Bye Hanalei

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did. So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbor. ~ Mark Twain

I do love Mark Twain's Quotes and quotes in general and if you follow the blog that will be obvious. These one-liners or few sentences can reshape your perspective or keep you on track. I may have even put this one in the blog in the past...

Stephen and I leave tomorrow mid-morning for Alaska. It will be a 3-week passage give or take due to wind, currents, and sea state. It has been almost 2 months since we left Nevada. That is the difficulty about this sailing thing as you cannot predict how the weather will be… some folks left in May last year so we were encouraged we could have had an earlier departure but the weather did not shape up until this week. Another month of work would have been financially nice but also we had a relaxing 2 months of preparation as compared to previous boat returns. 

Ko Olina Marina in Oahu provided us with lots of new friendships on the dock and camaraderie. Also the ability to accomplish boat tasks easier due to locale. And then being in Hanalei Bay, Kauai this last 2 weeks has made me feel like our cruising season started already. The beautiful bay here is fabulous to open water swim and the water temp is 78 and so CLEAR! It is a gigantic swimming pool. Paddleboarding the bay and up the river is so much fun! Beach fires and walks around Princeville and the Hanalei Valley have been great. We even had connected with folks we met last year here and it is just a reminder that this activity has provided us with long-lasting friendships! These are the type of connections where you could call someone up in 5 years and say hi and still feel comfortable reuniting. 

Random meetings happen all the time in this lifestyle. At our campfire last night, 76 yr old independent Katie who walks her dog every evening on the beach decided to join us because she thought we were nice people. She brought a camp chair from home and sat by the fire. We welcomed her presence and she has been here 20 years and lives a block away from the beach. We awaited the Supermoon to arrive together!

We are always sentimental when leaving before a passage and thinking about why we are doing what we are doing and all the wonderful friends in our lives that have helped us along the way. 

Stephen and I share a similar perspective on life and that jives with the Mark Twain quote.  We both have a general thirst to explore this planet and find creative ways such as sailing to give us an alternate reality on the experience. 

Enjoying other places on this big globe to include the ocean brings us closer to Mother Nature. And even when people ask us where we are from we say Earth. This is to take a more unified, collective stand. We even got an Earth flag and Global citizen flag this year. See a pic below. Our friend, Steve on SV Jeannanne liked our flag so much, that he got one for his sailboat. 

Besides being grateful for being alive and the desire to enjoy our beautiful planet we also want to give gratitude to our amazing friends. We just want to say thank you to everyone who has been supportive of our journey. We appreciate all of you! I feel like there has been so much negativity and certainly, the world seems cataclysmic.  Our focus will be very narrowed to just respecting Mother Nature over the next 3 weeks. Is this a distraction from what is really going on or is the crazy world a distraction from achieving a sharper focus on what is important? 

I do not suppose either one is right but contemplating them both warrants some attention. 

We are ready to head North! Friends heading up that way sent us a funny msg from their Iridium about all the clothes they have on now!! Today is the last bikini-wearing day I know, hahaha! We are very aware that the green, lush tropical peaks that currently surround us will change to jagged, abstractly carved steeples and cathedrals of rock to admire soon. Change and adaptation always help you evolve and practice balancing on this tight rope we call our lives! So here is to a new adventure and fighting over some bean bag time:) 

Best, 

SV Soulstice ~ Jen and Stephen 

Alex and Mariah on SV Courage - HUGE help because loaned us their car, helped us out with some tools, and even an extra hydrovane part for the passage. 

Enjoying Saimen in downtown Hanalei

Check out SV Jean Anne's flag:) 

Rocking and Rolling in Hanalei with some north swell now

Gorgeous Hanalei Valley

 "Be careless in your dress if you must, but keep a tidy soul" 

~ Mark Twain 

6/14/22

Stephen and I have been looking at the weather closely now. Our intended leave date was today but the wind appears to be more NE than East on Tues, and Wed. We can point but I will show below the physics of the True Wind and the Apparent Wind. We can point up to 30 degrees but it is a tight margin and hard to maintain before you get into the NO SAIL zone of less than 30 Starboard or Port side tack. With the True Wind angle being in the 70s today, it moves the apparent wind angle closer to our tight margin of less than 45 and closer to 30... (see below). Thursday, the wind definitely stays East, and then even as the days march on, stays out of the east and even a southeast component and that would be great too.

Yesterday, we borrowed a car from a local friend to head to Costco, do laundry, and top off Propane. Start with 2 paddleboards loaded up with a huge dry bag full of laundry ( last laundry 2 weeks ago, so bedsheets/light blankets too), the propane tank, and bags to bring food back in. Luckily, our friends with the car live on a sailboat too and offered to dinghy us back when we returned. We were so thankful when we returned to make ONE dinghy trip back to Soulstice and with No rain!! Oh,, the simple joys! Stephen and I were talking about how accomplished the day felt and it is funny that these are things you would do without associated grateful feeling but we were. Grateful we got a friend's car and did not have to pay 90+ dollars per day and still have to take a 2 hr bus ride each way to Lihue just to get it and return back to Hanalei. Grateful it was not pouring rain. Grateful our friends offered the dinghy ride back because ours was packed up on our foredeck and paddleboarding all the stuff would be challenging. Grateful we returned later so the sea state was calm in the anchorage.  And Grateful that we were Not leaving the next day because we were pooped after all the traveling on the island, shopping and then once again trying to have Soulstice swallow up some more stuff. Nuff' said. 

So our plans changed due to the better direction of the wind we see forecasted this Thursday. We primarily use the ECMWF and Windy. There are the GFS, SPIRE, UKMO models as well but in our experience, the EC seems to have the most accurate forecast that matches with what we see when we are out in the conditions. We do compare all the models regardless to evaluate for continuity in forecasts. The winds today and tomorrow are more Northeast and will turn more East on Thursday. 

It is hard to wait as we are ready and anxious to go but having conditions be more comfortable is similar to working smarter not harder. We could leave today but it would mean getting pushed farther west possibly to get a better point of sail and we want to go due North.  Another strategy would be to tack, which you lose ground because you are unable to head due North and just add on more mileage and more effort. This is why we decided to wait until Thursday. And in the big scheme of things we have been waiting weeks and 48 hours more is not really going to affect our arrival date much and may improve our time because of the aforementioned issues. 

The other 2 boats from Ko Olina marina that were heading to Alaska had more loose ends to tie up but seems they are both planning a Saturday departure. This will be nice to have some company out in the large blue pool. They are both speedier boats than us. One of the boats is lighter with a fin keel ( Jeanneau) and the other boat is larger so bigger water line ( Hallberg Rassy 46). 

I will post some pictures below to show how the high is forming and pushing the ugly low pressures farther north and keeping them west as we would like to see. 

Saturday - 100km resolution

frida

Friday - 100km resolution

THURSDAY - Leave Day - see the that big UGLY low SW of the Aleutians but if you look above at Friday and Saturday it gets broken up and pushed to Aleutians and NOT COMING MORE EAST - YEAH North Pacific high doing its job! 

Wednesday 

Tuesday - TODAY

Tuesday - see the Northeast wind

Wednesday - NE still

THURSDAY _ Leave Day ! More EAST now 

Friday still East :) 

Saturday still East :)

Friend's car - honda civic! Love them, this guy with roll-up windows and push locks! 

Check out the old-school move your side mirror knob!!!

Love it / Hate it relationship for me! 

LOVE IT!!!

ODE TO MR. TOAD - this is the scene everywhere in Hanalei :(( Wanted to acknowledge and say farewell to Mr. Toad and hope more rain comes! 

Lush valley in Hanalei

Good pic to show orographic lifting!!

Cruising ground coming up 

Cruising ground coming up! 

Our soon to be Cruising ground

white vinegar treatment on the NRS straps - always a continuous battle to fight corrosion which locks up the springs/clamps

Shackles for the Jordon Series Drogue and attaching thick Dyneema to chain plates that on the port and starboard stern hull 

Jordon Series Drogue in a blue bag attached to hydrovane with NRS straps. Out on stern and ready to deploy if necessary and HOPE NEVER NECESSARY!!! but better to be prepared!!!

Morning reading in the cockpit! See the enclosed cockpit now - that is the Iverson panels

Hanalei Bay still....

So... have you ever made smores with Giardelli squares? Game changer! 

6/11/22

 I have been so studious with my blogging lately which may just reflect my downtime - ha! Stephen and I had prepared to leave for AK prior to coming to Hanalei Bay so there are not too many chores. We have just been recovering from COVID and enjoying our time in the bay. It has been glorious weather but the rain started today and we knew it was coming. 

The trade winds are reinforced this week and with that weather brings the rain. This is due to orographic lifting and moisture from the mountains on the windward side. In Ko Olina, we were in the lee and so it stayed sunny and dry mostly but now we are on the windward side of an island and the windward sides have more peaks. We decided to put up our full Iverson enclosure which is a tight fit. It requires a strategy to get all the zippers attached and then carefully starting a side a bit so the other side can attach and meet up. Lots of patience so Stephen does it:) plus my RA hands do not like those kinds of activities. 

Since I last made an entry, SV Jeannanne, sailed to Hanalei Bay, Kauai, and returned back to Oahu as well as some other friends from a marina in Honolulu. Chelsea, Steve and Mandy on Jeananne and Shad, his wife and 2 kids on their Beneteau. Shad’s wife and kids are from Salt Lake City and he is a Hawaiin pilot who commutes back and forth. He put his boat up for sale on Craigslist but was not super serious. It was seen by the 1st person and an offer was made. He was surprised and so now the family was doing a final week on the boat before it sold. They have intentions of buying a more seaworthy boat for bigger passages. 

It was a short visit but fun! We actually did not hang out with them until the end of their visit because of our COVID isolation. We spent 2 nights doing a beach fire and making some smores. SV Jeananne will return back to Ko Olina and Shad and family will have a few more days to enjoy the boat before their return back to SLC.

Our lifestyles do have us saying a lot of goodbyes and hellos. I remember before the age of the internet and social media, it was only phone calls via landline and letters to keep folks connected. These days, even though far away, you can feel quite connected due to our technology. It is never a replacement for spending time with a person though. 

We have made a navigation decision during the last few days as well. We are aborting our plans to go to Kodiak Island. We decided to head straight for Sitka. We feel that since this is a La Nina year, and only the 2nd time since 1950 has it gone into a 3rd season, that the N. Pacific High will still struggle to form because of the colder sea surface temps. This puts our crossing the Gulf of Alaska after reaching Kodiak Island in precarious conditions. We do not want to get stuck waiting out the weather up there or get stuck in a gale, which can come as early as August. We want to get somewhere more protected, relax, and cruise. Going to Sitka affords the ability to get on the inside of multiple little inlets and still have an amazing cruising season. Dave, our friend who had his boat up in Juneau for 4 seasons, said "it is not a consolation prize" that the scenery up there is phenomenal and you could spend a lifetime exploring. 

Again, cruising plans are tentative and as I have said in the past, they are intentions but not plans. Another cruiser shared that with us because all the cruisers know that cruising plans are truly written in sand. But we are committed to this passage and feel our 1st weather window is this upcoming week. We plan to leave on 6/14 and it will be a Supermoon/Strawberry Moon. This means that as the moon is waxing it is on the perigee meaning closest to the Earth and so appears larger than normal. Sailing at night with a full moon enhances the passage-making always and somehow gives a false sense of security at night by having that extra light to illuminate the way forward! 

Leaving the anchorage we will have good wind but possibly more on a close haul/close reach because the trades have more of a North East component than just due East. Soulstice does point fairly well but we hope the sea state is forgiving to make it more comfortable. Our friend, Ron, on SV Mar de Luz, did say it well… the boat will be fine and you will be fine but it all boils down to how comfortable you will be and how comfortable you want to be - HA! Word! 

Busted eating cereal

SV Jeananne on the left and Shad's boat - don't know the name on the right

Mandy and Steve on SV Jeananne

Steve Olsen, mermaid

Mandy, forefront and Steve, and Chelsea 

Coming in for the beach fire. Our transportation to and from Soulstice. You have to kneel coming in or risk biffing it once hit the sand. 

Paddle over to SV Jeananne to say hello! 

Happy these signs are down! 

Regatta folks setting up, sunset 6/10, and Stephen enjoying some hummus and 1st beer since being sick. 

Check out that blue streak