Our friends across the dock were away with family, but Richard down the dock organized a mid-day dock party with chili.
I contributed a big pot of my best chili recipe (courtesy of Larry Rutledge of s/v Brisa del Mar, lo these many years ago).
Late in the afternoon, we got cleaned up and drove across the island to Dave's friend's house for Christmas Dinner with them. We had a some good food and enjoyed watching Mark's pet turtle do laps around the yard.
This turtle is an African Spurred Tortoise, and it's nearly the size of a Galapagos Tortoise. Friend of theirs got Mr T when he was small, but when he grew bigger, they couldn't keep him in an apartment, and Mark and Bing inherited him. He lives in their back yard, and they have 'turtle bars' to keep him out of the house. He's so big it would knock over furniture if it were allowed to roam inside. Dave tried to stop him moving forward (so he could take a picture), and Mr T just kept right on trucking, no matter how hard Dave pushed back.
Labels: Hawaii
We are sitting here in sunny Honolulu, and it's 80 degrees and doesn't feel much like Christmas. We are missing our families and that little nip in the air today!
Hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas, wherever you are!
Mele Kalikimaka me ka Hau'oli Makahiki Hou
(Merry Christmas and Happy New Year)
Labels: Hawaii
Well, after a long voyage (Maryland to Florida to Hawaii) our new Frigoboat units have arrived. Great experience with H2OLogistics in shipping big stuff from anywhere in the US to Hawaii.
Labels: Hawaii, Maintenance
I am ready for some sunshine!! (However, at least it is still 78 degrees here)
Labels: Hawaii
The cold front the last week were there was a nice reminder of how good we've got it. In Melbourne it was in the low 30's and even driving south to Miami, it was still awfully cold for this Florida girl.
It was a looooong flight back... we got up at 4:30am for a 7am flight from Miami airport, and then went via stops in Orlando, Chicago, and LA, before landing in Honolulu about 8:30pm (it was a cheap flight!). That's about 20 hours of traveling. But nice to have stops in between so we could stretch our legs. Chicago had been a mess from the big front passing through a couple of days earlier, and we were worried it would snarl us up too. But by the time we got there, it was fine.
John from Nakia, to whom Mike and Sue on Infini had passed our car to when they left, picked us up curbside at the Baggage Claim area, so we didn't need to mess with anything else. All our luggage made it. Nothing broken or missing. And we weighed in as usual at 49.9 lbs with 4 bags full of 'stuff' (plus sent a couple of shipments from Florida to Hawaii via USPS and freight).
The weather in Honolulu is just gorgeous! About 78-80 during the day and 68-70 at night. Perfect working and sleeping temps. And we have a new dock neighbor living aboard for the winter right next to us. So we don't feel quite so isolated out at the end of the dock (with all our cruising friends 20 minutes away in the downtown marinas). Our new neighbors are retired like us, and spend most of the year in their RV, and then come visit their boat in Hawaii for 3 months in the wintertime. They bring their lawn chairs out on the dock for sunset and are very sociable, so we've actually been stopping boat work 'early' to have a sunset happy hour and socialize.
We were pretty convinced it wasn't onboard, but when we went outside to see who else's boat was beeping, it was not as loud as it was down below. Hmmm...
We finally came to the conclusion that it must be Sonar signals coming through the water. A chat with a neighbor on the dock confirmed that occasionally a ship in Pearl Harbor is testing their sonar. She said sometimes it lasts for 24 hrs or more. Ooooohh nooooooo!
I'm a light sleeper. It's nearly 11pm and still beeping loudly. I think it's going to be a long night!!
But... it seems to change tone every now and then... almost like it's moving around. Do we have a mini-sub playing in our harbor??
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Sherry & Dave
in Honolulu, Hawaii for the winter
At 11/5/2010 6:06 PM (utc) our position was 21°22.26'N 157°56.27'W
Labels: Hawaii
We have taken down our genoa and staysail, washed them, and inspected them carefully for places that need some repair.
They both look in pretty good shape after 3 years and 15,000 miles. But they do need a restitching in a few spots. The old adage "A stitch in time saves nine" really applies. It is so much easier to restitch something that is still hanging together than try to put it all back together once you've let it fall completely apart.
We have also taken down all the halyards--running up 'sacrificial' halyards--really cheap line we buy at Home Depot.
We put up our foredeck awning to protect the dinghy, which is still stored on the foredeck.
We are trying to offload some stuff that we haven't been using, or are upgrading. There's a marine flea market at the downtown marina area tomorrow, so we've been hauling all our stuff out to sell.
We have spent a lot of time online researching the new things we plan to buy in Hawaii, placing orders, and getting ready for some major refit activity. And planning our activities in Florida.
We are still learning our way around Hawaii... Dave let me take the car out by myself for the first time yesterday. Just down to Hickham AFB Exchange, where we had to return something we bought last week. I made it there and back successfully without getting lost.
Labels: Hawaii, Maintenance
This, of course, is not a disaster, but we LIKED those shoes, and we miss them! We are left with one half of a pair of well-used imitation Crocs (from a city market in Peru) and I had to dig out my old Crocs (boatyard-stained and also very well used).
Dave has temporarilty reverted to his '2 left feet' sandals (which I find a little embarrasing). Back to Walmart we go!!
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Sherry & Dave
in Honolulu, Hawaii for the winter
Labels: Hawaii
But last night we went to a University of Hawaii football game at Aloha Stadium. We happen to be docked right in the middle of the 'Tailgate Zone' for Aloha Stadium. Our parking lot, which is normally a pretty sleepy place, turns into party city before the UH home games.
We saw that there was a home game (at Aloha Stadium, which is within walking distance), and went online and bought tickets. It is their Homecoming game, so we figured it would be hard to find tickets. But the stadium was only 2/3 full. We probably could have 'scalped' some tickets for less if we'd been patient. We tailgated a little with some other people on the dock, and then walked to the stadium. We are closer to the stadium here on the boat, than the parking lot we normally park in for Gator games.
But it was a great game--a lot more laid back than a Gator game (with 3x as many people and a lot more pressure due to 'standings'). The fans were just as fanatic (and a few just as drunk and rowdy). The UH Warriors totally wiped out the Idaho team, so it was fun watching the game. Lots of opportunities to cheer for 'our' team.
And, earlier in the day, we watched the Florida-Georgia game on TV. A great game that went into overtime, with the Gators winning in the end.
Labels: Hawaii
We (snif) had to split up with our cruising mates on s/v Infini... we went into the Rainbow Bay Marina, in Pearl Harbor, and Infini went into the Hawaii Yacht Club in the Ala Wai Yacht Basin. Only military (retired or otherwise) can get into Pearl Harbor.
We spent the next several days running around with our new friends on s/v Windy City, who have been here at Rainbow Bay for about the last year. They have a car, and graciously offered to chauffeur us around to help us get settled. Our primary job was to find a car for ourselves. We started at the "Lemon Lot" at Hickham Air Force Base and worked our way through a few used car dealers nearby and some possibilities we found on Craigslist.com.
After 2 days of looking, we had a pretty good idea of current values in the "under $3000" range. We settled on a nice looking but fairly old/high mileage Toyota SUV Rav/4 L, for $2800, no sales tax, and $25 registration/inspection fees. Not too bad. It has 4 doors, 2WD, a roof rack, and cold air. We think we can easily resell it for about what we paid for it when we leave in 5 months.
The marina here has recently had a drastic personnel turnover, and the new manager, who didn't get any coaching from the old one, is struggling with simple issues. It took us 3 days to get a mailbox, and we're still not in a permanent parking space. But it's otherwise a really nice place, with decent showers, laundry, book swap, and a hanging out place for residents. And very secure. But not so secure that friends can't visit--it is Navy property but not within the gates of the base, so anyone can come visit without any hassle.
Today is College Football Day on Soggy Paws. One of the few things we miss about being in the U.S. is watching college football on TV. We are using our spiffy HVR-950Q WinTV receiver on our laptop to watch TV. With the tiny supplied antenna we are getting about 6 channels, and contemplating a better antenna that can be mounted higher.
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At 10/20/2010 7:32 PM (utc) our position was 21°22.26'N 157°56.27'W
Labels: Hawaii
First, arrival... We got across the Alenuihaha Channel by 11am--before the wind in the channel got too bad. We decided that since we were making good time and it was a nice day, that we'd stop at the small island of Molokini for lunch. This is a popular snorkeler's day trip from Maui and we could see the tourist boats coming and going as we approached. Fortunately, we got there at about 11:30am, just when the morning trip boats were leaving. By 11:45am, ALL of the tourist boats had left, and it was just us and another outboard boat with a family aboard. We grabbed a vacant mooring over near the tip of the western arm of the "U" that is Molokini. The moorings here are not on the surface--the mooring ball is about 8' below the surface of the water, easily visible when you get close, in the clear water. The mooring has a tag line that hangs down. The tag line is long enough to hook into with the typical mooring line from your bow. But someone has to jump in the water and get the tag line. Dave assigned the "ship's diver" (me) to this job.
We just stopped for lunch and a quick snorkel. This is one of the 'premier' snorkeling destinations for Maui, but it was a real yawner for us, after French Polynesia. Very nice clear water, and surprisingly warm, but not a lot of coral and not much fish life. (The water in Hilo Harbor, when I jumped in to clean the prop was, by contrast, 'freezing'). We located a dive buoy further out near the west arm of Molokini--it looked like a great place to stage for a dive on the wall that faces west (outside of the "U") there. But there was a pretty strong current running out over the reef towards the wall, so I didn't want to go too far to check out the wall.
By 12:30, we were underway again, motorsailing in light air, toward Lahaina. We arrived in Lahaina about mid-afternoon, and easily picked up a Lahaina Yacht Club mooring, located west of the channel, toward the end of the row of (mostly commercial) boats. There is a completely protected harbor here, but there is NO CHANCE to get a slip. Someone at Lahaina Yacht Club said that they had just gotten a slip there, after being on a waiting list for 15 years (!!!). But the moorings suited us better anyway.
The LYC moorings are well-maintained (I dove down and checked ours out--strong and in good shape), and cheap. Can't beat 'no cost'! There doesn't seem to be a time limit for staying there--as long as there were moorings available they said we could stay, and seemed disappointed that we were just passing through. We had a beer at the bar and talked to some members and they were wow-ed when we told them we'd come all the way from Florida.
Once you've hooked up to a mooring marked LYC, make a note of the mooring number and take your dinghy into the dinghy dock in the harbor. It's a little hard to find the Lahaina Yacht Club in this Key West-like tourist town, but it's about 3 blocks west of the harbor along the waterfront--keep your eyes open, it's easy to walk past the alley-like door on the water side of the street, just past 'Cheeseburger in Paradise' bar. Tell them what mooring you are on, fill out a 'we won't sue' set of paperwork, and they will issue you a temporary membership card. After that you are free to use their facilities, beer is about $3.25 on special, and lunches run $6-10 and dinners $9-25. Showers are upstairs over the bar.
For the next 2 days, we rented a car with our friends on Infini, and toured the two major tourist destinations. (Note: Book your rental car ahead... they have just added 3 new flights into Maui and all the rental car companies were out of cars when we rented ours--we booked ahead and got a comfortable van for $75/day). There is a bus that goes around, but I don't think you can get to the 2 places we went (below) by bus.
The first was the Haleakala National Park--on the (non-active) Haleakela volcano. On the way there, we covered a lot of what else there is to see in Maui. One notable place was the windsurfer beach at Kanaha Beach Park in Kahului Bay. There were literally over a hundred windsurfers and kiteboarders out there having a blast in the good winds and surf conditions. Almost every place we stopped, one could easily spend a day just hanging out. But we were on a mission to see everything we could in 2 days, so only stayed for 15 minutes. :(
On the second day, we did what is known as 'the Hana road'. It is a narrow, winding road along Maui's north coast, with lots of stops for beautiful breathtaking scenery and waterfalls, and lush tropical foliage. At the very 'end' of the road is the lower end of the Haleakela National Park, a place called 'The Seven Pools' where there is a 2 mile hike through an amazing bamboo forest to a 200' waterfall, which feeds a chain of waterfalls and pools. We had time to stand in the waterfall for pics for a few minutes, and then head back down. Again, we could have spent a whole day just at that one location!! If we did it again, we'd stay overnight someplace between Hana and the park, and devote a whole day to that area. We saw tents in the Waianapanapa State Park just before, so I know camping is possible there, for people on a budget. I'm not sure about lower Haleakela National Park.
On the last day, we turned the car in and hitched a ride on the Budget shuttle to the Whaler's Mall. This is a very upscale mall near all the resorts on the west coast of Maui. Fun window-shopping, but out of our price range. Lots of $20-40% off signs in the windows, but 20% off a $150 outfit is still well above Walmart prices. We mainly went there for the Whaling Museum. This is a small, but nicely done free musuem. From there we caught the $1 bus back to Lahaina where we 'power shopped' at Ace Hardware and a big grocery store across the street, within easy walking distance of the harbor. We bought sandwiches in the grocery store and took them to the park by the harbor to eat and people-watch.
In the afternoon, we visited with our friends from (formerly) Peace and Aloha, who live on Maui. They are in the 3rd year of building a gorgeous home overlooking the south coast of Maui (David and son Eric are doing ALL the work themselves). We had a nice evening socializing in their rental condo in the Napili point area. (See their rental condos on VRBO.com Listing #305703).
Again, we should have spent AT LEAST a week in Maui, and more would have been better. Allocating two weeks would not have been too much.
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At 10/18/2010 6:16 PM (utc) our position was 20°56.52'N 156°46.41'W
Labels: Hawaii
We are currently motorsailing in very light winds for a harbor on the south side of Molokai called Lono Harbor. It is a disused commercial harbor where we can supposedly anchor over night in sheltered water before moving on to Honolulu tomorrow.
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At 10/18/2010 6:09 PM (utc) our position was 20°56.04'N 156°45.85'W
Labels: Hawaii
Our friends on Infini opted to sail the whole way, planned to cross the channel during the night, and carry on to Lahaina, on Maui.
We had a nice dinner and got to bed early for our 4am reville. The Alenuihaha Channel can be extremely rough in prevailing winds--bounded by two high islands (Hawaii and Maui), the wind whistles down through the channel at 10-15 knots higher than prevailing winds. So the trick is to scuttle across as fast as possible in the wee hours of the morning, before the sea breeze picks up.
We were underway by 4:45am this morning, and are now enjoying a not-too-boisterous motorsail across the channel. Our ETA for the other side is about 10:45 am, and for Lahaina, about 2pm.
We plan to stay in Maui for a couple of days. We've reserved a car for 2 days, so we can see the island and also visit our friends formerly of s/v Peace and Aloha. Dave met P&A in the San Blas in 2000, and they have since completed a circumnavigation, sold their boat, and are now building a house on Maui.
After Maui, we plan to stop overnight on Monday night at Moloka'i and then go on into Pearl Harbor on Tuesday. We have already obtained a security permit to enter Pearl Harbor (by faxing our boat documents, including a completed Coast Guard Safety Inspection Report, to the appropriate authorities), and confirmed our reservations one more time at Rainbow Bay Marina--the Navy Marina in Pearl Harbor. Pearl Harbor will be our base of operations for the next 4-5 months.
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At 10/14/2010 5:38 PM (utc) our position was 20°23.24'N 156°09.89'W
Labels: Hawaii
We left Radio Bay (Hilo) early this morning, bound for tiny Nishimura Bay on the NW corner of the Big Island. We'll anchor overnight there, and (assuming conditions are OK) will get up at 04:30am tomorrow to cross the trecherous Alenuihaha Channel between the Big Island and Maui, in the nighttime calm.
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At 10/13/2010 5:41 PM (utc) our position was 19°48.05'N 155°04.29'W
Labels: Hawaii
I knew about the Kindle and the iPad, but didn't realize that there are now about 20 other brands of similar devices. Uh-oh, choices!! Now just trying to sort out price vs. functionality, etc.
Someone told us 'definitely the iPad is the best', but then I looked at the iPad starting price and had a heart attack. Another friend highly recommended the Kindle 3 over the iPad--better daylight readable, better battery, and a significantly better price. At $139 for a new Kindle 3, we could actually afford to buy 2.
Labels: Electronics, Hawaii, USA
Randy is KH6RC, one of of the main Pacific Seafarer's Net net controllers. We have been talking with Randy for the past year on the radio, and really wanted to meet him face to face.
We had a delightful evening getting to know Lynn and Randy better. And their B&B was a delightful experience.
But the highlight of the evening, for me, was being guest 'Net Control' of the Pacific Seafarer's Net. I got to use Randy's radio and fancy beam antenna to run the Pacific Seafarer's Net. I talked to Net Relay stations scattered from Florida to Pitcairn Island to New Zealand and Australia, and took position reports on 9 boats that were underway to various locations in the Pacific Ocean. It was fun.
Labels: Hawaii
Our next door neighbors in Radio Bay had rented a car for about $40/day, and that seemed pretty reasonable, especially when split between two boats. But when we went in to their rental company to book a car for a few days, they told us that all the prices were higher now. Apparently there's an Ironman Triathlon going on this weekend in Kona (on the west coast of Hawaii), and all the cars were booked.
So I went online to try to book a car with our USAA discount. The first 2 big companies I tried--Avis and Budget--were all sold out. So when Hertz came up with a car for 'only' $49, we grabbed it. And for only $7 more, Dave upgraded us to a nice mini-van, when he picked up the car.
Our first stop was the Hawaii Volcanoes National Park. It was raining when we left Hilo, and still raining when we got to the Park. And still raining when we left the park. We saw a nice volcano video, and drove the crater rim road. There is no active lava there now, but lots of old lava, live steam vents, and lava tubes. We also stopped at the Jagger Museum in the park, with more displays, and some active Seismometers.
The next stop was the Punalu'u Black Sand Beach. The big attraction here was... black sand. But also, something I've never seen before, green sea turtles sleeping on the beach in broad daylight. Apparently they come up onto the nice warm black sand to warm up. They were sleeping so soundly they looked dead, but we did see them blink once or twice.
Labels: Hawaii
Our friends on Infini came in this morning about 9am (trailed by a USCG launch--they got 'practiced on' by the local Coast Guard cutter as they were crossing the harbor). They stuck it out through the light winds and sailed right up until about 10 miles out when the wind dropped off to nothing. They were luck and got cleared through Customs in about an hour--having told Customs (via us) that they were coming today, there was a guy in waiting for them. No overtime fees either.
As soon as they got cleared, we arranged a taxi to the Mall and Walmart. The free bus doesn't run on Sundays, but 5 of us splitting the $11 taxi ride to the Mall wasn't too bad.
Dave and I were on a mission--to buy 2 bicycles. But we also hit the mall (where I bought a new pair of adventure shoes), and showed the Infini crew where everything was in the Mall/Walmart area. We had lunch at the Oriental Food Court next to Office Max, and then went back to Walmart.
Walmart had some nice 'priced right' mountain bikes for $92. Another cruiser who wrote a little 10-page cruising guide to Hawaii, really recommended you buy bikes when you hit Hilo. Great idea, and thanks a bunch for all the advice, Mita Kuulu!
We plan to use the bikes while in Hawaii over the next 6 months, and then sell them at a discount to someone else (we hope) when we leave. But if we use these bikes enough, we might spring for some good quality marine folding bikes before we leave Hawaii in the Spring. We bought a few accessories (locks, luggage rack for the back, cover for the bikes, etc) and spent an hour in Walmart trying to assemble this stuff, so we could ride our bikes and our other stuff back to the boat. It was a success. We had a nice ride back, and are looking forward to exploring some more of Hilo on the bikes later.
I also bought 2 bathing suits--mine from 3 years ago are in tatters. I hate to shop, in general, but I love 'power shopping' in Walmart.
We have arranged a 3-day car rental for Tuesday morning. It was a bit of a struggle--there is an Ironman Triathlon going on in Kona (also on the Big Island) starting in a few days, and all the rental cars are getting sold out. For the same car our friends rented for $40 a day this past week, Enterprise wanted $70/day for this week, but told us they didn't have any cars. I finally went online last night and found a Hertz car for 'only' $50 a day. This was after checking Budget and Avis and finding no cars available.
We are going to cram 5 of us in the rental and split it with Infini, so it will end up being pretty reasonable. We figured we can get the highlights of the Big Island in 2-3 days, leaving Hilo (where we are) for more leisurely exploration using the bikes and the free local bus transportation.
Tourist magazines are in racks on every corner, with maps and ads and recommendations for what to do. There are lots of guided tours available that all sound really interesting and fun, but they start at $100-$150 per person for a half day tour. Forget it! These range from horseback riding, ATV adventures, lava viewing trips, hiking, biking, etc. Cool stuff but pricey. (We got so spoiled by South America). With the rental car and a Lonely Planet, we'll do 'self tours'.
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At 10/2/2010 4:00 AM (utc) our position was 19°43.88'N 155°03.16'W
Labels: Hawaii
We got checked in through Customs by the friendliest US Customs agent I've EVER EVER encountered, this morning. And made it to the mall (and Walmart, Office Max) by 10am. Didn't buy much, but sure enjoyed sight-seeing.
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At 10/2/2010 1:08 AM (utc) our position was 19°39.49'N 154°54.70'W
Labels: Hawaii, On Passage
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At 10/2/2010 12:52 AM (utc) our position was 19°38.38'N 154°53.33'W
Labels: Hawaii, On Passage
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