Passage to Hawaii: Finished!

2016-06-19 10:00PM UTC, 18°46'N 153°40'W # noon
2016-06-20 8:00PM UTC, 19°43.9'N 155°03.2'W # anchored. Yay!

I arrived at Radio Bay, Hilo, and anchored at 10am. That makes the passage 49 days and 20 hours - call it 50 days.

At 4am this morning, after the wind had been falling since 10pm, Luckness was moving at 2.5kts and the sails were not happy - there was a swell which was rolling the boat causing the sails to constantly lose the wind and then fill again, bang, bang, bang. I started motoring at 4am and continued to anchor. The wind became complete calm and then a west 5 knot breeze filled in, from land.

After anchoring, I shut down the boat, cleaned up a little and took my dinghy to the beach and walked around to the Customs office. It was locked, although its posted hours were 6am to 2pm. After some investigation it turns out that in June Customs is closed Sat/Sun/Mon and has reduced hours the other days. I'll check in tomorrow morning.

I've spent the day cleaning up Luckness' interior - after 50 days with all the hatches and portlights closed, and so with almost no air circulation in the cabin, mildew starts to grow on all the surfaces. I've taken care of that problem now and she is looking good inside again. I'll start on the outside over the next few weeks.

I'll likely stay in Hilo for a few days, then I will start my sail to Hanalei, Kauai. I may stop in Kan'ohae on the north side of Oahu, I'll make that call as I'm traveling. Its three days to Hanalei, Kan'ohae is on the way, and is two days away.

This passage went very, very well. The weather window I chose leaving New Zealand worked out extremely well. The initial passage, from NZ to the turn north was plagued with light wind and it was a bit of a struggle to keep moving at times - but at that time of year and in that part of the ocean, it could well have been quite a miserable sail - strong winds, gales, winds well ahead of my beam, etc. If I was to sail this same passage every year for the rest of my life, it would be different each time.

I'm looking forward to relaxing for a while. I hope to organize internet for myself tomorrow (Tuesday), or perhaps the next day.

Yay! I'm in Hawaii! One more long passage to go, and then I can look forward to some coastal cruising for a while.

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