An Eight Coconut Day

Upon our arrival James, the local medical officer here at Tabal, asked John
to look at his outboard engine. No one works on a Sunday, so on Monday John
spent the day with James to troubleshoot the Honda 15hp. John's fiddled with
lots of outboards, and he kept our little Johnston running well past it's
prime. He replaced the carb in our Yamaha, adjusted the points, and now it
runs beautifully, even for me. He's got a gift.

It took all day, but he managed to get that honda running. It had not run in
2 years. James thought it was just a broken impeller, and he had a spare, so
we thought it would be a quick job. But it turned out to need its carb
cleaned, throttle rebuilt, sparks cleaned, coils cleaned, and so on. The new
spark plugs and impeller he had were not suited to the engine. So, even
though it ran, it still needs a new impeller.

He was thanked with a gift of 8 drinking coconuts. YUM. There are two in the
fridge as I write.

Spelling Bee at Aur Atoll

We're out of Majuro and exploring Aur, an atoll about 70 miles north of
Majuro. We're back in South Pacific paradise. Beautiful islets of coconut
trees, sandy beaches, and friendly people.

 

We stopped at the main island of Aur, and paid our respects to the mayor and
did a short 'jambo' (walk-about). When the wind came up, we decided to seek
a calmer anchorage, and meandered north to a small uninhabited islet, where
we stopped for a couple days. We walked the island (no glass balls yet), and
read our books.

We then moved north to the islet of Tabal - where James called us on the vhf
to welcome us to Tabal, and invite us to his home at the local clinic. His
outboard needs some work, so John will give him a hand with repairs on
Monday (Sunday is a rest day). We also met the local World Teach volunteer,
Kendra. She has introduced us to many people here, and invited us to watch
the Spelling Bee, a big local event in celebration of Education Week.

Earlier in the day the school enjoyed a sports day, complete with weaving
competitions. The community was in attendance, and we were treated to a
shared meal of delicious fish and rice after the children had demonstrated
their exceptional spelling skills!

An aggressive game of musical chairs was part of the pre-bee activities

We were invited to share in a feast of fish and rice. John and I were honored to be served the heads. Notice also the awesome plates woven from coconut fronds.

Today is Sunday, so we're heading to church, and we expect a leisurely day
ahead of us.

Last Minute Prep

Our last week in Majuro was spent with typical pre-trip activities. Lots of
provisioning - I did at least 6 trips to the big grocery and warehouse
stores, plus two beer runs. John's been doing multiple trips to load up on
water and fuel. We've insured the boat for another year with yet another
insurance company. We've sorted out some silly banking mess. We taped up our
spinnaker (which is now more sail repair tape than actual sail cloth).
And we've been spending a small fortune on internet, capturing google earth
images of all the places we might want to visit. We can now overlay these
google images onto our chartplotter to get an idea of how far 'off' our
digital charts are...and also to see some of the character of the passes and
lagoons we plan to enter. Some images even show us the best places to anchor
and the large coral heads that we want to avoid. Just another tool in our
box of tricks.

Also this week, we attended a celebration of life for a sailor living here
in Majuro. We didn't know him very well, but Barney was always kind and
welcoming, and we were sad to hear of his death. Yet another reminder to
live your dreams while it's possible.

We're ready. We're heading to the outer islands. Our tentative plan is to go
North, stop in at some of the islands as we go... do some exploring, read a
few books, snorkel with some critters, shoot some fish, snooze in the
hammock and scour the beaches for those elusive glass balls.

We'll be back soon. Dunno when. 2 weeks. 8 weeks. Somewhere in between.

Windsurfing!!

We have done enough of our boat chores to escape to a small islet across the
lagoon for some R&R this weekend. Somehow being away from the hardware store
is enough to put a stop to most ongoing projects. We even rigged up the
windsurf gear and spent a morning ripping around (John) and flailing around
(me). Good fun.

We also spent some time testing out our storm trysail.

Paparazzi

We try to stay away from the Paparazzi...but sometimes they find us in the
most unusual places.

Laysan Delivery - A Summary and Some Stats

Here it is. The long awaited passage summary.

Our daily positions as we traveled from Majuro, Marshall Islands to Oahu, Hawaii

What a trip. Our first major passage in a power boat. And a huge success. Some stressful days as we wondered if we would make it given our fuel consumption. But after the winds and waves settled down we had a wonderful passage and made it to Honolulu with plenty of fuel to spare. We thought the boat was fabulous and would do it again in a heartbeat!

Here's some of the passage stats, for our fellow boat geeks:
The boat is an extremely capable Seahorse 50' Diesel Duck 462 Motor Yacht. It carries 1400+ gallons of fuel. We added 200 gallons in jugs on the foredeck for a total of 1600+ gallons. Water capacity is 400 gallons. We had very strong headwinds and opposing seas for the first 2 weeks, providing us with a slow speed over ground. Plus opposing current. It is not the ideal time of year for this passage. We'd never consider it in our sailboat. But MY Laysan handled the trip with grace and determination. We were proud to be her crew. We only wish that John and Kathleen could have come along for the ride!

Laysan tied up for a brief visit to Johnston Atoll

Trip: Majuro, Republic of Marshall Islands to Honolulu, Hawaii, USA
Dates: December 30, 2011 to January 21, 2012
Route: Rhumb line (with a short stop at Johnston Atoll)
Passage Days: 22 days total
Time stopped at Johnston: 32 hours
Total time underway: 20.5 days (496 hours)
Total Distance (travelling a straight line): 2020 nautical miles
Distance Travelled over Ground: 2156 nm
Engine Hours: 497 hours
Total Fuel Consumed: 1172 gallons
Average fuel: 1.72 miles per gallon (mpg)
Best 24 hour fuel consumption: 2.78 mpg
Worst 24 hour fuel consumption: 1.16 mpg
Best 24 hour Distance: 143 nm
Worst 24 hour Distance: 70 nm
Average speed: 4.1 knots
Books Read: 10 (me)
Fish Caught: 1 - smallish Mahi Mahi

John sprays rum into this Mahi's gills to ensure a fast, and blood-free death. We highly recommend this technique to keep the cockpit clean - especially if you have someone else's rum aboard. HA!

 Interesting notes:

• The boat arrived in Honolulu exactly 1 year after John (the owner) took the keys in China and began the delivery (in phases) to Honolulu.
• The only mechanical failure on this delivery was autopilot failure. No problem we quickly switched to the second unit, and were underway within minutes.
• Although the vessel has sails, they were hardly used. The majority of the trip was directly into the wind, where the sails were not useful. The remainder of the trip we used the mainsail whenever winds were on our beam!!
• We did not use the paravane stabilizers on the first portion of the trip as we did not want to sacrifice any hard earned speed. Even without the stabilizers her motion was comfortable enough. We did use the stabilizers during the latter part of the trip when the wind shifted astern and abeam and we found they were a welcome addition. 

Laysan is ready to leave Majuro with extra fuel stored on the bow.

To learn more about MY Laysan, her delivery from China and her future cruises, check out their blog: http://roundtopdr.wordpress.com/. Or to learn more about Seahorse Yachts, check out their website: www.seahorseyachts.com .

Since we've returned to land, a common question from fellow (sailing) cruisers has been: "Are we moving to the dark side?" I can say without hesitation that the answer is YES!! We've always loved power boats and love the idea of cruising on a trawler-style boat. Sadly though...the wind continues to be free, while diesel fuel is far from it. Free suits our budget. So, for now, we'll continue to sail.

Radio Heaven

We've died and gone to radio heaven.

We've spent the better part of a week or so installing our new radios. First, we installed a new VHF radio. This one has AIS. The picture below shows the display that shows all the nearby vessels that are transmitting an AIS signal (commercial traffic typically), and some killer info...like how fast they are going, what direction they are headed, if and when they will collide with us. Simple things that make life SO much better. And hopefully, safer.

We toyed with getting an AIS receiver, that would plug into our chart plotter software. It would require an extra VHF antenna. No problem, we've already mounted a spare. But...when we're on a passage, we don't run our chart plotter continuously. Saving power. But we do keep our VHF on. So, this was a perfect solution.

Sadly, our old cockpit mic doesn't work with this unit, but no worries. The good folks at Standard Horizon are sending us a compatible one ASAP!!

The other uber-cool radio news is that we are working on a SSB radio!! Andy and Monica on SV Savannah sold us their old radio for a smokin' good price. We (well, mostly John) installed it in only three days (!) with a fair amount of course language that I attribute to years on job sites and fishing boats. But, bad language aside, guess what - it works, mostly!! We are still doing some testing, and it isn't perfect, but we're making great progress.

Life is good. Our projects are coming along well. Departure from Majuro is imminent.

Back in Majuro

Sorry for the radio silence.

We're back in Majuro. We left Honolulu early Monday morning, crossed the
date line, and arrived Tuesday morning. After a passage of 22 days, we
managed to cover the same distance in just 5 hours. Amazing. And no charges
for our overweight bags. Well, unless you consider the rips and tears a type
of fee.

Being back has its pros and cons. For instance...we wondered if Renova
always smelled like this? A bit musty. Even mildew-y. Did her woodwork
always have these worn patches here and there? I suspect so. We've simply
been spoiled with the wonderful new-ness of MY Laysan. Even so, after almost
two months of neglecting Renova, we're glad to be home, and after our
initial day of rest, we're already in frantic cleaning mode. We're anxious
to begin exploring the reputedly phenomenal outer islands of this country.
And...it feels good to give Renova some love.

Renova in a state of disrepair, as we do a mad clean

So far, we've scrubbed, de-cluttered, installed a new VHF (with AIS...yeah),
and dined with our fellow yachties! We've also spent time with our friends
on SV Carina, who were kind enough to help us with some sail repair while we
were away. We had noticed that some of the stitching on our 2009 genoa was
coming loose at the clew, and we had some areas of chafe. Philip and Leslie
did a fabulous job of the repairs and we've learned a lot along the way.
We've got a few more projects on the to-do list, before we leave here. SSB
installation. Alternator install. Provisioning. Immigration. Computer
set-up. And the list goes on.

Leslie and Philip from SV Carina help us with sail repair

I'm sure there are a zillion emails in our inbox. We've been very negligent.
Sorry. I need to spend a couple days tapping out our belated replies. Until
the captain sets me free from cinderella duty, please know that we are
thankful for your emails, and will respond personally asap!
If it is any consolation...I was able to take advantage of free and fast
wifi at the yacht club by uploading pics to our flickr page. I posted pics
of our time at Abemama, Tarawa, Abaiang, Majuro, Johnston and Honolulu. You
can check them out here: www.flickr.com/photos/naomit

Stay tuned...I'm keenly aware that we have more to blog about the rest of
our time in fabulous Honolulu, and some stats summarizing our trip from
Majuro to Hawaii on MY Laysan. Coming soon to a browser near you!
Pics: Leslie and Philip do a fabulous job with our sail repairs. This is
what Renova looks like in major de-clutter mode. Yep - that's my flip flop
collection at John's feet. I've made a major contribution to reducing our
gross tonnage by sacrificing two pair.

Fun in Honolulu

Our first few days in Honolulu have been fabulous! We're moored at the Waikiki Yacht Club, in central Honolulu. We're beside a wonderful park and beach, the bus routes, and the biggest mall in the state. We've been all over town shopping for alternators, used books, and a new bikini. We also had the great luck of being here at the same time as my aunt and uncle, and it was great to catch up with them. Next up...sightseeing!

The view from Laysan's flybridge

At the park beside the marina, we placed bets on the remote control sailboat racing.

My aunt and uncle, Tosh and Donna, were thrilled to get a tour of Laysan.

Laysan Delivery - Passage Pics

As usual, we didn't take many pictures underway. But, here's a few pics of our passage.

We spent long hours at the helm. We passed the time by reading, watching movies, chatting, and eating!

 

Everyday, I checked in with the Pacific Seafarer's Net to report our position and weather info. They were a great group of people located all over the pacific, and talking with them on the radio each day was a highlight!

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Red-footed Boobies loved to hang out on the boat.