What a glorious sail from Lono to Kaunakakai! It is only a 12 mile trip, but it was some of the finest sailing imaginable.
The northwest swell was still present, but it was small – maybe 4 to 6 feet (compared with 18 to 20 feet a few days ago). The winds were 15 to 20 knots on our port quarter, and Passage sailed beautifully. We were worried about how she might behave with the overload of provisions we have on board, but she behaved perfectly.
We tossed a lure in the water and sat down on our new pushpit seats. Within about ten minutes we had a small (8-10 pounds) mahi mahi on board. We also had a minor blood bath on our aft deck, but our salt water washdown pump earned its keep for the third time in 24 hours.
So far, the electric windlass and the washdown pump have been indispensable. We will get the windvane operating on our next sail, and it will surely join that list.
Dinner was pescado vera cruz.
When we arrived at Kaunakakai Harbor, there was one other boat there – Nepenthe – also from Honolulu. This harbor has a relatively small anchorage area, and Nepenthe was wisely secured in the center of it, so we bellowed a bit back and forth between boats as we looked for a decent spot around the perimeter. We anchored a bit upwind of them, and we put out two anchors to ease concerns that we might drag down on them. As the winds picked up a bit, Bob of Nepenthe rowed over to say hello, and we agreed to keep our radios on channel 69 through the night in case any anchoring crises developed. All anchors held.
The fish slayer
Fresh mango
The ferry (from Maui?) pulled in to unload around 7:00 pm. It stayed at the dock and ran its generators all night. Also, during the night, the barge and tow from Honolulu arrived, and we awoke to the back up alarms of a fork lift unloading the barge. This was a bit more industrial than we were prepared for, so we went to town.
In town we treated ourselves to junk food and bought a few things at the market. We were very surprised to find an internet café with good coffee, so we checked e-mail and tanked up on caffeine. We located the laundromat, and we planned to return to do laundry the following day
When we returned to the boat, we listened to the weather forecast over the noise of the fork lift still doing its thing. It sounded like that night might be a good weather window to go to the Big Island – northeast winds at 10 knots, wind waves of 2 feet, and the northwest swell was down to only 4 feet. So we quickly got ready to face one of our most dreaded adversaries – the Alenuehaha channel – and set sail for the Big Island. We left at 1830 local time, and Nepenthe followed us out less than five minutes behind.
A busy dock
Follow us to Kona on the Big Island.