the elbow thing on the left with the white heat tape on it had to unbolt from the engine and the two hoses and muffler.

Turns out the hose was rotten too. One of the clamps broke and the ends of the hose crumbled off.

It’s always a bit dishearting to find “new projects” like this, but at the same time this was a big problem just waiting to cause a major failure, so I’m glad I found it here where it’s relatively easy to fix.

The update is that I took it to a local welder. He tried to weld the pin-hole and a broken weld on one of the pipes, but the material was toast and wouldn’t hold together. So…now we’re waiting for some stainless steel pipe which should arrive on Monday and probably a very large bill. Sigh.

Just read this post anytime you fantasize about owning your own boat, then go rent one for the day, have fun and go home knowing that the maintenance is someone else’s problem 😉

(Just kidding)

Took more than an hour to pry this thing loose, but it's finally out.

While cleaning it up I found a pin-hole in the metal. At least now I know what's causing the leak.

A Little Touring

Posted on July 31, 2015 by bob

Aside from boat work we’ve had a chance to do a little touring. Besides some walks on the local Ko Olina area, we jumped in the van with Orcinius and did a day tour out to the east side of the island out past Honolulu. While Honolulu is very urban and built up, the east side is still largely dense vegetation and vertical cliffs. Very dramatic, although not easy to capture on camera since most of the roads don’t really offer easy access to viewing areas. Anyway, it was a nice day and included a stop at the Pacific War Memorial. This cemetery and memorial sits atop the hills overlooking Waikiki. A moving memorial and a beautiful view.

Ann and Lisa do a selfie on the viewing area above the eastern side above Kaneloa.

View down toward Kaneloa on the east side.

View from the Memorial down into Honolulu. You can just see Diamond Head peaking above the condos.

Entrance to the National Memorial of the Pacific.

A little part of the resort area that the marina is near. You can walk for miles down the beach.

Some Misc Passage Pictures

Posted on July 25, 2015 by bob

I often have a few shots that don’t quite fit the narrative. So, I’ve posted new pictures of the Papeete to Hawaii passage and here are a few that didn’t fit in.