Category Archives: Travel

Did Weasels Rip My Flesh?

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I’ll give Frank Zappa the nod he deserves for this finely chosen combination of words and the visuals they bring up. But, I mean, he got his idea from this cover of Man’s Life magazine from 1956.  This may be a man’s magazine, but I will not be outdone by old masculine tropes. Weasels do not discriminate. More on that later.

This is about as good as it gets.

So, how’s it going out here with this shakedown 2023 cruise? I mean, we are both shaking down and cruising, so I guess all the goals are being met. We have shaken down the outboard lifting system until it works flawlessly, even for old spaghetti arms here. We have given the new Alado furling system a hard shake where by at first we worried we had made a horrible and expensive error in judgement ordering that one (even though we loved it on the Cal34). It’s dialed in now, and much relief on board. For now. My trust level is tentative on this one. We continue to toss around the new stackpack, which is working well but still has a few small issues to be sorted. No big deal. We just like to tweak things incessantly.

Mike is working on replacing the lifelines, going from pink to blue dyneema. They used to be red. That lasted about a week in Mexico before they faded from UV damage. I imagine the nice rich blue color we currently have will be more of a baby blue before it’s over. Oh yes, and we added 200ft of anchor chain to the aft locker to balance the pointy part of the boat better. Now when the engine is on, she squats like a pro, sometimes maybe a bit too much. We’ll continue to shake that down as we go. Hmmmm. Let’s see. I know there is more.

Mike is shaking down his fishing systems. Rockfish:2. LingCod 0, and more’s the pity.

There was almost a galley emergency when I realize my pressure cooker was not pressuring. I don’t want to buy a new one so I was happy when giving the valve a deep clean was all that was needed to set it to rights again.  We are loving the new folding steering wheel and the new wind instruments with a beautiful display in the cockpit that we can rotate to show whatever combination of data serves the purpose at any time. Thanks, Garmin.

One of several screens of combinations of speed, wind speed, apparent wind speed, depth, Course over ground… I mean what does it NOT show? Getting knocked around by very large swells close together here in the Strait of Georgia, under reefed sails. But SAILING!

The Starlink has been working beautifully and is a true treasure on board. (Our only hiccup was in Princess Louisa Sound, where we were surrounded by towering land masses. I believe it can be forgiven for not streaming a zoom meeting to perfection in those conditions.) We refer to this new comms system as The Muskrat, for obvious reasons. While we’re ‘floating like the heavens above’, we do have that Muskrat love.

In other news we are rightly pleased as all get out with our new True Kit dinghy and the 2 stroke engine I got last year for my birthday. It goes almost TOO fast. The new way we have rigged the boom is working nicely. Still happy we took the mizzen off and we’re getting used to how she looks without it. The new latex mattresses in the aft cabin, while, yes, really heavy, were worth every penny and every minute of difficulty and heavy lifting. Expanding the settee in the salon, while making the access to stowage underneath the cushions a little more difficult, was an excellent choice for overall comfort.

Somewhere in Jervis Inlet. It’s not an anchorage. But, you know. So what?

We decided at the last minute to pull the trigger for larger membranes for our Rainman Watermaker, so those are on order from Australia. I mean, what’s a shakedown cruise without at least one international delivery? Thanks to friends in Port Townsend, we’ll take delivery of those there. We have made a number of last minute on-line purchases and at least one of our kids will meet us somewhere in the north Puget Sound to deliver the goods, as well as some Costco loot and all the wine I took off the boat to avoid paying Canadian Customs for the privilege of bringing it across the border.

Our paddle boards are still holding air. And that brings us to the title of this post.

No shakedown of S/V Galapagos would be complete without a foray into the water. You’d think that the water up here in Canada would be way too cold for foraying, and as a rule you’d be dead right. But in Princess Louisa Sound the water was close to 65F degrees. Still cold, but with my handy new 4mil wetsuit, I was game since it was also about 90F outside and it wasn’t like I was actually going to go UNDER the water. Just the thought of putting on a wetsuit and getting into the water made me giddy with anticipation. And that, my friends, is where our cautionary tale begins. That feeling of giddiness that is the harbinger of being possibly less careful than I should be, even though who would have known? Certainly not me.

Being photobombed. Snorkel hair, don’t care.

It takes anywhere between 15 and 60 minutes for me to don a 4mil wetsuit, depending on the amount of moisture on my skin at that particular time.  It’s not easy, graceful, or even, really, acceptable, but there it is. By the time I have tugged, stretched, shimmied, threatened and sworn the wetsuit into place and zipped it up, I have less of a feminine glow and more of a dripping sweat to deal with. It’s bloody hot in there and the cold water is going to feel good.  Into the water I slipped, being very careful not to fall off the swim step and smash my forehead on the propeller of the dinghy engine. I was absolutely sloth-like as I made my way down the swimstep ladder, which is known to be slippery, and sank beneath the surface. Cold water made its way in a trickle down my back and I breathed a sigh of relief and profound pleasure at being back in the water again. Today, I would see great things.

As is my habit, I pull my floating swim platform, the paddle board, over and begin to decant snorkel gear onto it from the handy swim platform at the back of the boat. Case with special mask, anti-fog spray, earplugs to keep the cold water away from my brain. (I hate the scuba hood I have and have ordered something else, but meanwhile, it’s the earplugs for me.).  Water bottle with electrolytes. Case for eyeglasses. Fins and snorkel. Quick-dry baseball cap. Excellent. Now to mount the board and paddle out to the area where I want to snorkel.

Let me pause here and give you a visual about how I generally accomplish this feat of unadulterated  athleticism.  From my position in the water, I rest my forearms across the board. Then I give a mighty dolphin kick, truly Mark Spitz-esque,  and launch myself bodily from the water and onto the board, landing gracefully draped across it. This move makes me feel 25 again! I am so elegant and natural looking as I perform this with the ease of a true sea mammal!  From there I can pivot and sit up. Securing all of my belongings under the handy bungie straps, off I go. So easy. Except…

Except that I haven’t done this in over three years. Except that I was not wearing my swim fins, which I generally am. Except I am, as of today, not 25 years old. And, of course, I didn’t warm up any muscles before I got in the water because who actually does that? Not me.

As I landed smartly sort of on my right short rib, I literally felt the weasel claws rip my flesh on the inside. “NOOO!”, I yelled to the absolutely no one who was listening. “Weasels ripped my inside flesh and wow, this is going to hurt tomorrow!”. The seal, he did not care. He silently slipped beneath the waves.

But what to do? Am I going to let flesh-ripping, if not eating, weasels ruin a perfectly good opportunity to test out my new snorkel and possibly see a curious harbor seal under water for the very first time ever? What am I going to do? Get out and try to struggle out of a cold wetsuit and apply ice? The water is already cold enough for a compress. The wetsuit offers structural support. It doesn’t actually hurt yet, although I know it’s inevitable that it will.

I just carried on. It probably didn’t make any difference to the amount of pain I’ve been in for, let’s see, 5 days. I figure I pulled some kind of core muscle somewhere near that short rib but whatever. It’s hard to say exactly where since the whole upper right quadrant of my abdomen hurt dreadfully by the next day, to the point where movement was difficult.  I was forcefully reminded that 1) I use those muscles regularly 2) I live on a sailboat that is never still 3) I am 40 years older than I think I am. Nothing is broken and no one can do anything about this kind of injury. It’s already turned the corner on getting better as of today, which is a great relief because sailing down the coast would have been extremely painful and probably not a good idea. So overall, I feel like I made the right call by carrying on with what I was doing. As we are currently sailing across a pretty challenging Strait of Georgia and dealing with big swells and a short interval, I’m using those core muscles a lot just to stay upright. So, thankfully, I’m good.

Lest you think it’s just me who gets up to no good out here, get a load of the varmit climbing into what is definitely an old, rusty Ford filled with lockjaw. Looks like his mother didn’t teach him how to stay out of trouble, either.

And if that isn’t a smug face, I’ve never seen one.

We enjoyed a couple of days being mostly lazy before leaving Princess Louisa Sound and moving down the inlet towards Pender Harbour. There was a 2 1/2 hour hike that sounded like it went almost straight up to 1500 feet or so. We passed. I know my limits.

Ha! Caught you!

Not to be outdone by an actual injury to my flesh, weasel or no, the area of Pender Harbour at the mouth of Jervis Inlet still celebrates the manly man of the 1960’s and his glorious physique. And why wouldn’t they? They have a grand tradition, according to their history,  of celebrating this trope of masculinity and the well developed muscles it boasts, hanging out for everyone to see and, potentially, to admire. The evidence of this is clear from the latest edition of Pender Harbour Magazine, a publication that celebrates the harbour lifestyle. Why just look at this photo from the 1950’s of the shenanigans harbourites got up to during some kind of regatta. I’m not sure what these guys are doing, but it doesn’t involves sailing.  I envision the local weasels, salivating and showing their sharp little teeth.

Photo credit to Sue Kammerle, as shown in the 2023 edition of Pender Harbour Magazine

We had anchored in the harbour for a couple of days so I could work via Starlink and maybe rest the savaged flesh inside my abdomen. Needing a walk on actual land,  we took Sea Pony, our fast dinghy,  over to the dock where, mindful of the need to mitigate pain,  it took me 5 minutes to disembark, strategizing every movement before executing same. Once on my feet I was fine, so we set off down the road. Honestly, during this time of removing myself from the dinghy onto the filthy and splintery dock, I wished I had a sweatshirt that read, “Not Old. Just Injured. Carry On With Your Business.”

Coming around a bend in the road I see this little shack labeled ‘Nut Hut’. Considering that their storage facility here at the harbour is called “Squirrel Storage”, I imagine there are a lot of squirrels and nuts around here. Hungry, I checked out the offerings. Sadly, no nuts were to be had. Instead there was a darling little display of a school desk and chalkboard, plus a way to measure your height on the corner of the wall. I think it’s a school bus stop. But wait! There’s more!

A trove of manly treasure!

On the wall was a magazine rack holding a number of fine copies of old comic books. Like from the late 1960’s and early 1970’s when men were real and women were… almost exactly the same as they are now.  And these were not the Archie comics of my own youth, regardless of Betty’s curvaceous nature. What we had here were real comics for real budding men; manly comics, especially of the Wild West variety. Everyone knows that only a true man understands the wildness that is west.

Michael and I took a walk down memory lane as we took our time leafing through the pages, revisiting such beloved and thoughtfully indoctrinating characters as the skinny many who always had sand kicked in his face by muscle bound beach bullies, and the young woman who needed extra bust development. How could that smile be real with breasts that small? How she must suffer.

I don’t know about you, but this move never worked for me. Not that I needed it.

Who could ever forget the days where you could learn hypnosis by mail for the low, low price of 1$? I should have taken advantage of that way back then. I think the cost has really gone up.

It’s hard to fathom all the great deals I missed out on because, probably, my parents said no.

Wow, almost 10$? That was a lot of money back then. That must have been high quality stuff, as is evidenced by the Mr. Universe poses and the women who seem to just want to touch him for no good reason at all.

I don’t even remember being offered the chance to earn prizes by selling seed packets door to door. Man. I really missed out. And being paid for ideas? A girl can only dream! According to the advertisement, big companies need thousands of ideas per month! (See above) Just send the people at “IDCO” (get it?) all your ideas and they’ll let you know if any are good! Imagine! People would have PAID ME FOR MY OWN IDEAS AND WOULD IMMEDIATELY LET ME KNOW IF I HAD A GOOD ONE! And to think of all the money I spent getting college degrees. What a waste.

Scams as old as time. I remember that somehow I knew these were scams, even as I sat in the tree with the neighbor kids reading the latest issue of Betty and Veronica. How did I know? Well, probably my parents told me. I mean, I didn’t have a checkbook or even a debit card back then so I would have had to go through them to get the hypnosis coin. And I can just about imagine them saying no. I mean, as a rule, my parents didn’t approve of stuff like hypnosis. They already had enough trouble with me. Who knows what I would have got away with had I been given more power over others,

This one really hurts. I bet I could have sold a ton of seeds and maybe even joined all the other white kids in winning a plastic magnifying glass.

My favorite comic among the ones left at the Nut Hut was the Bat Lash comic, which I think may have been from 1968. I kind of wish I’d taken that but I didn’t. I’m not going to say I was not SORELY TEMPTED! It was incredibly cool and I can’t even believe that my finer nature won out on this internal battle. I wanted that comic for some reason only my own, dark inner self knew.  I had never heard of Bat Lash before and, doing a quick search later, found out there were only 7 editions of that comic published. Good thing we had been motoring at 5 knots for about 3 hours before I remembered to google it. Otherwise I’m not convinced that my moral compass would have passed muster. Bat Lash was, according to Wikipedia,  “A self-professed pacifist, ladies’ man, and gambler”, probably not necessarily in that order. Had I known all of that while standing in the Nut Hut, that particular comic would have found its way into my backpack. I didn’t even read the entire comic, so I will never know if he actually saved the Wild West or ruined it. Alas.

Will you just get a load of this? I don’t know. I might have to find one of these just because it’s seriously unbelievable and yet I am drawn to it. The woman saves the day by keeping her man out of trouble since, naturally he is unable to think for himself, being a man of pure instinct and reptile brain. Is that his mom or his girlfriend or what controlling that steed with her thighs? I’ll never know since I didn’t take the damn thing. And even as I analyze the not-so-subtle teachings from the fine literature of my youth, I am vastly entertained.  I read that the flower on his hat symbolizes his conscience and that when he is getting ready to do something dirty and rotten and scoundrel-ish, he removes his hat. I’ve always been attracted to a man who knows his own mind.

Looks like Ma Cob’s Mr. Man is going to be mighty unhappy finding ole’ Bat Lash at the family table.

We are headed back to the states, kind of slowly. Currently under sail for awhile, which is a new twist on this trip. We’ll make our way through the islands again, spending some time at old favorites before we cross the strait to meet up with one or two kids; probably one. We are extraordinarily grateful to Kerry and Donn Christianson in Port Townsend for letting us use their porch for an international delivery of high volume water maker membranes. It’s good to have friends, even if you don’t see them often. We look forward to a little time in Port Townsend, a favorite place. After that, we’ll make our way out to Neah Bay to await a weather window for going south.

S/V Galapagos, standing by on channel 16.

Beach Ninjas and Bliss

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We should probably hang up our snorkel gear and rest on our laurels, leaving Hawaii on a high note. Either that or we need to plan a trip to the South Pacific next. Last Sunday can be described by one word: Blissful. But before we go there, here’s a video of this Na Pali coastline. [embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ycuieIz9ing[/embedyt]

Needing adventure, we sailed out to anchor off the Forbidden Island of Ni’ ihau, about 30 or so miles from Hanalei, staging ourselves to get to the little volcanic island next door, Lehua, just after sunrise the following day. Lehua is one of those destinations that the tour boats generally populate, ensuring you share the experience with 100 of your closest friends. But with Covid 19 the tours are not operating. We hoped to pick up one of the underwater moorings that they use and spend the one calm and sunny day this week snorkeling water that was said to be the highest visability around. In fact, our friends told us not to worry about having trouble finding the underwater mooring. Just jump in the water and look around, they said. You will see it no matter how far away you are. Whoa.

Arial view of Lehua, thanks to Wikipedia.

We actually had a great sail over to the small islands. The water was rough, but our standards are low. Once across the channel we set out to explore the coast of Lehua and see if we could locate the underwater moorings for the following day. We had gps positions that were given to us by locals. The island wasn’t ready for us, however, as the winds and waves were too stout for comfortable exploring so close to the rocks and in water relatively shallow. Instead we motored up to see the north side, thinking we would go see the crater of the volcano. But were quickly put in our place by taking green water well over the bow. Oopsy. A few very tall waves and an open forward hatch (darn it!) had us deciding to turn tail and run down to Ni’ihau and get anchored for the evening, which we did with all speed.

Settled in the rolly anchorage for the night I grabbed the binoculars and searched the deserted sandy beach. Now, this island is owned by a private family and is inhabited only by a small town of native Hawaiians. No one is allowed to land on the island without permission and, in spite of the fact that no one is legally supposed to ‘own’ land that is covered at any time by water (such as in the tidal zone of a beach), the people of the island are said to consider all parts of the island to be theirs and to be generally disinterested in hearing about legal definitions of beach ownership. The stories and myths surrounding this place are thick and varied. We had not planned to go ashore. But…

I spied with my binoculars many round things that had been washed ashore. They were round, as in spherical, like a ball. There are references to people finding Japanese fishing floats on just the beach we were anchored near. One person wrote that they found upwards of 60 floats at one time. Were those the famed Japanese fishing floats I was seeing with my spy glasses? Were they the glass ones that are highly collectible and would look great with little twinkly lights in them? What a souvenir that would be of our time in Hawaii!

I took a photo with my long lens and put it on my computer so we could see them better. They were definitely balls of something, definitely the right size, definitely strewn all over the tidal zone of the beach. It might be worth risking a reconnoiter considering we were on the unpopulated side of the island with no one in sight for miles. Even if we were seen, we would be gone quickly and, after all, there were no stories of people getting murdered over putting a foot on the Forbidden Island. Mosty just stories of people being yelled at. We would wait until sunrise, when all beach ninjas strike. And then, we would go, stealthily, in our small and unassuming dinghy with the 2.5 horse engine. No one would notice us at all.

After a night of utterly zero sleep due to insane rolling around in the swell, we arose as the sun was just barely over the horizon, lighting the sky just enough for us to see. Hopefully all the villagers were still asleep in their beds on the far side of the island. I grabbed one of our drybags in case we needed to carry a lot of pirated booty, and we set off for the shore. We were greeted by surf that was just, well, in a word: No. No way could we risk landing the dinghy in crashing surf like that, far away from people who would welcome us should we become swamped trying to land, or, worse, injured. Sometimes it sucks to be old enough to be careful.

Still, undefeated, we tossed around the idea of one of us swimming ashore and checking things out. I was going to go over the side in an instant and body surf in. No problema. But in the end for some reason Mike decided he would go. I think he had visions of some watery demon grabbing me and pulling me under or something. (Watery demons would never, ever touch him, you know.) But whatever, over the side he went with his drybag partially inflated and bobbing in his wake. It was only about 10 feet deep, but the waves were considerable and crashing.

Why are we disobedient children? I mean, we do wear a mask. Maybe it’s because that protects others. This little pushing of the boundaries was worth it.

I dinghied back and forth along the waves watching his head in the surf and seeing him stand up, his feet on forbidden territory. I felt glad for him. I mean, he had so wanted to land on San Benedicto, where it is also forbidden to land. But we didn’t. Because we do want to live to tell these tales and that island would have taken as human sacrifice anyone who dared try to approach its beach.

Soon he was scurrying up to the balls and picking them up. Alas, he also was putting them down. He was on shore for all of 5 minutes. I met him with the dinghy past the break and he was over the side in an instant. The balls were floats of some kind, perhaps Japanese, but they were plastic. Just so much detritous on the shore. I can’t say I was surprised. Plastic is everywhere and forever. It was too bad, but it was a fun way to start the day. Maybe the villagers will use them for something.

We quickly anchored up and tootled over to Lehua, easily finding our mooring about 6 feet under the water. That was a first for us; having Michael dive down to grab the mooring and run a line through it, then swim over to hand the line up to me to cleat off. The rumors about this place were right: the water is remarkably clear with visability we have never seen before. Certainly Mexico never had water like this. Our mooring was in about 20 feet of water but it seemed like only 5. It took us no time to get our gear on and get to snorkeling around.[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=keSwiM3Htso[/embedyt]

The snorkel grounds at that part of the island are basically over a big, flat shelf covered with rocks and coral. The shelf ends abruptly, like the edge of a table, and when you swim off the edge, you are looking into a brilliant blue abyss. It’s beautiful, and unsettling at first. Ok, I admit we had hoped we would spot some larger fish, even a shark or two, from our safe position at the edge of the ledge, but we never saw anything but blue water and hundreds of sparkly fish.[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oAqJ7Z8gch8[/embedyt]

Some of our more colorful friends.

We had all the usual colorful and curious little reef fish, along with a couple of white tipped reef sharks that cruised passed. But the real winners were the Monk Seals. We were literally the only people there and I cannot help but think that made them friendlier and more curious. One seal swam with us for quite a long time, swimming next to us to get back to our boat, even, and then hanging out by the boat. Another one came up in front of me and I almost bumped into it as it was catching a breath on the surface. I think they look a bit like Manatees in the water and they make the sweetest low grunting sound.[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=58JOZkqKsXY[/embedyt]

Famous Keyhole arch on one of the arms of Lehua. Incredible. You’ll see photos on line of a Catamaran inside this arch.

We snorkeled three areas that day. For sheer breathtaking underwater structure, the keyhole arch near the northern shore of the island is the ultimate. We had dinghied into the arch, hoping to anchor the dinghy inside and swim around. It looked to be about 20 feet in the middle, with rocky walls, but it looked like there were ledges where an anchor could be deployed. I cast the dinghy anchor over the side to see if it would touch bottom. Nope, no slack in the line. We tried another spot. Nope, no slack. Then another with the same result. We couldn’t figure out a good place to anchor so I masked up and went over the side. I would have started laughing had I not been so overwhelmed by the sight of the sea floor about 100 feet below me, sheer rock walls on either side. The idea that our little anchor would ever work here… pretty funny. We found a place to tie the line onto the lava rock wall and Mike came in after me. It was so hard to leave, the place was like an underwater cathedral, complete with baby moray eels tucked into the lava rock and a resident Monk Seal because that completes the whole cathedral metaphor.

Tiny baby moray eels, all fierce and protective of their space.

A white tipped reef shark, swimming while asleep.

Yesterday morning we did a farewell snorkel, but the wind was already filling in from the southeast and the current was too strong to be relaxing. Wind, waves, and current conspire to ruin a good snorkel. We left on a high note, convinced we would never have that great a day: the whole island to ourselves, the clearest water we have ever seen, and friendly and curious Monk Seals. Utter bliss.

Now we are, pretty sadly I can tell you, gearing up for the passage home. We aren’t really psychologically ready this time. We feel like Hawaii has just now started to be good to us, like we have finally gotten our groove here. However, leave we must if we want to make it to the Pacific Northwest before August, better known as ‘Foggust’ up there. I remember fog. And not fondly, either. So the next few days will be getting the boat in order, finding a way to finish provisioning for the next round, and then saying farewell to Hawaii.

It may be that we will need to sail this way again.

We were moored next to a mixed colony of Red Footed Boobies (another checked box on the Boobie Bingo Card!), egrets, and tropic birds. The boobies and egrets had chicks. These are boobies. Their feet are so red!

 

So a couple more things: first apologies for the bad quality of the photos. I ruined my good underwater camera so I’m using a cheap one for now, but also have poor internet so the photos have to be EXTRA poor quality to get them onto the blog. Ugh. Tech issues.

Also we had a screaming good day swimming with turtles. Here’s some video. All this video is why I am almost out of high speed internet. Enjoy.

[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YFcwPqZ9H8[/embedyt]

For more videos of the highest professional quality you can go visit my channel on Youtube and poke around a bit. Some of them are pretty rolly due to swell and other natural things, like shaky hands due to excitement. So be prepared to be amazed. Here’s the link.

 

 

Plenty of Aloha

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Up in the cockpit this morning in Nawiliwili Harbor, a local woman paddling an outrigger canoe swooped in next to the boat to say hello and chat us up, friendly smile at the ready.

“Hola!” Mike shouted, with the glee we feel of late whenever we get an opportunity to talk to another human being face to face.

“Um, Michael, we are not in Mexico anymore. It’s ‘Aloha’ in Hawaii, not Hola.”, I gently corrected him.

“Hola, Aloha, they’re all the same. Just switch the letters around and add a vowel.” he replied, pushing past me to get to the edge of the cockpit. We chatted with the woman for a few minutes and she asked about our travels and welcomed us to Kaua’i, waving with another Aloha as she paddled of to practice her form on the canoe.

Redtail Trigger fish on San Benedicto Island. He was very curious and swam along with us.

Michael’s kind of right. A broad smiled ‘hello’ in any language is interpreted in just the right way, although maybe lately our smiles have been just a little too bright and big, just a little too much; maybe we are exuding just a small bit of over excitement. You know, we have become those people that make others move further away when approached because they feel our desperation for human contact and are afraid once we grab them they will be trapped by us. We are overly glad to see people and perhaps we give off a certain ‘desperate for social interaction of any kind’ vibe. Yes, I realize we have an entire world that has been socially isolated for awhile, but being isolated at sea is the next level up. There is no one to stand 6 feet away from out there.  The amount of aloneness that this realization engenders is astounding.

Yesterday we were resting in the cockpit, catching up on emails, and checking into the country using the ROAM app when a Coast Guard boat toodled up next to us. I put down the Android tablet and went to stand at the lifelines, smiling and waving. Let’s just say I was glad to see them.

“Hi Guys!! How’s it going? Want to pull your nice boat right up next to us? Huh? Do you? Thanks for stopping by to say hello! We’ve been at sea for a long time. Sure is nice to see friendly faces and understand what you’re saying. We called you guys on the radio to let you know we were coming into the harbor and everyone was so nice. Is there a limit to how long we can anchor here? We are checking in using our APP and waiting to hear from Customs and Border Patrol. It’s sure great to be in Hawaii. We sailed over from Mexico and wow what fun it was and what a cool experience to be out there at sea!…. blah blah blah”.

I hadn’t got three words out before Michael weaseled his head out of the companionway and, in a single excited leap, was beside me and also talking. We talked over each other for awhile, vying for who could say things the fastest. Had we been less mature, elbows would have been put into play and someone would have probably been hurt. It was pitiful. We both could feel this happening and were powerless to stop it. It’s bad when you realize how you appear to others and yet you cannot seem to stop the stream of consciousness coming out of your mouth. In the end we did a kind half humorous, self-deprecating “I’ll bet you guys can tell we are glad to see you. We haven’t talked to another human being in about a month. You are our first people.”  They smiled and laughed and were extremely good natured souls about it. They were just checking to see if we needed anything (and also profiling the hell out of us but that’s ok. We would have invited them on board but we probably scared them.) Once they realized we had been in contact with the Dept. of Natural Resources already, were using the ROAM app, and had our ducks in a row, they motored off into the harbor to deal with other, less pitiful people. We watched them motor away, single tears running down our cheeks. Pathetic.

Blue Cravalle jack. These got very large and they were curious about us, swimming next to us and close enough we could have touched them. An extremely beautiful fish. San Benedicto Island

Scrawled Filefish. He was so friendly and curious and followed us around. That kind of thing used to give me the spook, but I like it now and think it’s cute. San Benedicto Island

So we’re here and we still haven’t been off the boat yet. It’s the weekend so we cannot complete our checking in process until tomorrow. And this is fine because we are dog tired. I slept 12 hours without a pee break last night in my own bunk on a calm sea. My god. What a treat that was. Tomorrow we will drop the dinghy and go to shore for the first time since May 2. I believe we can just manage walking on land still. We have to get fuel by jerrycan here, so that’s the first order of events after we sign a paper certifying we have been on the boat, isolated at sea, for longer than 2 weeks. No problem. Hawaii is smart enough to know that if we have been at sea for over two weeks, we have been quarantined very well so we don’t need to do the extra two weeks on board.

By the way, we used about 80 gallons of our fuel on the trip. That’s less than half what we carry in our big tank. Thanks to our light wind sail and our willingness to sail slowly, we are in good shape fuel wise. We didn’t touch what we have in the extra tank.  I’m pleased as all heck about that. It’s that much less we have to buy and transport to the boat. There is no fuel dock here.

We will be thinking about and processing this experience of making this passage for a very long time and I know I will be writing some more about it. But what strikes me the most about it as I sit here right now is how extraordinarily lucky we have been to have accomplished it at all. I’m not denying that we have worked hard to do this because that’s a given. But many, many people work hard, and even harder than we did, and never get this opportunity. I think of all the folks who had to give up plans to sail to the South Pacific this year, of all the boats stuck in places they didn’t plan to be in, those still stuck at the docks all over the world. My heart is filled with sorrow for them. Every single one of those sailors worked just as hard as we did, some even harder. They saved money for years, they planned. They did the right things. And it was just bad luck, the luck of the draw, that they found themselves having to abandon plans that were sometimes years in the making. It fills us with gratitude that we have stayed ahead of the Covid-19 shut downs and that we currently find ourselves having completed a passage to the exact destination we wanted to come to at the exact time we planned it. And that we are welcomed with open arms and plenty of Aloha? Wow. It’s extraordinarily humbling, I tell you. We do not take this for granted and feel the gratitude deeply.

Mike photographing a toothy friend at San Benedicto Island

So we will be posting photos we took during the passage and at the Revillagigedos Islands.  And we will be writing more of our thoughts and experiences on passage making. But help me out here! It would be helpful if readers would comment to this post with questions they would like answers to about the passage, or how we did things, or whatever you like. I’d like to write about what you want to know. So ask away and we’ll make those a priority.

Meanwhile, here are some sharks to go with that post we did via the Iridium. Oh, and other interesting fish. We had just the one day of excellent snorkeling on San Benedicto Island. I would go back there to again, just to do this day over. That was the very best day ever. Definitely a highlight of my entire life.

Silky shark, just passing under us.

This Silky does a flyby.