2023 Leg 1: La Paz, Mexico to Hawai,i

We’re currently under motor about 50 miles east of Cabo San Lucas. We started the motor when the wind speed dropped to 0 and the sails were flogging madly in the 8’ swell. Our first 24 hour run was 120 NM. 4 hours of that was under engine last night while we were becalmed. We caught a nice bonito, approximately 20 lbs on a pink and white squid skirt. Catch and release, they’re not tasty!

We had a few hiccups today. The preventer line on port side failed and had to be replaced. The turning block on the clew at our second reef point ripped out and we tore the Bimini shade that covers the cockpit. All of course in a short period of time when the winds were piping up to the high-20s and we began to feel the opposing swells of the Sea of Cortez and the Pacific Ocean.

Everyone is in good spirits, figuring out the boat and how to operate with four people aboard. It’s a lot of fun, and great to have the extra help when stuff breaks or conditions are challenging. Julie made some scrumptious quinoa bowls for dinner while we sloshed back and forth in the swell with no wind. A new species of dolphin stopped by and performed acrobatics for us at sunset.

Our good friend Jesse buried some treasure for us to find in Hilo. I wonder what it is?

I found a flying fish on deck this morning. Kind of a sad demise, crashing into the cabin top of a sailboat just to asphyxiate on the decks. He’s quite a pretty critter with incredibly large pectoral fins and a tiny mouth. The lower lobe on the tail fork is considerably larger than the upper giving him the power to make giant flying leaps, hopeful to avoid predation. He left a surprisingly fishy smell on my fingers after I rigged him on the squid skirt hook.

Sailing has been brilliant today. The average wind speed is 10 knots and we are close hauled headed in a southwest direction. Sea Fox is taking good care of us. The water is crystal clear and tuna blue, with a presumed visibility of 100+ ft. It’s inviting yet a bit eerie at the same time. We’re still close enough to land so see the occasional brown booby bird circling our boat, casing the joint looking for somewhere to land.

There are shipping lanes just off the Baja peninsula where a tremendously high volume of tankers, cargo, and passenger ships chug their way up and down the pacific. We crossed those shipping lanes at a right angle today and were lucky to have only one come within 1.25 nautical miles of us during Julie’s watch tonight. A little too close for comfort! The ship was unresponsive to her calls on the VHF but altered course a whopping 12 degrees after Harry shined the spotlight at our sails and then at their ship. We’re excited to be out in the open, past all the traffic bound for mainland Mexico and the Panama Canal.

Day naps have been comfortable as the swell has laid down and gotten a longer period. We’re all still adjusting to our new sleep schedules for the next 3-4 weeks which means we’re thinking and moving a wee bit slow. Typically it takes about 3 days to settle in but we may need an extra day on this passage. The day leading up to our departure were busy and full, and there’s a good chance we’re still coming down from the race to depart.

So far the departure forecast we ordered from Commander’s Weather Service has been absolutely spot on. We’re starting to swing to the southwest, as they recommended, and as the wind allows. Tomorrow should be exciting as we will literally be sailing off our electronic charts! Don’t worry, Harry brought a paper chart for our journey and we have multiple means of capturing our GPS position for plotting!

In our mad dash to fill the boat with fresh fruits and vegetables before leaving La Paz we admittedly did not have enough time to stow all of the provisions perfectly. Once you gather all of the resources to feed four people for a month It becomes an impressively large pile of food. We ended up with cabbage in the bilge, apples behind the settee cushions, carrots in my bedside cubby and tortillas in the hanging locker! Active management of fresh produce on board is a must, especially as the air temperature continues to climb. Today when we went to check on the status of the vegetables we found a few sad casualties. There was some mold on carrots, wrinkly peppers and our fresh corn tortillas had begun to ferment…

We salvaged what we could which was actually quite a bit, and started making plans to use the saddest veggies as quickly as possible. It’s not a bad thing to run out of fresh produce early for us since we keep a good supply of canned and freeze dried vegetables. It’s more sad when any of the fresh stuff gets wasted so we try not to let that happen! But, when you’re going nonstop trying to cram too much into the days leading up to a big journey, it’s almost inevitable. Cheers to carrot salad tonight and tomato pasta tomorrow!

Sea Fox broke her own personal best record yesterday in power production! The solar panels made 1.44kWh of power, that’s the equivalent of 115 amp hours at 12.5v. We could produce approximately 100 gallons of water with our water maker with that much energy. Pretty impressive!

We had a glorious frittata and an awesome carrot salad for dinner, all using the vegetables of opportunity as Julie calls them, the ones that need to be used ASAP before they go bad. We didn’t catch any fish today but not for lack of trying. We tied and tried 3 different lures with no luck. Mora had a lesson in tying on fishing lures today. She is a quick learner and an inquisitive pupil.

Conditions have been light, as forecasted, but we were able to sail all day today with the main and full jib. Bioluminescent plankton continue to light up the ocean surface as we surge through the water tonight, and there’s finally a little bit of a new moon to keep us company on our night watches. We’ve been feeling pretty spoiled having two extra awesome hands on board. With each of us taking 2, 3 hour shifts per 24 hours we end up with quite a bit of time off watch to spend napping, fishing, cooking, cleaning, etc.

Lots of firsts today! For our first first; we hit our first 500 miles of the passage from Mexico to Hawaii! Woohoo! With total mileage of 2700-2800 nm it seems like just a drop in the bucket but for all of us aboard Sea Fox it represents a huge milestone. We’ve left Mexico, made it past the busy shipping lanes that seemed to go on forever, and are now cruising off the continental shelf toward the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Conditions have been impeccable today with 8-12 knots of wind on our starboard beam and starting to hint at moving further aft, with a nice following swell pushing along at close to 7 knots for much of the day.

Early this morning, during a weather data review and route planning session, we spotted our first marine mammals of the crossing up close and super cute. A loose pod of Risso’s Dolphins, aka Risotto Dolphins, came charging through the swell, leaping and twisting their way around and past us in pairs or triplets. These guys are tiny, 3-5’ long, with a very squarish, melon-shaped head and distinct scarring pattern along their grey bodies. They are primarily squid feeders who migrate with their prey and though not known for bow riding or engaging with ships, we did have a few spend some time up close to our bow, twirling and looking up at us. It was very cool to add them to my species list since I’d never met one before, let alone a group of 40!

Next up in our day of firsts we have showers! That’s right, on day 5 of this passage we splurged on a short engine run to heat up water and cockpit showers all around. We fired up the water maker while showering and doing our minimum of laundry and finished with more water than we started out with and a little less diesel. What a treat!

Rounding out the list of firsts, our new high output alternator install was a great success. We ran it fully loaded today for the first time and it was pushing out 130 amps while picking up the 30 amps it takes to run the diesel heater and 17 amps it takes to run the water maker. The belt alignment is perfect!

Yesterday’s vegetable drama ended favorably with plenty of new shuffling of menu components and salvaging as much as possible. Tonight we had a gloriously colorful and crunchy Niçoise salad with a honey mustard dressing. Gio was hungry when we stopped to buy our last round of fresh tortillas so we have twice the amount I put on our provisioning list on board. We’re working our way through them and appreciating every last one because we know they won’t be this good when we get back to the states.

Between the two of us we can throw together some pretty impressive galley meals, even when the boat is heeled and rocketing along at 7 knots. I think the biggest trick is to allow yourself extra time to chase ingredients across the boat. Even for simple meals we allow an hour of prep time. By the time you dig through the top-loading fridge, catch the cucumber that’s started to roll away, put everything back in the fridge, stop the bowls from flying out the hatch, and chop everything up without setting down your knife (lest it also become airborne), an hour is about on par.

We’re still waiting on a nice mahi or ahi to come over for breakfast, lunch, or dinner. But in the meantime we are staying busy busy checking weather, planning our route, and constantly adjusting sail trim to take advantage of the unexpectedly great wind we have.

The winds have been light and variable for the last 2 days. It will pipe up to 12 knots then will clock 40 degrees and die down to 2.8 knots. This causes a lot of sail flogging and shock loading on the sails accompanied by a chaos of racket; so we decided to put up the spinnaker today! It took a couple of hours of deck work for Harry and I to take down the staysail and run all of the rigging for the spinnaker but it’s flying proud and we’re making good speed in light air. We’re definitely the prettiest boat within at least 100 miles. Flukey winds aside, we are inching our way west everyday, slowly closing the gap between us and our destination.

The closest landmass to us currently is Isla Clarion, the western most island of the Islas Revilladegos group. Isla Clarion is 98 nautical miles away by the way the Booby flies… We still have some Boobies circling the boat occasionally. Probably looking for a place to take a rest. I’m thinking they must call Isla Clarion home because Cabo is 413 nm behind us and that’s a long way to fly!

We’ve been eating gourmet meals the entire trip thanks to the light conditions and our careful preparations. Tonight we had a decadent, vegetable-laden pasta with sun-dried tomato pesto. Don’t get too excited, the pesto was store-bought!

Fresh veggies will soon be memory so we are enjoying them while we have them available. Sometimes this means enjoying a big crop of something that didn’t make it as long as we hoped. One thing we’ve struggled with in Baja is the freshness of produce. It’s just been so variable. We do all we can to make it last, burying it in the fridge with paper towels to soak up excess moisture (our fridge needs TLC so moisture management is a constant chore), rotating every couple days, sifting through and prioritizing the use of anything starting to turn. Overall we did really well with the big provisioning for this trip although it seems we got some bum tomatoes and carrots. At least the bell peppers, lettuce, onions, apples, and cucumbers are holding up exquisitely! The air and water temperatures have been climbing in recent weeks which has made it even more challenging to keep fresh food fresh, but we’re managing, and very much looking forward to overhauling our refrigeration system when we arrive at our final destination for the winter season!

The highlight of today was another awesome marine mammal encounter. Right after breakfast a group of three ocean dolphins hung out at our bow playing and leaping. Later in the afternoon a large group of them showed up to bow ride and catch a few glimpses of some odd looking humans. Then again around dinner a group came back for more bow riding, to investigate our fishing lure selection, and enjoy the nice puff of wind which let them race Sea Fox. For most of the day it was a tie for their species identification, but this evening’s close up views told us these are offshore bottlenose dolphins. They are darker in coloration that the coastal bottlenose we’ve been seeing regularly in Baja, with scars along their backs and stout, muscular bodies. Supposedly they follow their prey so we’re hoping they like tuna! Sad to report that we’ve been dragging our fishing lures for over 500 nautical miles and not so much as a nibble. What’s that work out to in catch per unit effort??

What a fascinating game of cat and mouse we’re making witness to. Our critter sighting today brought familiar faces with a new twist: flying fish by the hundreds! They seemed to be startled by the Sea Fox as she sliced through the ocean, triggering their flight response, literally. Entire schools will emerge from the ocean’s surface in unison and ride over the wave crests with their wings (fins) out, scattering in every direction to avoid predation. Our other familiar friend, the brown booby, has formed somewhat of a symbiotic relationship with the Fox. He circles the mast, staying close to the boat, waiting for Sea Fox’s crashing hull to spook the flying fish out of the water and once they emerge he’s on the school snapping his beak with impressive speed and accuracy.

Later in the day we had a visit from a different booby. This one had a light brown head and wings with a dark collar around his neck where his feathers transitioned to a cream colored body. This guy was cruising for food too and took a dive at our pink and white squid skirt that were trolling behind the boat. A failed attempt, thank goodness. I’d hate to have to reel him in and wrestle a hook out of em’!

Julie and I conferred this morning about weather, routing, and boat projects and agreed that things are going very well so far on this passage. We’ve decided to flatten our course and make a more westward heading now. We are skirting around the southern belly of the Pacific high, a dynamic high pressure system that sits in the North Pacific and is responsible for the clockwise rotation of the winds. In the center of this high, there is virtually no wind, known by mariners as The Great Pacific Parking Lot. Along the outer margins of the high are steady and predictable winds. Our course to HI is dependent on the position of the high. If we choose a heading at too high a latitude we risk ending up in the parking lot; becalmed. If we alter our course too low, we run the risk of adding unnecessary miles to our passage. Our navigation to this point has been keeping a balance between the two extremes and so far it’s been paying off.

Since I’m sure everyone is more interested in what we’re eating after 9 days at sea, here’s a rundown of today’s eats: pancakes, bacon and cantaloupe prepared by aspiring gourmet galley chef Mora. Sandwiches, chips, and fruit for lunch. Andean quinoa and vegetable stew with goat cheese for dinner. We seem so fancy don’t we?! The air temperature has cooled and we’ve got a good handle on our produce now so all is well. The not so fresh tomatoes and carrots were a bummer but a little creativity goes a long way on an offshore cruise, and we’re happy to have new galley challenges to make us more balanced offshore chefs. Tomorrow we expect to celebrate completing our first 1,000 miles of this ~2,800 mile passage!

Another overcast day. I’m not sure what I was expecting from this passage but I can tell you what I most certainly was not expecting: cloudy days. This is 4 in a row now, with a few more in the forecast. We ran the engine briefly this morning to give the batteries a boost since our solar charging potential is about half when the sun’s not shining, but I think it’s the color of the water that makes it feel a tad dreary. The brilliant Pacific blue is muted and dark, disguising it’s striking coloration and contrast with the light blue skies we had earlier on.

We ghosted along under spinnaker all day today, keeping it moving well in extremely light winds. We’re having a welcome puff up this evening and expecting some big downwind sailing in a few days, if the current forecast holds. And while we are largely focused on making this passage as smooth as possible, we are starting to think and look ahead to the next leg of this journey. The one where the water starts getting colder the farther we sail and we expect to reach for our smartwool while fishing for salmon instead of mahi. Notes and lessons from this passage are populating our brains and lists as we begin planning the logistics and keeping an eye on the Pacific High. Before that, however, we do have about a month in Hawaii to look forward to. I’m excited to climb some volcanoes and return to my pineapple a day habit when visiting the Aloha state!

We acquired yet another Booby today. That makes 3 in our growing flock of opportunistic flying fish hunters. I’m becoming increasingly intrigued by them for the reason that the longer they follow us, the farther they get from any land. Can these things subsist completely out at sea? Do they rest on the surface of the ocean? Are they hanging out on our rigging after dark? We named them today since we’re developing a familiarity with their daily visits. White Cap, Brownie and Fudge, aptly named for the color of their plumage and some snacks the crew are longing for!

Looking at the paper chart, our noon position today shows we are at approximately the same longitude as San Francisco and 1/3 of the way between Cabo and Hilo. Sea Fox hit the 1000 Nm milestone tonight during Harry’s watch. We plan to celebrate tomorrow!

Julie cooked up her muy deliciouso famous pressure cooker rice and beans dish tonight accompanied by some flour tortillas from mañanaland we’ve been able to keep fresh. I might be gaining weight on this passage!

Last night was a rough one for all, with variable, rapidly dropping wind speeds and direction. Poor Sea Fox just can’t make way when there isn’t any wind to pull or push her along, and that’s been a common occurrence in the wee hours of the day. This morning we got the spinnaker up right at first light while shifting to day watches, plus a little motoring time to charge batteries and heat up water for showers, the first of our 1,000 mile celebrations for the day. Dolphins joined us for morning cockpit showers and everyone was happy to be clean and not salty!

First thing this morning we spent some time trying to troubleshoot the new voltage regulators charging program. For some reason it doesn’t seem to be hanging out in the bulk charge stage long enough. It transitions to float shortly after the it’s punctuated bulk stage. Weird. Right now we’re thinking maybe the absorption time isn’t set right, or perhaps we need to increase the bulk charge voltage and double check the temperature compensation limit is correct. We’re still fine tuning the programming and we’ll test a new charging program next time we motor. The alternator is a beast though cranking out over three times the current of the OE Yanmar power plant it replaced!

Our 1000 nautical mile celebratory festivities continued with stovetop popcorn, Oreos, and a round of Yahtzee in the afternoon. Thanks Mom and Dad for leaving us score sheets and dice! Mora conquered the quirks of the pressure cooker to warm up a scrumptious quinoa lunch, and Harry kept the boat moving while we took turns doing our daily chores. When it was finally nap time, the mahi we invited to the party days ago finally showed up. Fish on! Gio of course sprung right into action, bursting to vertical from his nap and racing to the transom to welcome our guest aboard for dinner. We’re hoping we run into a few more of these tasty fish!

Although the weather and sailing conditions are always subject to change, right now our weather routing models are showing about two more weeks of sailing to reach Hilo. If that forecast holds, we’ll be looking at 23-24 days total passage time which is a phenomenal run considering the first week is typically rife with unsailable wind. Tonight we made the decision to put the whisker pole back up which signals a major shift in our sailing tactics—we’re finally able to sail downwind! Hooray! We’ve even got a partially clear sky tonight finally, with the moon illuminating the surface of the sea and the decks of Sea Fox nicely, rather than the dark, cloudy, moonless nights of late.

18.533 N latitude, 145.974 W longitude

549 nautical miles to Hilo

After consulting with our terra firma support staff and snack mule, Sandy, we learned that the location coordinates we’ve been posting are not in the same format as Google Maps uses. There are literally dozens of coordinate systems and several ways to communicate coordinates, so this is good learning. Use this new format me you should be able to pull us up on Google! I have one last trick up my sleeve that I’ll try tomorrow for getting our dot moving again—stay tuned.

We decided today would be a big sailing day and that we’d try to eek out as much boat speed as possible to beat a potential “big blue blob”, aka no wind zone just off Hilo that popped up in the forecast today. Lastnight was rough for all of us as the washing machine made a brutal comeback on spin cycle, but we rallied after coffee (yes, we’ve been drinking coffee and it’s been glorious!) and set out as much sail area as we could safely manage and keep Sea Fox making hull speed. We rocketed along for hours and covered some serious ground, but the best part was right after our first set: another mahi double hook up!! What are the odds?! At almost the exact same time too! Gio and I jumped up to winch in our prizes in simultaneously again, while Mora sprang into action and readied the cockpit. It really takes a village to get these iridescent blue and green monsters subdued.

As we close in on the Big Island there seems to be a renewed sense of excitement to accompany our endless ocean views. We’re making our best guesses as to when we’ll see dolphins again and when we might be able to spot land for the first time and how we’ll celebrate that milestone. The summit of Mauna Kea is 13,800 ft. and my best guess is that we’ll be able to spot the Island in the distance sometime Thursday.

US customs is funny about the importation of certain food products. Those products, to the best of my knowledge, being fruits, vegetables, eggs and pork. We provisioned for a month at sea to account for the unforeseen speed bumps that cruisers inevitably encounter. However as we approach the southern most US state, we’re feeling an abundance that’s making meal time a more exciting yet calculated endeavor. We stubbornly refuse to throw food away so we are lucky enough (thanks to Julie’s hard work and careful planning) to have a myriad of fresh vegetables, an apple a day per person and about 4 eggs per person per day left on board. We’re having fun inventing ways to ensure there is not a scrap of fresh fruits or veggies aboard for our swiftly approaching rendezvous with US customs officials!

18.935 N latitude, 148.800 W longitude

355 nautical miles to Hilo

In case you haven’t noticed…our dot is moving again! The last little techie trick that I had in my back pocket worked, and our GPS tracking is back up and running at last. I’ve still got a good chunk of troubleshooting, and potentially a device replacement, on deck for when we arrive but for now this is a great success. We’ve come so far in the past three weeks and have just a small portion of our journey remaining. It’s pretty wild to think that only a few months ago the remaining 355 miles would have constituted a major passage, and now we’re closing in on 3,000 miles sailed through the open ocean.

It’s still pretty lonely out here. No AIS targets have shown up, radar is clear, and I’m still anxiously awaiting the arrival of our next marine mammal visitors. We did have some great flying fish action today. Gio found one on deck that was at least 10” long! We’ve seen a handful around this size zipping across the water today too. It seems the bigger they are the farther they fly. The islands are close, and the signs are getting stronger!

We sailed hard and fast all day trying to cover as much ground as possible while our strong winds persist. The side swell out of the north that’s been contributing to our washing machine existence is finally settling down which makes life much more comfortable and allows us to sail slightly more aggressively. So far it’s looking like we’ll clock our best mileage day to date today, and beat the patch of extremely light winds if we keep this pace up as long as we can.

We’ve got a friendly wager of sorts going on aboard as of today. Harry took an officially unofficial survey from everyone, inquiring when each of us thinks we’ll be able to spot the Big Island for the first time. The guesses are as follows: Gio- Wednesday 2000 hrs. Julie- Thursday 0800 hrs. Harry- Thursday 1400 hrs. Mora- Thursday 1644 hrs. These guesses are in Sea Foxs ships time which is still in PST. Regardless of who is right, we’ll be spotting that giant tropical volcano very soon!

Our galley gourmet Julie whipped up a delicious chicken enchilada pasta for dinner tonight in record time with graceful ease in the pressure cooker. We’re doing fantastic burning through all the fresh fruits and veggies! Also, I’m happy to report that we’ve not yet consumed an entire propane bottle on this voyage. Sea Fox carries two 10lb. aluminum propane bottles, the equivalent of one backyard bbq bottle that you would exchange at Home Depot. The crew has done a fantastic job of being conservative with water, propane and power during our marathon of a passage!

The forecast for the rest of our journey looks like the winds will become increasingly lighter and the wave height will decrease as the wave period increases. This will make for a more comfortable sea state although we may be crossing the finish line triumphantly flying our beautiful light air spinnaker.

202 nautical miles to Hilo

The odometer on Sea Fox’s Yanmar 4JH57 rolled over the 1000 hour mark tonight during our 1 hour evening power/water generation run. That means we’ve put just over 40 hours on the engine since leaving La Paz. Not too bad considering we will have logged 3000 miles on this passage and at approximately 6 knots per hour under engine that means we’ve motored 240 miles of that.

I’m saddened to report that we did not see the Big Island of Hawaii by 20:00 tonight, which means Gio is not the lucky winner of our bet who gets to buy us all ice cream. The rest of us are keeping a close watch on the horizon, closer as our selected times draw near, and thinking about what flavor ice cream we hope to indulge in once we arrive ashore. It’ll be a hoot watching us all try to walk on land after 3.5 weeks of life at sea, at least a week of that in the ocean washing machine. The last time Gio and I did a passage longer than a week was our training expedition in 2020. I remember stopping in Port Angeles, WA for a shower where I was clinging to the walls for dear life thinking the place would tip over at any time. It’s wild how your body adapts to the constant motion of the boat and you hardly notice it until you return to land.

Speaking of the motion of the boat, last night’s sleep? AMAZING. The funky swell gave up the ghost at last and quality sleep was had by all. Gio said when he came down to change after his 12-3am watch the puddle of drool on my pillow was impressive for the first time on this passage; always a sure sign of being zonked out to the max. Our fingers are crossed that the decreasing winds and nearly flat sea state tonight give us just enough oomph to keep Sea Fox gently pushing on toward her destination. Everyone is adding to their list of exciting treats they’re looking forward to: kombucha for Mora, Kona coffee and a shower for Harry, beer and grilled mahi for Gio, and I’ve added poke to my previous list of coffee and pineapple.

We’re starting to see new birds coming around, casing Sea Fox and chasing down the flying fish that love to zip by us. Still no marine mammals but we expect to see them at any time now. The water has changed colors again to what we’re calling Hawaii Blue. It’s like Tuna Blue but with an extra sprinkle of Hawaii. The best way to describe it is probably that it’s got more of a sapphire tone to it as opposed to the aquamarine of Tuna Blue. Either way it’s gorgeous and inviting, even though we’re still in thousands of feet of depth!

84.8 nautical miles to Hilo

Our seat backs and tray tables are in their full and upright position for our descent into Hilo. I forgot to announce that items in the overhead bins may have shifted but I suppose it goes without saying when you’ve been living in spin cycle for 3 weeks.

Among our motley crew, who have not been more than 39 ft. apart from one another in 23 days, there are aches from pulled muscles, cuts, bumps, torn off fingernails, rope burned palms and poor Julie has enough bruises on her to file spousal abuse charges against me…

Sea Fox has a lot more hours on her engine, new tears in her canvas, a few less spares, more chafe on her lines and more blemishes on her beautiful teak decks. Her new standing rigging is salt encrusted and showing some rust stains, her sail stitching is a bit more tired. Yet she can now boast a pacific crossing under her keel.

I could not be more happy grateful nor proud to be a part of team Sea Fox. I’m confident that each of us has learned more on this trip than one can from any dozens sailing books. Everyone on board has worked together 24 hours a day to keep each other sane, safe and healthy and to keep the ship in good working order. We have stayed our course and gotten this fiberglass tub 2844 nautical miles across the Pacific ocean.

84 more miles till I unearth the Magma barbecue from the bowels of the starboard lazarette, mount it on the stern rail and slap some chunks of fresh marinated Mahi on the fire for some aloha fish tacos… but first, a well needed 4 hours of sleep then we hoist the spinnaker at first light.

84.8 nautical miles to Hilo

Our seat backs and tray tables are in their full and upright position for our descent into Hilo. I forgot to announce that items in the overhead bins may have shifted but I suppose it goes without saying when you’ve been living in spin cycle for 3 weeks.

Among our motley crew, who have not been more than 39 ft. apart from one another in 23 days, there are aches from pulled muscles, cuts, bumps, torn off fingernails, rope burned palms and poor Julie has enough bruises on her to file spousal abuse charges against me…

Sea Fox has a lot more hours on her engine, new tears in her canvas, a few less spares, more chafe on her lines and more blemishes on her beautiful teak decks. Her new standing rigging is salt encrusted and showing some rust stains, her sail stitching is a bit more tired. Yet she can now boast a pacific crossing under her keel.

I could not be more happy grateful nor proud to be a part of team Sea Fox. I’m confident that each of us has learned more on this trip than one can from any dozens sailing books. Everyone on board has worked together 24 hours a day to keep each other sane, safe and healthy and to keep the ship in good working order. We have stayed our course and gotten this fiberglass tub 2844 nautical miles across the Pacific ocean.

84 more miles till I unearth the Magma barbecue from the bowels of the starboard lazarette, mount it on the stern rail and slap some chunks of fresh marinated Mahi on the fire for some aloha fish tacos… but first, a well needed 4 hours of sleep then we hoist the spinnaker at first light.