Sailing in the trades pretty much lasted 2 days and by the end of the 17th the wind was now coming from the East and the swell coming from the North East. On Day 18 Auto wasn't doing so well at the helm and had to go into exploratory surgery again. We found a partial rip in the belt which Justin repaired by sewing a patch. This was the first of many patches that Auto needed to get us to Hilo Bay. The first patch lasted 48 hours and the subsequent patches all lasted 10-12 hours. May 22d we were not able to patch Auto again and decided to hand steer till the waves became less hazardous for Auto. On the night of the 25th Auto received another patch that lasted until Hilo Bay. This was a real relief, since neither of us enjoyed the hand steering or the three hour shifts during the day and two hour shifts at night that came with it.
On the evening of the 27th with 85 nautical miles to go we watched the sun set in the west looking out for the 13000 ft mountains that make up the “Big Island”. No such luck, only clouds but still a beautiful sunset!All day we could hear people on the vhf and we could get some FM radio stations, it was sooo exciting to hear other voices and to know we are finally close to land! That night instead of our normal watch system we decided to do 3 hour watches so as to both get a minimum of 6 hours of sleep before we arrive. We decided since the wind were dying that we would motor sail the remainder of the 55.8 nm to Hilo so as to get there at 9 am and hopefully all our customs and immigration stuff before they close. 21 nm away we could see some lights on the island, which can be argued was our first sight of land, however we didn't truly see land we got about 4 miles off the coast. There was a thick mist all over the island and we could only just make out tree shapes. We later learned that the mist is in fact Vog and it comes from the Crater on the Island also the lack of trade winds to push it away.
Our excitement was short lived once we entered the break water and tried to enter Radio Bay. We were stopped by security and asked if we had been cleared by the Coast Guard to enter. We said no and that we wanted to, could we call them on the radio. No. We need to call them in Honolulu. No cell phone onboard we are faced with the dilemma of putting the boat somewhere so we can go ashore and call but we need to call to put the boat somewhere. Since 9-11, Homeland Security has taken control of the harbours in Hawaii state (I don't know about other states) and whenever their is a cruise ship in harbour their are some serious rules about being escorted to and from your boat and not being anywhere close to the cruise ship in your vessel (we were). The security women didn't know what to do but gave us a phone number to call.
We had traveled too long and were in need of a fantastic meal to sail to Honolulu so we decided to anchor in the small bay next door which turned out to be Reeds Bay. By 11:30 we had dropped our anchor and launched the dinghy. Justin was off to do all the official paper work which means we were officially in Hawaii!
Finally some tradewinds
Land Ho!
Finally in Hilo
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