A Visit From a Distinguished Guest

While brushing my teeth this morning I spied a tiny baby red crab crawling out of the sink. The little fellow must have attached himself to the boat’s hull, found the through-hull to the sink, then crawled up through the hose pipe. For a tiny critter he was rather quick and scurried across the vanity top to hide behind the sun tan lotion. I managed to catch him with gentle hands and return him safely to the sea.

Why not?

On the way to Lumaha’i I found a few coconut sprouts for free along the Kuhio highway.

Why not plant them on Black Pot beach?  All it takes is a bit of effort and a sense of the future.

Wasn’t easy without a shovel, but totally worth it.  I hope you find them on your next visit to Hanalei!

 

 

Landfall! Hanalei Bay, Kauai

  1. After 22 days at sea me and my son Julian dropped anchor in lovely Hanalei Bay on the north side of Kauai.   It’s the most beautiful spot on earth!

 

 


 

 

 

Meditation and Water

“Meditation and water are wedded forever,” wrote Melville.

I’m heading out to sea very soon in my pea-sized sailboat.  It’s been a while since I’ve been at sea — last time was summer 2018, returning solo from Hanalei Bay to San Francisco — and after a while you start to get apprehensive about the idea of sailing alone across the Pacific.  That apprehension brings all kinds of scary thoughts and worries.  But that all goes away as soon as you leave the land.

The sea is a good place to go to think deeply.  Several weeks alone on the sea in a small boat provides lots of time and space to do that.  After a few days at sea you get into a groove.  You quickly lose track of the days going by.  You might wonder what’s going on back on land, but you don’t wonder for long, for the wonder of constant movement, water action, eternally changing sky, moon and stars, hold you in the present.

It’s not for everybody, but it suits me.

A Voyage to Hanalei, Part Three: Stalking the SSS

Transpac sailboats on Hanalei Bay

Misadventures with the Singlehanded Sailing Society

There’s a secret society out there, hard to find and difficult to infiltrate.  Its members refer to it as “a bug light for weirdos on boats.”  While I was anchored in sleepy Hanalei Bay this summer, on the far northwestern edge of Kauai, this underground operation began arriving in fast boats — the 2018 Singlehanded Transpacific Yacht Race!

This epic race goes from San Francisco straight to Hanalei Bay — the same route that I’d just taken.  I’d heard about this race for a lot of years.  It’s been happening every “even year” since 1978.  I’d thought about joining.

The Singlehanded Sailing Society sponsors a number of quite interesting races for solo sailors, like the Singlehanded Farallones Race which has been going strong every year since 1977.  The Singlehanded Transpac is their capstone event and attracts a couple dozen sailors racing their own boats, some of them ultralight boats like the Olson 30 and some cruising boats like my Pamela, a Crealock 37.  There are no sponsorships, no paid professionals, no cash prizes, and the SSS is famously “not a yacht club.”

I decided to call them up and figure some way to get involved with these “buglighters” when I sailed into Hanalei at the end of May.  The SSS website led me to Carliane Johnson, webmaster/secretary for the club and one of the solo racers in the 2018 event.  I explained that I was onboard Pamela, just in from San Francisco, and would like to help, and Carliane answered back, “Great! See you under the Tree!” a reference to their longstanding ritual of meeting at 5:00 p.m. each day for Tree Time.

Soon the Race Committee arrived and began to post updates such as “it’s early morning in the Little Yellow House and we’ve just fed the chickens”, like a day in the life of Bilbo Baggins.  But where was their base of operations.  Where exactly was this yellow house and this famous Tree?

I walked the length of Weke Road looking for a yellow house, from the sinkhole by the Hanalei River that swallowed up a half-dozen multimillion dollar homes in the April flood disaster, to the end of town a mile down the beach, and
 still could not locate this yellow house.

Then one morning while making my coffee, I saw a new boat on the bay, Double Espresso, looking like it had just had a wild ride across the Pacific.  I checked the SSS blog and saw a short video of the winner, Philippe Jamotte, being ferried to shore, jumping into the surf up to his neck and treading through the surf to the beach.  Then off he went with the Race Committee presumably to the invisible yellow house.

While I was snoring in my bunk the winner arrived and I missed it.  Would I completely miss the 2018 Transpac while anchored right next to the finish line?

I launched my dinghy straightaway and headed to the beach.  I had to find these guys.  I found them across the road from the beach pavilion, hidden behind a lava-rock wall, a yellow house with a sign that read “Singlehanded Transpac 2018.”

I strode right into the kitchen with the biggest grin I could muster and shouted, “There you are! I’ve been looking everywhere for you guys!  A subdued group of four or five complete strangers stopped their conversation and stared at me for a half a minute in complete silence.

I was wearing my Hanalei outfit—swim trunks, no shirt, no shoes, shaggy hair and whiskers under a big straw hat.  Rather like the homeless guys in the beach pavilion across the road.  Their expressions said who are you, exactly? Was I trying to sell them hard drugs or murder them outright?  I mumbled “see you later then?” and dinghied back out to Pamela to sulk.

The SSS is not a secret club.  Strangers are welcome.  But you should probably put on a shirt for the first meeting.

Meanwhile the second and third finishers, David Clark on Passages and Greg Ashby on Nightmare, arrived that night, and once again I missed their arrivals. My aspirations with the Singlehanded Sailing Society were going up in flames pretty fast.

My luck began to change when I discovered that the Race Committee was monitoring VHF channel 69.  I switched on my radio and soon there was a hail. A boat was dragging its anchor and Rob McFarlane on Tiger Beetle was trying to rescue Crinan II as it drifted out to the reef across the bay.  I jumped into Pamelito my dinghy and raced over to lend a hand.

“Can you point out a good spot to anchor?” Rob called to me.  
“Certainly!”  I escorted the little racer to a spot upwind of Pamela where I knew the holding was good.

I’d be the first to know if Crinan II were to drag her anchor again.  Soon more racers began to arrive and I was making countless trips to and from shore to help the Transpac finishers find their land legs.  My status rose from beach hobo to fleet savior!

Late that evening one of the boats arrived in a squall with rain coming down in sheets.  Sea Squirrel, the Race Committee chase boat, drove out into the storm to help guide the squall-blinded skipper.  I watched her navigation lights out beyond the surf break, occasionally hidden by the swells.  Then she hailed the Race Committee to report that her engine would not start.  Sea Squirrel was drifting quickly out to sea!

Pamelito on the way!” I spoke into my radio, then set out into the night to lend a hand.

On calm days I’d taken Pamelito out to the surf break to watch the local board riders, but never beyond the furthest break, and never at night.  Yet here I was, planing my dinghy over five-foot swells and hoping not to lose sight of the Sea Squirrel.

After several minutes I arrived at the stalled boat.  Synthia Petroka, her skipper, threw me a line and I hauled it over my shoulder and turned my dinghy toward the lights on shore.  When the line tightened it nearly threw me from the dinghy.  Pamelito struggled desperately to tow in the heavier boat but could only whip- saw from side to side.  Now I too was in danger of being swept out to sea!

“Try putting your dinghy on the side here, just abaft the beam,” Synthia suggested while Jackie Philpott helped me hold Pamelito to the aft quarter of Sea Squirrel.  It worked!  Pamelito with her little outboard began pushing the committee boat down the swells and back into the bay, slowly, slowly.

As I towed the disabled boat into the bay I pondered the seriousness, and potential hopelessness, of the situation.  My teeth were chattering and I wished I’d put on a shirt before starting off on this rescue attempt.  I was soaked, shaken, and wild-eyed, while Synthia and Jackie were as cool as a couple of pickles.  They tied Sea Squirrel to her mooring and Synthia diagnosed and solved the boat’s ignition problem.  Then I ferried the Squirrel girls to the beach and arrived back at Pamela around midnight, exhausted and spent as my outboard ran out of gas and sputtered out.

The following day was the Really Big Day as six boats arrived one after another.  Each time, we escorted the boat into the bay, assisted with anchoring, and stood by to ferry the skipper to shore.

And then came Riff Rider.  At the stroke of midnight skipper Charlie Casey found himself between the reefs protecting the bay and unable to see the boats in the anchorage nor the lights on shore, his engine disabled, leaking coolant, and a halyard knotted in a turk’s head around the spreader.
Rob in Little Beetle, the Squirrel girls Synthia and Jackie, and I in Pamelito pointed our boats into the swells and motored out to help Charlie feel his way through the blackened bay.  There was a new moon—meaning, no moon at all—and thick clouds covered the night sky.  The squalls dumped rain on our heads while we circled Riff Rider with our red headlamps serving as navigation lights.  Charlie thought a swarm of lightening bugs were attacking from all directions.  He had no idea who or what we were.

Riff Rider’s boom was swinging in the swells, her mainsail dumping wind with each gyration, and making near-zero progress against the offshore wind.  Our dinghies scooted back and forth around her, pointing the way and trying to avoid each other.  A half hour ticked by.

I was turning donuts around Riff Rider, trying to stay awake, and not paying much attention to the blackness over my shoulder.  Suddenly there was Sea Squirrel on my quarter.  I’d crossed her bow unaware.

Now, if this had been an 18th century British warship maneuver I’d have launched two dozen 18-lb. cannon balls into Sea Squirrel’s bow and become the next Lord Nelson.  But it wasn’t.

My headlamp winked on half-batteries to announce my victory at the Battle of Trafalgar.  BAM!  Lesson learned: never turn donuts around a racing yacht on a midnight-black reef-strewn lee shore with a headlamp you wouldn’t take to a Boy Scout Jamboree.  What an adventure I was having with the Singlehanded Sailing Society.

At 03:00 we had Riff Rider safely anchored in the bay.  Commodore Dave Herrigel hailed us on VHF 69, advising us all to get some sleep, for the next boat was due to arrive in five hours.

The next morning I was pronounced an honorary member of the Singlehanded Sailing Society, and the Squirrel girls presented me with a highly coveted navy blue rain jacket with the Race Committee logo emblazoned on the shoulder.
Now I was a buglighter!  I was having a blast with my new friends.

I learned that Jackie had recently published her book Not a Yacht Club, which tells the story of the SSS in entertaining interviews with several of its longstanding members, many who have become famous in the world of ocean yacht racing.  On my solo journey back to San Francisco I read it cover-to-cover, as well as George Sigler’s Experiment in Survival.

Will I ever do a Singlehanded Transpac?  The belt buckle is pretty cool.  I’ve sailed 10,000 miles solo on Pamela so I know the drill.  But alas, the old girl is a cruising sailboat, not a racer.  I’d have to leave my dinghy engine at home, empty her water tanks, get rid of all my spare diesel, unship the heavy spare anchors, and dump my 200 feet of 3/8-inch anchor chain.  So as not to arrive a week after the awards ceremony I’d have to dismantle all the things I’d want for a summer voyage to Hanalei.

But wouldn’t that be a great way to guarantee I’d sail back here in two years?  
A voice in my head says, “You’re not getting any younger although you’re acting like a post-adolescent Peter Pan.  Better do it.”

A Voyage to Hanalei. Part One.

Sail with me to the barefoot soul of Kauai.

 

I needed a good reason to take sailing vessel Pamela back out to sea after a two-year hiatus.  I’d sailed her all the way to New Zealand and back, yet still I was dragging.  Something about sailing back out the Golden Gate seemed ominous.  Watching the insidious lines of fog reaching along the coast made me want to wrap up in layers of wool.

Adrift and bereft, unsure of what I was to do next, sailboat-wise, with a voice in my head asking will I ever make another long-distance voyage on my own boat?  Like so many other yachtsmen, I found myself tied to the dock in my home port and unable to move.  Take a stroll down any marina wharf and you’ll see what I mean:  hundreds of beautifully gleaming sailboats that never leave the slip.  

A different voice in my head answered:  you’re turning 60, you old coot, perhaps you’d better get out there while you still can.  

Why not sail to Hawaii for the summer?  It takes three weeks to get there and four to return, so you might as well set your anchor and stay there a couple of months, then split before the hurricanes begin to form.  Sailing there is a sweet treat, all downwind.  And hanging out like a local beach bum would be a kick.  But I would have to psych myself up for the long, bumpy trip back to San Francisco.  I could do it solo.  I would turn 60 in August.  The notion of 60 and solo could be reason enough to do it.

On the island of Kauai there was a major flood in April, the worst in living memory.  Bridges were washed out, roads were closed.  People were living under tarps.  Maybe I could join the relief effort there.

And the Singlehanded Transpacific Yacht Race would be happening, a solo race from San Francisco straight to Hanalei Bay on the far northwestern edge of Kauai.  Solo sailors on fast boats would be splashing into the bay sometime in early July.  Maybe I could hang out with them.

So without a good reason, but with a fistful of reasons all reasonable, my plan for sailing to Hanalei began to form:  sail there in May, lie at anchor for a couple of months, then sail home.

But what would I do all summer just hanging out in Hanalei?

Just hanging out in Hanalei … mmmm.

Can’t stop grinning: that’s s/v Pamela anchored behind me on a sunny afternoon in Hanalei Bay, Kauai, Hawaii.
Can’t stop grinning: that’s s/v Pamela anchored behind me on a sunny afternoon in Hanalei Bay, Kauai, Hawaii.

 

Now when my son Lindsay heard I was sailing to Hawaii he signed on immediately as crew.  He and I have crossed oceans together and we get on well at sea.  Apart from his watches he sleeps for hours, sometimes days, wakes up hungry and hollers “Feed!”  He’s a growing boy and I suppose my galley cookin’ suits him just so.

Then a week later, while cycling through Monterey with a my old buddy Milo, he announced that he was coming too!  The day was warm, the ocean looked like Walden Pond, and a light sea breeze beckoned.  I couldn’t tell if he was serious. Now, Milo is a landsman.  In a good way, of course.  He golfs four times a week, his cleats planted firmly.  He is a horse racing fanatic, and the sound of thundering hooves further roots him to the land.  My tales of sea sickness, long hours of abject boredom, and midnight squalls with flying squid hitting you square in the face would not shake Milo from his intentions.  He was sincere and intent on the notion.  The crew of Pamela was multiplying faster than fleas on Noah’s ark.

Three is actually a good number for a crew to Hawaii.  The watch schedule would be “two hours on, four hours off,” right ‘round the clock.  If anyone starts to get on your nerves simply alter the schedule such that you never have to experience them awake.

At this point my simple plan for sailing like a misty-eyed contemplative mystic to Hanalei needed an overhaul.  I would sail solo on the homeward voyage at the end of the summer, but for the outward leg I would need to provision for a crew of three and prepare my crew for the three-week journey.  This would take more than just eating extra-crunchy peanut butter out of the jar with my fingers.  I’d need a provisioning plan to keep three people alive for up to five weeks whilst avoiding an outbreak of scurvy.

You can actually get scurvy on land.  In fact, I know a student at Stanford University who ate only ramen for a month and got scurvy.  I don’t know whether he graduated.

When provisioning for a long passage at sea, start with Provisioning Rule #1:  Never take anything you actually don’t like to eat.  This is not obvious!  Plenty of world-class long-distance sailors return from voyages carrying loads of uneaten, unopened processed food.  Lazarettes full of rice and ramen, crates of Dinty Moore beef stew, and pallets of energy bars.  

One-pot meals are the easiest dinners at sea, and you can stuff these with your fresh vegetables before they spoil.  My half-size pressure cooker is the secret to scrumptious and savory one-pot meals.  I leave the pot on the stove until it’s all eaten up, then start the next one a couple of days later.  Even the most vile of one-pot meals will transcend before your eyes into a gastronomic delight if you throw in a can of coconut milk, like when a princess kisses a toad.

You really can not go wrong with one-pot meals like fish-head soup.
You really can not go wrong with one-pot meals like fish-head soup.

 

 

Next came the shakedown.  Pamela had not been to sea in two years so I would have to nudge her down the coast for a ways to see what might be broken.  We would sail down to Monterey, perhaps tuck in at Half Moon Bay if necessary.  I was worried about the watermaker, concerned about the Monitor wind vane, curious about my new refrigeration system, and apprehensive about my SSB radio.  Lindsay and I left Redwood City on a strong ebb tide that pulled us up the bay to Aquatic Cove.  There we set our anchor and watched the crescent moon rising over the San Francisco cityscape.  

You might be familiar with San Francisco’s Hyde Street Pier and its preserved tall ships and nautical museum.  I sometimes come here the first Saturday of the month to sing sea chanteys on the 1890 steam ferryboat Eureka.  This place connects me with the people of a bygone era.  There’s a wonderful little anchorage in Aquatic Cove by the pier, and you can anchor with the National Park’s permission and enjoy a special evening on San Francisco’s infamous Barbary Coast.

We mustered at 02:00 to catch the next ebb tide out through the Golden Gate.  The tide was strong and we timed it perfectly.  Even five miles beyond the Gate that ebb was still pushing us out.  Next stop, Monterey.

Now the Kentucky Derby happened to be running and Milo was throwing a big party in Monterey.  Mint juleps and Kentucky Bourbon flowed in copious measure.  We cheered and hollered at the horses until we were all hoarse.  The next day at 13:00 we recovered sufficiently to load our final provisions aboard Pamela.  It was all smiles on the dock.  Then we cast off our lines and squeezed through the breakwater bound for Hanalei Bay.

Two miles out we were getting a shellacking.   I’d underestimated the power of the swells as they churn with unfettered fetch into Monterey Bay.  The wind gusted to force 6 on the nose as we clawed away from the coast.  We were jostled sufficiently to summon the gods of the sea and we prayed that the swells, and our stomachs, would settle down.  

Welcome to the ocean.  It’s going to be like this a while.

People taking their first offshore voyage from California are often surprised by how rough these coastal waters are.  The swells from the cold north Pacific roll uninterrupted for thousands of miles and those lines of kinetic energy seem never to dissipate as they hold their course, each pushed by another from behind.  When a swell reaches the continental shelf it piles up in confusion and turns back seaward in a drama of suicide.  The first day was miserable.  We each got sick in turn.  “What happens on the ship stays on the ship.”  Until the waves wash it all off.  

We began to get our sea legs and appetites returned in a couple days.  Lindsay wanted bacon and we had 144 pre-cooked slices onboard, courtesy of a sympathetic aunt who’d sent us two giant packs via FedEx.  Milo’s stomach was adjusting to life at sea and he was happy with raw vegetables and fruit juice.  I served one-pot meals with coconut milk and made stove-top bread in my heavy iron skillet.  When the yeast wouldn’t rise I smeared tomato paste on one cooked side, then topped it with cheese and bacon and called it pizza.

A few days later we hit a light-wind snag.  The weather charts showed five days of near-zero wind.  Four knots of wind, max.  This can be incredibly nerve-wracking.  I gathered my crew and gave a short at-sea pep talk.  “Men,” I began, then paused for emphasis; “we will be confronting a five-day calm.  We will run our engine at night and drift by day.”  I imagined everyone losing his cool and going berserk after a day of dead calm, starting with me.

Yet the wind defied the dismal forecast and rose just enough to push Pamela along at about four knots.  The old girl can do quite well in seven knots of wind if the seas are not too rough, coasting along at four knots.  For a week we moved along at low speed.  Life at sea became quite tranquil.  Then we met the freighter.

Milo and I were spinning yarns in the cockpit one afternoon, lazily checking the horizon now and then, enjoying the fine, settled weather.  He glanced up quickly and pointed.  “Is that a ship?”

I had to crane my neck around the awning to see what he was looking at.  And there it was, a mile away, all ugly dull green, steaming at twenty knots straight across our path, throwing a bow wave across a wall of rivets.   

Instantly we changed Pamela’s  direction and hove-to, then hailed the freighter’s captain by radio.  Argo, Argo, this is sailing vessel Pamela.  We are hove-to off your starboard bow.  How copy?”  There was no response.

“Milo!  Quick, get the GoPro!”  This was going to make a stunning hair-raising clip if we didn’t get smashed.

After a couple of hails the captain of the freighter returned our call.  A sleepy voice came over the VHF:  “OK.”  And the freighter continued on its way to the orient.

A very near miss, the closest I’ve been to a freighter at sea.  Milo was a little wild-eyed for the rest of the day. 

The calm spell had driven us far to the south and the nor’east trades kicked in with a vengeance.  Now we were surfing down waves and gybing downwind.  Each morning I crept to Pamela’s bow and fixed my feet in position, just so, one anchored to a bronze cleat and the other snug against a stanchion, while my hands held fast to the staysail stay and pulpit rail.  From this vantage point I could see the big swells pushing Pamela’s canoe stern down the face of each wave.  She was literally surfing, and I on her bow surfing as well.  A brand new sport!  Bow surfing.  It was a rollicking finish and our excitement rose as we sailed into Hawaiian waters.  

And one morning the rain clouds parted just enough to reveal the sharp features of the Anahola mountains.  Land ho!  Twenty and three-quarter days from Monterey.

A line squall coming at us, missing us by a couple of miles to leeward.
A line squall coming at us, missing us by a couple of miles to leeward.
Topping lift repair on the high seas.  We waited for conditions to settle before attempting this high-wire act. 
Topping lift repair on the high seas.  We waited for conditions to settle before attempting this high-wire act.

 

It’s always magic when you make landfall, especially in Hanalei Bay.  There is a long fringing beach with coral reefs and surf breaks on either side, lying seemingly in a bowl cut into the bowels of a range of volcanic mountains.  There are six waterfalls that are several thousand feet high.  The cliffs could never be scaled by anything less than a well disciplined mountain goat.  At the shoulders the drop is sheer, and at the knees you will see groves of trees fighting for territory, eucalyptus fighting against Norfolk pine and poinciana.  There are fields of taro at the base of the mountains, and these have been cultivated for over a thousand years.

You show up barefooted wearing only swim trunks, and you dress down further from this starting point.

We each made our transitions; Milo flew home, Lindsay set out on a backpacking trip, and I had little more to do than put-put my dinghy each day to the Hanalei River to the spot with two coconut trees to tie to depending on whether it was a spring tide or a neap tide.  And right there at Black Pot.

Black Pot Beach is what you see in the opening scene in South Pacific.  You would recognize it immediately.  It’s a point of land where the Hanalei River meets the bay, a gathering place where the community in old times came together to cook in a giant black iron pot. 

Now it was circled off in yellow caution tape.  The pier survived the April floods but the sink hole that formed between the pier and claimed five very expensive homes separated Black Pot from the rest of the beach.  The Black Pot area would typically be crowded, especially on a holiday or weekend.  But now it was cordoned off with signs bearing  declarations of trespass.  While disconcerting at first, I soon grew accustomed to the yellow tape and became to appreciate that there was a strip of Hanalei that was sealed off, with a hidden entrance just for me.  My own private beach, at the mouth of the river where I tied my dinghy every day for two months.

There was a big sink hole, like an inland pond, and at high tide the waves alongside the pier washed into a basin.  You could traverse along the beach and duck under the pier to get to the rest of the beach and make your way into town.  I came traipsing into town every afternoon or so, hiking up the beach and looking over my shoulder to appreciate that my boat Pamela was anchored right there in the bay. 

I joined the volunteer efforts going on around Hanalei for the flood victims of April 15.  I met the Singlehanded Transpac fleet sailing into Hanalei Bay from San Francisco and became an honorary member.  For the remainder of the summer I sauntered about in a hang-loose shuffle in three-quarter time.  While the tourists seemed amped up, glaring at their restaurant meals and anxious about the next rain squall, I  stopped worrying about rain squalls.  I became, almost, a local.

With no good reason, yet with a sea bag full of aspirations, I’d done it:  sailed once more to the tropics on lovely Pamela.  It felt really good.  I would stay a while.  In time I would sail back home, solo, upwind.  But for now, I would be Peter Pan for a season.

Hanalei taro fields produce most of Hawaii’s total taro crop. 
Hanalei taro fields produce most of Hawaii’s total taro crop.

 

The 2018 Singlehanded Transpac sailed into Hanalei Bay on July 5. 
The 2018 Singlehanded Transpac sailed into Hanalei Bay on July 5.

 

Mini-series: A Voyage To Hanalei

A Voyage To Hanalei is a mini-series about rediscovery, being Peter Pan for a season, 60 and solo.  It will open up your eyes to what’s going on in the distant land of Kauai, Hawaii.  There’s a spirit alive there, and the flooding that occurred there in April, the most severe in living memory, has tended to rekindle that spirit.

It is a separatist spirit.  Kauai is the oldest of the Hawaiian islands and the furthest west.  If you’re sailing there you had better make your landfall cleanly, for if you miss it by only ten miles you’ll be sailing on to Midway, Guam, or Japan.  Hanalei is the last town as you follow the road west.  At the end of the road you will find Wainiha and Ha’ena, a wild region, the last frontier on the last island of the Hawaiian chain. 

A voyage to Hanalei is like no other.  Your heart breaks wide open when you see the fringing beach with its surf breaks, the taro fields at the base of the mountains, and the peaks of Wai’ale’ale pouring down waterfalls several thousand feet high.

Why grow up when you can grow old in Hanalei?   I want to stroll along the beach with a Zen-like half smile, treading the sand yet transcending above it.  I want to be in harmony with a cosmic vibration several frequencies beyond the daily hustle.  With no possessions other than a shell necklace and Robinson Crusoe pants.  Utterly happy where I happen to be.

Na Pali coast, rugged and isolated
Na Pali coast, rugged and isolated

Check back with me in a few years and I’ll be a skinny Methusalah with long white hair and beard tied in a knot.  I’m looking forward to it.  It’s not a bad closing chapter.

I want to sail back here in two years  to see if Steve is still standing under the Tree, bent like Kokopelli and staring out at the waves.  I want to get here exactly four weeks before the 2020 Singlehanded Transpacific Yacht Race from San Francisco to Hanalei, to start chilling ahead of the curve.  Would you like to come with me?

Will Captain Spencer,  the twenty-something tour boat daredevil, still be driving his zodiac full-throttle into the Na Pali sea caves? Will Kevin still be stabbing away at his broken guitar in the beach pavilion? Will Sid and Samaritan’s Purse be patching up a flood or hurricane, or be long gone elsewhere in the deep south, maybe Texas or South Carolina, chainsawing their way through another natural disaster?

And the 2020 Singlehanded Transpac Race Committee:  will Synthia be clutching the wheel of the Sea Squirrel with Jackie and Christine bouncing about and holding fast to the gunwales?  Will Carliane attempt her second solo Transpac race?  Will Nightmare Greg punish himself in his microscopic cockpit to make it to Hanalei in twelve days, then sail solo upwind to the California foothills?

I don’t know if any of these things will be there in two years.   Better to go flat out in the present moment.

Get Back In The Damned Boat

Why not start a new book called “Get Back In The Damned Boat” which deals with the emotion of deciding whether to go back out to sea?  After two years I was adrift, bereft, pretty unsure of what I was doing.    In the spring I took Pamela up the Delta, later to Drakes Bay, and a few times up to Hyde Street Pier to sing sea chanteys.  Doing lots of things and pretending to be busy, singing, riding my bike to Zotts, backpacking, road tripping.

But would I ever go on another passage on my own boat?

I could go, technically, anywhere on the high seas.  Sea of Cortez, Banderas Bay, Tenacatita.  Panama, San Blas Islands.  Marquesas, French Polynesia, returning by way of Hawaii.  All these places would be great to see.  But I didn’t have any plans or intentions.

A passage to any of those places would entail many days of singlehanded sailing across great distances.  I’d get lonelier the further away I got.

But a summer trip to Hawaii and back, to lovely Hanalei Bay on the Garden Isle of Kauai would be something different.  Something doable.  Something to get me off  my ass.

Thus follows a yarn …

Sail with me to the barefoot soul of Hanalei …

Na Pali coastline of Kauai