Days 1 and 2: Trucking Along

August 12, 2010
10:44 HST (20:44 UTC)
Lat: 26 51.6 North
Lon:158 00.4 West

Fish on! Mahi Mahi just came on the menu for dinner tonight! I literally had just sat down to type in this blog entry and the shout came from above, "Fish On". It's actually now 11:10 am, as I had to take a break to bring in the smallish Mahi Mahi and do one instructional fillet on one side. Dave is taking a shot at cutti   ng the other half.

Backing up, we arrived in Honolulu in the afternoon of August 2nd, which I believe PJ has already blogged about. After a hectic week of prepping the boat for the next leg and PJ’s seemingly non-stop car trips to and from the airport, Costco and everywhere else, we finally cast off the lines from the Hawaii Yacht Club and set sail.

  

The crew consists of Dave McWhirter, a long time college buddy of PJ and sailboat owner; Harold Beard, a dentist and friend from our Voodoo Child sailing days who has done numerous open water deliveries including a sail all the way to NZ from Washington. And last but not least Randy Holbrook boat owner, friend and fellow SYC member. I really couldn't ask for a better crew.

We threw off the lines at 11:19 HST (21:19 UTC) on August 10th. Once clearing the channel, we immediately set sail with a the wind aft, blowing about 20 knots we were on our way. As we rounded the SW corner of Oahu, we looked for a calm spot to stop the boat and give the bottom an inspection and quick scrub of the waterline. I didn't do this in Ala Wai Harbor, mostly because of the rather large shark doing the rounds in the marina. Once in the water, I discovered that our Max Prop zinc was no longer present, so I put a new one on while Dave scrubbed on the bottom. This took a little more then an hour to complete and we were off again.

Once we cleared the island of Oahu, the trade winds filled to full force and we sailed the first 36 hours in 20-25 knots with seas reaching as much as 3 meters at times. The wind was forward of the beam so we took a fair amount of water over the bow and sometime over the entire pilot house and bimini. PJ, I am happy to report that the forward cabin remains dry. Needless to say things were bouncy. Randy was the only one impervious to the wave action. I and Dave felt squishy at times and Harol . . . .  well, he got physically sick. I sent him over the edge the first night when I had him do a log entry and he had to focus on the screens and number etc. I'm happy to report that we are all now feeling great with the squishies hopefully a thing of the past.

Randy was a trooper the first night literally spending a couple of hours in the galley putting together a chicken and rice dish. It was at the height of the waves and wind and his accomplishment was no small feat.

Yesterday was spent settling in and getting used to life at sea. Dave spent more then an hour on the aft deck basking in the sun and looking at the waves. We all did a lot of napping, reading etc. The autopilot was misbehaving basically faulting and shutting itself off every few minutes. I had changed the brushes in Honolulu and the new ones had not seated themselves yet. I am happy to report the Jorge (that’s the name of our trusty autopilot) is now behaving wonderfully and we haven't had a autopilot fault for over 12 hours (I am now touching wood so as not to jinx things).

Current conditions are quite nice with blue sunny skies, winds in the high teens with an apparent wind angle of about 70 degrees, small seas and making good time! We are heading due North. The weather models don't look great for a fast trip. Right now it looks like it may take us 3 weeks based on what I'm seeing in the weather models. I will write more about this perhaps tonight with a synopsis on the weather and thinking for our routing.

All is well aboard Capaz!

Cheers!
Cpt. Brad

PS PJ is very glad that the forward cabin staying dry and that she and the boys are already enjoying visiting friends and family in Seattle while CAPAZ bashes toward the mainland.