Monday April 26th, 2010

Well it's officially our last day here in Hawaii. We have loved every minute here and the Hawaii Yacht Club has been the perfect place to stay - absolute waterfront (you can't get any more waterfront!!) for around $30 a day and a 2 minute walk to Waikiki beach and tourist central. We had a great finish to our stay yesterday with a swim at the beach followed by drinks at Duke's - a bar right on the edge of the sand (the Lava Flow cocktails are fantastic!! And they do a mean Mai Tai too) - followed by tea at the market across the road and a few beers with a new friend, Richard.


We have met some lovely people here like Mike and HaeSung from Ottawa in Canada, and Richard from Sydney. Mike and HaeSung are sailing to Japan in their Canadian Sailcraft 40. They left on Saturday for Guam which they are anticipating will take 30 days – we certainly don’t envy them! Richard is doing pretty much the same trip we are, however he is crazy enough to try it single-handed in his Bill Garden designed 41 foot centre-cockpit ketch. We had an exhausting time when our autohelm died – imagine how poor Richard felt when his failed 300 or 400 miles out... We’re hoping he’ll be able to catch us again in either Samoa or Fiji.

Our next stop will be Fanning Island which is about 1000nm away and should take around 7 to 10 days (we’re hoping closer to 7...!!). After that we’ll head for Samoa which will be another 7 to 10 days. Stu and Richard have assured me that there will be smooth sailing and fantastic weather from here on but I’ll believe it when I see it. I’m already dreading those night watches...

We’ll have our spot tracker going again but we’ve heard that there are quite a few black spots from here to New Zealand so we’re not sure how reliable the tracker will be – keep that in mind if you can’t follow our route for a few days! We’re doubtful that there will be internet access for us at Fanning Island so I guess the next blog post will be from Samoa.