What is Appa doing in Hawaii?

Resting for our next leg!

Been plugging away at some boat projects.

I believe that I have fixed the fuel leak.  I had fuel coming out of the filler hose at the tank.  Old crap hose clamps and someone did a terrible job of cutting the hose led to us leaking fuel.  I was unsure if the tank was leaking or what.  I did notice that we seemed to leak when filling the boat with diesel.  The bottom of the tank was covered in fuel so I cleaned the hell out of the tank and also saw some fuel dripping off the filler hose.  I am thankful that my tank is extremely easy to get to other than emptying the locker completely out.  But that is easily done.

So I took off 15 gallons, went to West Marine and got some T-bolt hose clamps and then hack-sawed off the old end and cleaned everything up.  After that was done, I put the hose back on and PRESTO!  No more leaks.  For now.   

Old hose.  You can see the fuel on the hose.

I still have to cut the new batten for the mainsail and then just a bit more cleaning and reorganizing.  Basically the boat is ready to go.  I'm just trying to find a better spot for stuff.  Trying to keep the sliding around of provisions.  Make the boat a bit more quiet.

Crawling once more into the locker.

I am draining the tank here.  You can see the membrane for the watermaker in this picture also.  It is the white tube with red end cap.

 Of course I filled the tank to the top and now had to take off 15 gallons so I could pull the hose off and cut the old part off.  Thanks to Adam and Rachel on SV Moments for letting me borrow their spare jugs.

 Had to clean the bilge (again) to get rid of the diesel and after cleaning it, I decided to put our spare water jugs under the floor by the mast.  At least for now.

 Appa's new slip at the public marina.  End of G dock.  Long walk to the boat but it is cheap.  40 cents a foot!!

 I go to the Hawaiian Yacht Club for showers and such.  This is the entrance.  They are having a tough time financially and are scrambling to make ends meet.  Very nice club with a great friendly feeling.

 This guy here is 100% pure Hawaiian (so he says).  Brian and I met him at a club one night.  We had a blast with him.  He has this complicated Hawaiian name.  Kompobo or something.  Nice cat.

 They don't have this picture in the brochures!

 One ugly boat.  See out off the Waikiki Beach once and awhile.

We are here!

This is us in Cabo on departure day.

One of the four mahi mahi that we caught. Blue squid got 3 and red squid got one of them. 

Brain chilling out on deck.  

Flying fish patrol. 15 of them on deck every morning

Another mahi mahi. 

Spring rolls.

We are learning to make turk's heads and other decorative whippings

Brian making us some grub

One wave lashed out at me.  Splashed just me even though we were all sitting tightly packed in the cockpit.

Can't remember what this was.  gumbo?

Michael and Aime 

Meat loaf!

Us just cruising along.

Appa has sinks on the port side of the boat.  When sailing and the boat is heeling to port the sink can fill with water and flood everything. So we have to close the drains.  That means Brian had to empty the sink via the window.  One of many quirks on Appa. 

Getting the tunes ready for the Appa Sundowner Party.  Minimum drink-1 Maximum drink-1

Laundry day

The sea turtle we rescued.

The big one!

This is the only real sunset we had. Second night out.

I had the sunrise watch. 

As we got closer to Hawaii the winds increased. We started to hand steer as the danger of gybing was pretty good.

Hawaii!!

Celebration drinks at the dock!

Appa traveled about 2700 miles and did it in 17 days 6 hours.  Or so.  We averaged around 6 knots or so.  We broke a mainsail batten, AIS went out (and is still trying to get figured out), caught 5 mahi mahi and one yellowfin tuna.  We burned 15 gallons of fuel for making water and power.  It surprised me how cloudy it was and how very wavy it was.  Just crazy.

The rest of the crew still has to share their photos with me and I'll post them when I get them.

The plan now is to leave July 6th.  Five of us will be making the trip.  At least at this writing, there will be five.

A special thanks to Michael P. for helping with weather routing.  He is already gearing up to do it for the second leg.  Thanks!!!

More later...

Almost there

49 miles out of Honolulu. Caught a dorado today. 25 knots of east wind and we are heading west. Downwind run. Double reef main and half rolled genoa. 
Freed a sea turtle yesterday. That felt pretty good. Caught a dorado right that. Save one, kill one. Not many turtles left.

Last day at sea?

For two weeks now the GPS has been counting down the mileage to Honolulu and it is now reading 250 miles. So possibly tomorrow we are going to be in. Woo hoo!
We had spring rolls yesterday. Very good. They were so good we didn't ask what was inside them as I know damn well we are out of everything fresh but ham and cabbage.
Fishing lines out early this morning and I got away clean. No tangled lines.
Big full moon last night. We watched it come up while laying about on the foredeck of Appa shooting the breeze. Very relaxing. Of course the waves did their damnedest to get me wet.
In the mornings we have been finding flying fish. This morning the deck is littered with them. They fly onto the boat and the netting that keeps the kids safe is their doom.
the inReach communicator that I have been really liking on this trip went belly up yesterday. As a long shot I emailed customer tech support from the unit and lo and behold, they answered. We went through the usual diagnostic stuff and this morning I did a full reset on it. I think it is working but not sure until I can test it further.
Made 167 miles in the last 24 hours. We reefed down again last night as it was pretty gusty.
I think this will be the last blog post till I get on shore.

Westbound and down!

We are getting along quite well now. Less than 400 miles to go. I still think Sunday will be arrival day but the computer is saying Saturday or Friday with an occasional Sunday thrown in for good measure. Either way, we will be in soon.
Had fried Mahi Mahi yesterday with french fries. Found some tartar sauce also. Delicious!!!!!
Today I have already put out the fishing lines and thought I'd have a stroke doing it. Both lines got extremely tangled. Then the fishing pole started to act the fool. Put the pole away and only using handlines. Fish tacos today with any luck. Tons of flying fish around so we are hopeful.
The wind is blowing 15-20 out of the ENE and we are on a board reach heading about 280 degrees.
Sunny morning out here for a change and we had a full moon (or almost) last night and it was brilliant. We are all in good spirits and our eyes are tuned to the west for a glimpse of Hawaii Island. Couple more days till that happens I reckon.
Brian just got up and is going to relieve me here in a bit.
By all reports, everyone is sleeping OK despite the sound of water roaring as Appa shoulders her way across the Pacific. Once every 15 minutes or so, Appa will get on a wave and the wind will gust at the same time. We then surf down this wave, accelerating so hard you slide back in your bunk a bit. Then we hit the wave in front of us and you slide forward a bit. Takes some getting use to. Other times the boat does not feel like she is moving. Perfectly steady. Lying in your bunk, you wonder "What the hell?" and then the boat plunges down a wave or rises up another rapidly. You are ALWAYS in motion on this ride. Not like a car. Our up and down movements are 10 feet or so. You would walk if a car rode like this.
As a final note, we hit 13 knots yesterday surfing a wave and held 12 knots for 5 seconds. Got nothing more to say...

Magic?

Brian was cooking an egg casserole yesterday and noticed that we never seem to run out of ham. Every time he cooks, he tries to use it up and just when he thinks it is all gone, another bag appears in the fridge. There is no other place to store ham so it is all in the same fridge he is using so what is the deal? This morning I noticed it. We are two weeks into this trip and, lemme check...yep, there is one bag of spiral cut ham in the fridge. We have had ham in every thing and on anything. Wanna crew on Appa? Better like ham!
I couldn't read the sign at the Costco in Cabo San Lucas when I bought the ham. Maybe it said "Magic Never Ending Delicious Ham!" Too bad we didn't buy the Magic Rum!
So yesterday we had a huge egg casserole. We have lots of eggs left, not sure if they are magic however. Very tasty. As Brian was making this monster sized dish, Michael was epoxying some decorative knot work, then BANG! FISH ON!! Brian promptly spilled some of the egg into the fridge and storage bins after a particular nasty bastard of a wave knocked us sideways. I scrambled up and Amie was reeling in a nice size Mahi Mahi. Michael dispatched that fish and was almost done filleting when we caught another one! Woo Hoo! One more mahi mahi won't be eating any more flying fish. Their bellies were full of tiny flying fish.
So today we are having, wait for it.....deep fried fish with french fries!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! With, potentially, a side of second and possibly third degree burns. No ham!!!!
Weather is the same. Cloudy with sunbreaks and wind out of the East with a hint of north in it running about 15 knots with gusts to 20. Some lulls are in there also.
Our daily mileage total yesterday was 166 miles. A little off pace but still respectable. We started to reef the jib at night. The jib is on the spinnaker pole and it can be vexing to reduce sail area, especially at night. The only time you reef really is in big winds so at night, in big winds, is not the time to reef. You reef before hand. Which we did. It was good. We were safe. And slower.
Sleep was hard to come by last night. Really windy for a bit with the boat just streaking west. Then a touch of light winds, light enough that when a wave rolled you, the sails would collapse and bang open again. Causing the whole boat to shudder.
We back under full sail now though and once again, Appa is making good time.
We love reading comments and getting messages on our inReach. Of course no one could be reading this drivel so there is that.

Tuesday

We broke into the 500 mile range this morning. The miles keep rolling under us.
Get this. The ocean under me right now is 5897 METERS deep. METERS!!!
We had fried rice yesterday. Very tasty. Rice with ham, eggs, carrots, peas, chorizo, and some other stuff Brian threw in there. Today we are going to have egg burritos. My Ben would have loved that. For dinner I'm not sure what we are going to have. Pasta? Pesto?
The wind has been steady. Truly I now know what the trade winds are all about. The waves are still....here. Grrrr. We reefed down last night when the wind started to punch into the high 20s. Made for a better ride and the autopilot didn't have to work as hard. Made 163 miles yesterday. Getting spoiled now. I want 180. Oh well. It is a passage not a race.
Had some sun yesterday aqnd learned how to do Turk's heads with bits of string. I am making a bell knocker. Michael has a bunch of string and instructions on decorative knot making. Fun stuff.
We are all having fun and realize what a great thing this is. Nevertheless, we are ready for Hawaii. We are salivating over walking without holding onto something. Just walking. That and egg rolls, cheeseburgers and ICE!
Meanwhile, we'll keep the metal to the petal and the thing to the floor. (We are going to watch Smoky and the Bandit tonight I think)



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