At 3pm today, after almost three weeks in the Hawaiian Islands, we raised Flyer’s anchor from the sandy bottom of Hanalei Bay in Kauai and pointed her bow towards Dutch Harbor, Alaska. It feels great to be back at sea again, particularly on this northbound passage, one that’s a bit less traveled than the others we’ve made so far.
We’re lucky to have Cameron back aboard Flyer again. He’s our good (if masochistic?) friend who joined us for the first leg from Seattle to San Francisco, replete with an unplanned stop in Newport, OR. He’s the only person who we know could survive a couple of weeks crammed into a 44’ sailboat with this family and somehow be willing to come back for more! It’ll be great to have his humor, enthusiasm, and capability aboard as we voyage northbound into the cold and less-hospitable higher northern latitudes.
Cameron’s planned arrival in Hawaii was delayed almost a week due to some work conflicts, so we took the opportunity to re-think our schedule and next steps. We decided to spend our extra Hawaii-bound week in Kauai’s Hanalei Bay, a completely different type of Hawaiian experience from the south shore of Oahu. We also decided to shift our sights for the next leg westward along the Aleutian chain to Dutch Harbor, in lieu of making landfall in Kodiak. Given the weather patterns, we felt it could be a great chance to see a bit of the eastern Aleutians before making our way towards Prince William Sound later in the summer. We’re so glad we could spend time in Hanalei and are hoping we’ll be able to chalk up our time in the Aleutians as another win.
I picked Cameron up at 10:30pm last night in the Hanalei Pier Park after flying 6 hours to join us at the end of his long work day back in Seattle. He took off his shoes and socks, we waded into the river and jumped in the dinghy, slowly making our way out the small river mouth, through the reef and out to Flyer at anchor in the bay.
Back on the boat everyone was still awake, eager to catch up with Cameron after all these many months. While we’re a few thousand miles away from our last stop with him, we all probably look a bit more worn, and Flyer is also showing signs of our many months aboard and miles under her centerboard. Lord knows he’s going to have to tolerate if not decipher the odd mannerisms and words we’ve developed with each other in that time!
We spent the morning cramming as much Kauai in as we could for him, including a walk into town, a swim (including some anode changing) and spectating the canoe racing along the beachfront. We had hoped to also get a surf in, but alas, the swell this morning was just too small to be worth it.
This leg will take us 2,000 nm north from 22 degrees to about 54 degrees north in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. We’ll transit the northern half of the Pacific tradewinds for the first few days, and then enter an area of some instability where we’ll probably have more light conditions unfold before us. One thing we know is that this is a very difficult leg to forecast the weather for, so we’ll remain flexible and appreciative of whatever moderate winds we can get! So far the outlook is light for the first few days which would make for a nice way to ease into this passage.
We’ll be updating this regularly as we make our way north, and we’ll also share a digest of our time in Hawaii soon, hopefully omitting the boring technical details of the several projects I completed while back in another major American city! We’re excited for the days ahead and will keep you all posted on our progress. Mahalo!
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