Hilo; first 2 weeks on the Big Island

Our first 2 weeks in Hilo have been quite busy. We made landfall on a Saturday, and after we checked in with Customs, we re-activated our cell phones (which were at the end of their possible 6 month/yr hold anyway) so that we could make a required call to set up an appointment with the state veterinarian. As previously arranged, Dr. Pease from All Pets Mobile came down to do a “boat-call” early Monday morning and fill out a current certificate of good health (required by Hawaii State Department of Agriculture). While awaiting the state veterinarian for their examination of Griz, Chris dove to check Tao’s bottom for log damage. Amazingly he found none! A call from the state vet the next morning woke us up and we met her 20 minutes later at a nearby picnic table to check Griz’s microchip number, that she wasn’t carrying any critters, and to fill out a mountain of paperwork. All of a sudden we were free, all three of us checked in to the islands.

We hopped on of one of the Tuesday cruise ships shuttles (a cruise ship seems to dock at the pier every Tuesday) to a nearby mall and were overwhelmed by all of the big stores you see in every American city. With no internet available via our Bad Boy wifi device at the port, we started our research for how to get some internet. We chose to try out a USB mobile broadband modem from Mobi, a local Hawaiian Islands service, for their 14-day trial period. We spent the next few days aboard drying out the boat (between rain squalls), generally observing the daily changes here (which included the entry of 7 traditional Polynesian sailing canoes making landfall from New Zealand), making a dream list of all the activities we might like to do around the Big Island, and frequently sailing Fatty out to explore the bigger Hilo Bay.

Radio Bay is located within the working Port of Hilo and is therefore a high security site. It is very calm weather-wise (no roll!), but there is a near constant noise of large cranes and loaders and multiple axle trucks moving cargo through the port. There is a nice bathroom with hot shower (for a refundable $50 key deposit) and for us to get to town we are required to be escorted through the port (laden with semi-truck trailers) by very friendly and accessible (as long as you have a phone to call) 24-hr gate security. By Thursday, we finally motivated to do laundry. Carrying all of our clothes and bedding from the passage, we managed to miss the free hourly bus and instead had a rainy day adventure of hitchhiking (which we hear is legal in Hawaii) and walking some of the longest blocks ever (under our newly purchased umbrellas) to find a self-serve laundry several miles away in the town of Hilo. All fresh and clean, we celebrated our crossing with a dinner on Comocean, who had been just behind us throughout much of our crossing.

Saturday was as sunny as Friday had been rainy. All of the plants here appear to be on some kind of growth enhancing drug (lots of rainwater!) and fragrant flowering trees litter the sidewalks with their blossoms. We walked to Rainbow Falls just outside of Hilo, through jungle vegetation and banyan trees, to perch atop the waterfall on a rock basking in the sun. Then returned to town to purchase succulent vegetables at the twice weekly market and catch the last bus home where we met Amanda, a friend from graduate school. Since CSU, we had visited her once before when we were on the Big Island for Chris’ family reunion, though were surprised to realize that it had been 7-years! We quickly caught up over frozen Hawaiian style margaritas and then picked up dinner which we enjoyed outside (to the smell of night blooming jasmine) at Amanda’s beautifully grown up house with Jeremy and their two boys.

The next morning Amanda took us on an adventure to the South Point (Ka Lae) of the Big Island, claimed to be the most southern point in the United States, and showed us all the good spots along the way. Our tour included sandwich markets in Hilo, up to a pumpkin bread stop near the volcano, down to South Point and several beaches and view points along the way. We stopped at the Black Sand beach (Punalu'u) and hiked along the extremely windy SE tip of the island to a beautiful green sand beach. The black sand is made of basalt and the green sand, olivine (if you look closely, you can see flecks of the green sand in the handful of black sand here). On the way back to Hilo, we stopped into Volcanoes National Park to see bright yellow sulfur beds and then the overlook of the Kilauea Caldera to see rays of sunset wash over the volcanic gases exiting a newly formed vent.

On week 2 of our stay here, we got more serious about trying to plan out our adventures. We made our way to the bus station to gather information for different routes around the island. While downtown, we visited the Hilo Bay front museums including an aquarium and extreme lava art displays and finally filled our craving for sushi (thumbs up for Ocean Sushi). An enjoyably memorable day was spent learning about Hawaiian culture and Mauna Kea astronomy at the ‘Imiloa Astronomy center, 3D planetarium, and native gardens. And there is still a long list of exciting things to do and see while safely anchored here in Radio Bay...

A portion of each day has been spent trying to decide how to be affordably connected while we’re cruising in the States. After much debate, we have decided to drop Chris’ phone line and the Mobi service and share (yes, the dark ages) one smart phone for our time cruising the Hawaiian Islands. We’ll keep you posted on how that goes. Also, we’ve still got lots of pictures and processing of our crossing to catch up on and we’ve been trying to figure out how to continue updating the blog now that our lives aren’t exciting enough for a daily update... We're waiting for some fast internet to upload lots of pictures. Please keep in touch and keep checking back for updates.

Race to the finish…

We had been nagged by a persistent worry of how we were going to get back to the States with Grizzly without the help of the Mexican bus system. Our back up plan was not fun, Chris taking a bus to Phoenix where we were to fly out, renting a car, driving back down to pick up Shawn and Grizzly was a lot of driving, time, money; possible, but less-than-ideal. Also less-than-perfect, but our ultimate path was a ride offered by a couple with a boat (Pura Vida) moored in Bahia San Carlos and now living ashore who were headed up to see family in Tucson and then fly out of Phoenix. The only problem with this plan was they were leaving 3 days earlier than we had planned. We lost two full days of time to get the boat in order, go gift shopping, relaxing, and it left our welcome to the States being 3 days of hotels and airport restaurant food. Still, looking at it positively, it was an otherwise perfect ride up with fun people and it forced us to efficiently (aka maniacally) close up Tao.

For those 3 days in the work yard, we raced around. We took Grizzly to the veterinarian on the Dahone for a certificate of good health for international travel, did 6 loads of laundry, climbed the mast before dawn (it gets HOT after the sun rises!) to remove the masthead light and blocks aloft, as well as cover the steaming light with foil, did a final engine flush of the Yanmar (yes, we started her on the hard!) and the Seahor(se), removed Moni and the boom, left bleach water in our water tanks to discourage algal growth, plugged all the through hulls (except cockpit drains to let rain water drain) to dissuade cockroach, spider, mosquito entry, organized on board medical supplies and food stores placing them low and in bags to hopefully survive the heat and if failure occurs reduce mess, cut and install porthole covers and grease gaskets, covered all deck gear with tinfoil, secured mosquito netting over cowel vents, cleaned the whole interior, closed down the refrigerator, removed life lines (attempted not to fall off boat!), removed all electronics, aerosols, paint, bleach, thinner, gasoline, lubricated all pumps, and organized paperwork to take to the States. Although this list might sound exhaustive, it merely scratches the surface.

The last morning (June 2nd) before our 6 am pick up from Pura Vida, we left a note for Plume, who came to ensure Tao was safely moved out of the work yard and onto hurricane posts in the dry storage later that day, and we had to fit the man-overboard-pole, boom (yes our entire boom!), spinnaker pole, whisker pole, Seahor and Moni down below just before locking up for the last time for the summer. Amid this craziness we did manage to have a few very much appreciated restful moments with friends; waffles with Estrella, dorado and New Zealand wine with Plume, and beers with Harmony; these moments kept us sane; thank you all! And all of a sudden we were on our way north to the US/Mexico border and we could start to reflect on our previous adventures and think about all the things that we had forgotten and still needed to do for our future ones.

Loreto and Los Coronados (written April 28, 2009)

The day after our sail repair we took Eeyore a half mile away to snorkel on a shipwreck. It was very interesting; laying on its port side in about 25 feet of sandy bottomed water. It's starboard side was out of the water and diving down you can see anchors on the bow and a huge propeller (5 blade, 15-ft diameter!) on the stern as well as a ton of fish hiding in the bowels of the ship. Upon returning to Tao, we prepped the boat and weighed anchor. In the few breaths of wind we slowly beat out of Salinas Bay and rounded Punta Perico. We had a very slow bob/sail toward the north end of the island during which we figured out a watch schedule and readied the boat for a night at sea, planning to head to Loreto to get Grizzly's annual rabies shot which was to expire May 5th. But when we rounded Punta Lobos at the north end of the island we found lots of wind. For about 5 minutes we had a perfect roaring sail wing-on-wing with the main and drifter, then it got to be too much and we had to douse the drifter replacing it with our newly improved 100% jib. Pisces was comfortably anchored at Puerto de la Launcha which at our new speed was just barely attainable before light would fade. Decision point, should we continue on as planned toward Loreto even though at this pace we would be there around midnight or pull in for dinner and a few winks before pushing off in the middle of the night? We decided on the latter and sailed in to a nice little anchorage on the north end of Isla Carmen, had a late Happy St. Patrick's Day meal (corned beef, cabbage, potatoes and even cold Guinness!) with Pisces, and caught a quick nap before weighing anchor at 3:30 am.

We had a beautiful star lit sail to Loreto with the tiniest sliver of moon rising at 5:30 am and mellow winds filling in, of course, from the SE, the direction we were heading. As the sun rose we decided to turn on the motor in order to get there with enough time to find a veterinarian, get there with Griz, and get back to the boat in time to sail to a safe anchorage if necessary as there is no protection from weather anchoring off Loreto. The winds vanished as we motored through flat calm water watching dolphins chasing their breakfast and we anchored right off the little break wall for fisherman pongas. Just after setting the anchor, the winds piped up from the NE and immediately kicked up a quick 2-ft chop pushing us toward shore making Shawn nervous about leaving the boat. But we prevailed and both headed to shore in search of information for the tasks we were hoping to complete. We quickly found a dinghy dock inside the "ponga breakwater" to leave Eeyore and a nice gentleman ashore who answered all of our questions and even found us the veterinarian information and let us use his phone to call them.



Armed with lots of information and plans to get many things done, we headed back to the boat to get our gear and of course our favorite kitten. Grizzly, our little rock star, had an exciting first trip to Mexican shore in her travel backpack. The winds were still kicking swell up and Eeyore filled with our Dahone (folding bike), empty 7-gallon water jug, and all three of us was bounding up and down with lots of spray. From there she got to ride in her little pack on Shawn's back as they wound through town on the Dahone hoping to find the Feed Supply store that housed the veterinarian before it closed for siesta. No problemo, the girls found the store, took Griz to the counter and got the shot right there next to the cash register- the transaction all in Spanish, phew! From there they spent another half hour of searching the town for its only internet cafe where Chris was checking banking information and once found we all headed back to Tao. The winds had abated and sea's calmed once we returned to the boat. With only mellow winds forecast we decided to try a night at anchor off Loreto and headed back into town for a yummy lunch at MacLuLu's, a trip to El Pescador the local grocery store for a few fresh veggies, and several trips to the purified water store with our big water jug to supplement our dwindling supply.

Tired and reloaded the three of us fell into a surprisingly calm night of sleep and headed north toward Los Coronados after breakfast the next morning on light breaths of wind. We've been here now for three nights of amazing bioluminescence and have enjoyed hiking up to the Crater, a potluck on the beach, and yoga with Scheherezade, Pisces and La Querencia, as well as meeting new cruising boats and watching huge pods of baby diving ducks practicing and rays playfully swimming around us. Yesterday (the 26th) right after yoga the winds kicked up from the north making the southern part of our anchorage uncomfortable as the swells wrapped around the northward point. Everyone else left to head around the spit, but as we were more north in the anchorage, and all the forecasts we had heard were calling for NE and land and sea breezes, we decided to stick it out here and monitor the weather. It didn't lay down as quickly as we were hoping, but all day the winds gradually decreased and after sunset we again had a calm anchorage. It raised the question of wether we need to be more willing to flow with the weather in all its fickleness versus sticking with what we otherwise want to do. It could have easily resulted in weighing anchor in the dark but turned out well this time. Which is lucky because around 10 pm when Chris got up to check the conditions, a bee managed to sting him at the base of his neck and he had an allergic reaction with systemic hives and itching extremities. All it required was two Benedryl and a baking soda paste, but it was a reality check as to our current situation and how we need to always be thinking of safety first. Today dawned beautiful and we're gearing up for some snorkeling. Scheherezade has come back to join us and Pisces has taken the slight southerly flow to start their trek northward. We'll see what happens and keep you posted on how our adventure continues to unfold.