Hilo

Justin got us cleared with Customs and came back to the boat to get me before we set off to visit the Dep. Of land and Natural resources to get a permit to be anchored in Reeds bay. It closed at two so we ran up to the office right away! We paid 20$ to be there for 5 days and then we walked into the Town of Hilo.

We enjoyed an expensive celebratory dinner at Cafe Pesto, did a couple of groceries and then crawled back to the boat for a long sleep. Over the next few days we managed to do our laundry, check our e-mail briefly at an antique store, frequented Kens Pancake house ( a MUST if you visit Hilo), saw a movie in a movie theater that is a school by day and bumped into someone that we knew from Montreal.

We met Beth at a bar we went to for some live music and dinner after our movie. We invited her and her boyfriend for a day sail and BBQ aboard Steady Beat on sunday. We had a great time with them and they were able to explain a lot about Hawaii, Hilo and the volcanoes (the lava flows and the Crater).

We ended up renting a car on monday and driving up to the crater, going to buy books and dvds at Borders, groceries and finally that night to the lava flows. On tuesday morning we woke up at 5 am, rowed in (we haven't put our outboard on the dinghy yet since there is a lot of vandalism reported in Hilo) and jerry jugged 20 gallons of fuel (and after we found a public tap) and 20 gallons of water (this took two trips with the car and poor justin rowing their and back every time).

We were pleasantly surprised when we got up on Tuesday morning Muna Kea finally showed herself to us, it was magnificent! Once we returned the rental car we went for one last breakfast at, guess where........Kens Pancake house!!!! We set off after a quick nap and sailed north along the coast to a small Bay on the north west corner called Nishimura.

Forgot to mention the lovely little guitar Justin bought himself for his birthday (on June 21st). We walked into a guitar and ukulale store in Hilo one day and Justin fell in love with a taylor travel guitar with a beautiful sound. It is perfect for the boat and now wehave to get rid of the larger guitar on board


Scott and Beth out for a daysail


Dalia in front of an old crater


Crater with sulfur spewing out

Trades to Hilo Bay

So we are finally in the trades after 17 days! This morning we encountered some drizzle which is the first precipitation we have seen in 6 months. You could see the Mexico dirt streak down our rigging, I know Steady Beat enjoyed the shower.
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

Cabo to the Trades

Before we left Mazatlan Mija was kind enough to ask Don to give us some weather to get to the Trades. Once leaving Cabo Don said we should head south west to N 18 degrees to catch the trades. With a large storm hitting the west coast of California the trades had headed further south and if we wanted to meet up with them we should head south too. The wind and waves picked up from the North West as we headed south making this a really rough start to our passage. We had one reef in the main and our Genoa was up, we were headed 200 Degrees True making 6.5 kts! Later that evening Justin was checking the pilot charts and he saw some small islands in the vicinity of where we were going. Without any actual charts for this area or these islands we estimated their location and decided to avoid N 19 and W 115-120. This night after I made a chickpea curry Justin promptly got sick. He caught some kind of 24 hour bug that left him weak and tired. He still came out to do his watches while I encouraged him to eat some dry cheerios. As the day grew to night on our first day off to Hawaii we took down the Genoa and put up our working jib and put in another reef in the main.

Before leaving Mazatlan we downloaded the week predictions of passageweather.com and noted that later in the week there is no wind south of B aja. So in order for us to catch the Trades we need to be as far west from Baja as we can. That proved difficult in the following 6 days with us motor sailing every night as the wind died and then increasing everyday from the North West, West direction.Sailing up-wind, not what we expected. Along with the variation in wind we often had swell from the North and North West making the boat uncomfortable.

On May 9th the wind started coming from the North East direction but the shifted to North. This trend of North East wind shifting to North and back continued for 6 more days. We have now been sailing for 15 days, our position is N 18o56.3' W 130o53.8', we are 1343 nautical Miles away from Hilo Bay (half way there) and we have yet to encounter steady trade winds. Every day because of the wind direction changing we are either putting up our Genoa or replacing it with our working jib, reefing the main or shaking it out putting up the mizzen or taking it down. Sail changes can take up to an hour to execute if all 3sails need to be dealt with. This often removes an hour in someones “off time” and can be frustrating due simply for lack of rest. Through the entire trip we performed, on average, 3 sail changes a day for 27days.....it got old fast. We did get better by the 3d week in predicting changes and executing the sail trimmings. Our main reason for adjusting the sails was because of the complaints we heard from Auto (our wheel auto pilot). If the boat is unbalanced, as in there is some weather helm, you can hear the belt slipping in Auto or he starts screaming that he cant keep his course. So as to not upset Auto we spent time making the boat balanced so he would be happy and not cause mutiny.

We decided after we left Cabo to use our fuel to motor sail down to the location where the trade winds are located versus saving the fuel for the 500 nm east of Hawaii that had no wind (we saw this on passageweather.com before we left.) Thus by Day 11 we had used up the fuel allocated to get to the trades and that was our first 24 hours of sailing since leaving the continent. The rest of the fuel onboard was allocated to charging our batteries and for getting into port.

Days 11 to 15 the wind continued to shift from North to North East, the swell was increasing from the North. On Day 14 (18o58.3' N,130o27.7'W, Heading 270oTrue) we saw wind from the North East at 25 Knots and the swell was confused with a 10-13 foot swell from the North East and cresting. This was very uncomfortable and lasted for 24 hours until finally not sleeping made us head 260 True, so that the swell could be on our quarter and maybe we could get some sleep (it was still hard to sleep). On Day 16 (also May 16th) the wind was 20 knots from the North East and the swell was 8 ft from the North East.The last 72 hours with the rough swell and wind had made Auto unhappy. Day 16 Justin prepared Auto for a make shift surgery. We rapidly removed him from the helm as I took over and justin opened him up. He found 3 fractures associated with where the screws held Auto onto the wheel. Justin used some resistol epoxy putty to repair the fractures and Auto woke from the anesthesia back on the wheel and he was 100%!
By the 17th the wind was down to 10-15 kts from the North East and the swell was 3-5 ft.....finally we could get some sleep, we were in the TRADES!

From Cabo to the Trades, we saw dolphins (900 nautical miles from Baja!), Boobies (don't know if they were blue footed boobies), and I saw some whales the second day after we left Cabo (I think most have already migrated north to NA to feed). We saw one tanker, actually Justin was on watch and failed to see it, I came on deck and noticed it right away. On day 8 Justin turned on the water pump, heard it pumping and no water came out of the kitchen tap. He investigated and noticed that a piece of the carbon filter had broken off and he had just pumped 5 Gallons of water into the bilge. 2 things with this story 1) fast thinking on Justins part meant that we didn't pump 20 Gallons into the bilge (I would have stood there and decided that the tank was empty) and 2) good thing we keep the water pump off when we are not using it as we could have inadvertently pumped 100 Gallons into the bilge.


600 miles and still no trades


Justin looking for trade winds

Mazatlan to Cabo

We left Mazatlan on May 1st, a friday and for some sailors leaving on a friday is bad luck. We made the decision to sail to Cabo, fill with fuel and then sail south after we left Mazatlan. As we sailed to Cabo we didnt encounter anything “Bad Lucky”. Dons weather predicted no winds to take us accross to Baja California but we managed to do some motor sailing and sailing. It was a very quiet crossing with us being able to sleep comfortably in the V-birth. We saw the Baja Ferries leaving mazatlan for La paz but other than that no other boats. We saw lots of dolphins leaving Mazatlan and some really small dolphins (3feet long) the closer we got to Baja.

We decided to do the Swiss watch system which is broken down into 5 watch periods
(for 2 crew): 2100 - 0100 (4hours), 0100 – 0500 (4 hours), 0500 -1000 (5 hours), 1000 – 1600 (6 hours) and 1600 – 2100 (5 hours). This watch system was hard to at first but we learned to really like it.

On May 2nd as the sun set we were able to the outline of hills of Baja in the sunset. At 0100 you could see the lights of San Jose Del Cabo. We slowed the boat down to time our arrival with first light. On May 3d at 7 am we docked at a Pelican poo infested fuel dock at Cabo San Lucas and took on some more disel. We couldnt pay with credit card so Justiin walked onto land to find an ATM. We paid for our fuel and Justin gave all our left over Pesos to the fuel guy.

We were extremly impressed with the water clarity of the Marina. We could see the sand, fish and rocks at the bottom 10 feet down IN A MARINA! If thats the water quality of the marina imagine what the rest of Baja looks like? We are dissapointed that we didnt do the Sea of Cortez, just that little peek made us vow to come back one day and do the sea.

At 0739 May 3d Steady Beat left Baja for Hawaii with a lone sea lion waving us off. Its an Adventure!


our special seat in the cockpit


our new bed on the dinette


one sea lion waving us off

Off to Hawaii

OK soooo...Week 4 has started with us running!
We never heard back from the boats in the old port about wind vanes (a way to automatically steer the boat) and eventually we took the bus down to find that everyone (along with their wind vanes) had left! Shock! Horror!

Ray at Mazatlan Yachts showed us a wind vane on a boat that has been abandoned for 15 years and we started negotiating with the authorities to buy it, but they backed out of the deal after a few days.

So we started the checkout process on Thursday morning. We were checked for animals and bugs and given a clean inspection by the authorities. We now have all our paperwork in order, all our food stowed and we are ready to go.

We leave tomorrow (Friday May 1) for Hilo bay, Hawaii. It is 2700 nautical miles. Averaging 4 knots gets us there in 28 days. Averaging 5 knots (ha!) would get us there in 22 days. We have enough food and water to last more than 60 days. So we are planning for about 30 days. If it takes more than 40 days, it may be time to begin worrying.

The weather looks beautiful all the way to hawaii with 15-20 knots of wind from the East and NorthEast along our general course. Check out passageweather.com for a pretty view of the wind on the way to Hawaii.

We'll update you all when we get to Hawaii!

Bellow is a picture of a diver at the Mazatlan Aquarium and all I could think is that he looks like he is being beamed up to the Star Ship Enterprise. yes?no?

Mazatlan, Week 3!

Ok.....so we are still here but we are making progress with getting the boat ready. We moved back to Marina Mazatlan last week to have our engine looked over. The engine is in good condition so we are getting some maintenance done to keep it that way. For this to be done we have moved over to Singilar Marina which charges us in Pesos (Marina Mazatlan charges us in U.S $) and as such we are able to save 12$ a night.

On Saturday Dalia climbed up to the mazatlan lighthouse which is the second highest naturally elevated lighthouse in the world. Our friends Pam and Joe on Sea Escape joined the climb up. It was a really cool view of Mazatlan! In other news we got a sim card for our phone (because calling cards are so difficult to find) and Justin gave Dalia a hair cut.


the view from the top of the lighthouse.

Week 3 is just starting so we will write more as the week develops!

All righty...more has happened. We got our injectors removed and they are being serviced, tested the holding tank, fixed the sink in the head and a couple of odd little jobs. Our hand held GPS died, a couple of days of research and announcements on the Morning cruisers Net provided us with a cheap replacement. The crew on Ocean Blue II provided us with a free SSB receiver which unfortunately broke down :( but we recovered quickly when Justin went out and bought one (for double the cost in Canada). Still in search of a hank on storm jib and now a self steering wind vane. We have a lead on 2 possible candidates in the old harbour however cost and time for instillation will be deciding factors..stay tuned for more on the self steering wind vane!

Last Friday, Steady Beat organised the Friday Night Raft up where we met Pamela on Precious Metal, the crew on Rutea, Sole Mate and old friends on Aquarius, Sea Escape and Escapade. It was a fun evening that ended with a 4 dinghy raft motoring back to the marina (lots of water pouring into our Ghetto Duck!).

Pamela came to visit Steady Beat on Sunday evening to have a look at the boat and give us advice on the crossing to Hawaii. 20 years ago, Pamela did a crossing with her husband and children from Victoria to Hawaii and onto New Zealand. Since then she was running a charter service from her home town Port Hardy on Vancouver Islands north tip and she had much advice and recommendations for us about sailing to Hawaii and in and around BC. We feel inspired and really excited about getting up north and doing some cruising up there. But first lets get there;)

We hung out a lot during our week with Jim and his friend Marty aboard Escapade going to the pool, out for dinner and some boat projects. The biggest was when Justin decided to finally change our almost useless Engine Kill switch. Jim and Marty came to help with the project and then we all raced over to Precious Metal for cocktails...it was a fun and late night!


We were sad to find out one morning that Bob from "Bobs Marine Mart" had passed away. Before we left Mazatlan he had helped us find many things for our boat, offered us lots of advice, took care of all the cats and was a pleasure to talk to. We will miss him.

Currently "Total Yacht Works" is on board adjusting the cylinder valves, they brought us our injectors yesterday and apparently our alternator is not far behind. Justin feels that all the projects on the boat are done and I am just organising the meal plane and the provision list. Tomorrow its off to the Aquarium and next week is week 4! and hopefully by Week 5 we will be underway for HAWAII!



All Dalias hair after her hair cut

raft of sea lions on our way from the old harbour to Marina Mazatlan

Mazatlan Week 2

Mazatlan is turning out to be a longer stop than anticipated. We spent 10 days in the Marina where Justin worked on getting the boat ready to take to Hawaii and I spent 120$ on Chiropractic care for my back! I am happy to say that I no longer have back pain so it was worth it! Justin, poor guy, is feeling 10 days of hard work in the hot sun. We managed to seal all the leaks in our portholes (there were a few), build storm covers, stoppers for the dory vents, get our alternator looked at, etc....all in all it was very productive! The boat is near ready to sail off to Hawaii.

We moved to Stone Island for Easter weekend, which is one of the biggest holidays in Mexico. Children get two weeks off from school and most families head to the beach for two weeks. 400,000 people came to Mazatlan last week and Stone Island was full of partying Mexicans. There were a dozen banana boats around us (I thought of you Jade) and many kayakers came to inspect the boat. On Sunday arvo we moved to the old harbour, which is located right in the old town of Mazatlan. We are currently looking for a 3d crew mate, a storm sail, a single side ban radio (to receive radio info) and a couple of other small boat stuff.

We talked to many people during our time in the Marina about crossing over to Hawaii. Opinions and experience vary but we have decided that it will probably be our number 1 choice to get the boat back north. It looks like May-June is the best time to cross to Hawaii and August to get back to the continent.

More news to come in the next few days.......and I promise I will get organised with photos!!!

Photos are of: Sealing the ports, Slacker Kitty on Dock 6 and Justin getting a hair cut by Louis the barber.