Hawaii to Alaska - Week 3

noon local - Wednesday, May 27, 2020
41 32.5N / 150 05.1W

Week 3 of our passage from Hawaii to Alaska was another disappointing mileage week. We sailed 687 miles which maybe isn't too bad but made only 330 miles good to our destination as the winds just weren't from the right direction. This grand total even included 100 miles of motoring when the wind went to zero for a few days in the middle of the week. At least we are now past the 1/2 way point, but, with 946 miles still to go we are another week to ten days away from arrival.

We started the week hove-to just taking that glancing blow from the low pressure system I wrote about last week and ended it hove-to again, for two days, to deal with a second low which came in right behind it. This time it wasn't just a glancing blow though as, unfortunately, we had F8 (gale) to F9 (strong gale) conditions, gusting up to 50 knots, with 5 metre seas. We hove-to to avoid getting further north nearer the centre of the low which had 60 knot winds. Luckily, we didn't see those.

It looked like it might be ok for a departure this morning, it had dropped to 25-30 knots and the seas were down quite a bit. So, at first light (0400 in these parts) we set off. We're now hard on the wind sailing close-hauled at around 6 knots, almost on course. There's a fair amount of spray over the decks as we are banging into the still high seas. At least the sun is shining and we're moving, mostly in the right direction. It sure beats the past two days spent laying in our sea berths, watching the wind anemometer, wondering how bad will it get, should we have deployed the drogue, should we have done, or, not done this/that etc...

Between the two low pressure systems, we had no wind to speak of. The sea was a flat, oily, mirror calm. We motored for a while and happened upon another small sailboat, just twelve miles away from us. We spoke on the VHF and Richard informed us he was 35 days out from Hawaii. At that point, we were only on day 17, so, that made us feel better. He actually has further to go than us too as he was heading just north of Dixon Entrance, another 300 miles or so further than our due north landfall. We wish him fair winds.

The winds are looking good for the next week, both in direction and velocity. There is one more low pressure system that we may encounter about a week from now, but, that forecast could easily change. Right now it doesn't look as strong as the one we just got through, so, fingers crossed we miss it and/or it won't be anything to worry about.

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Hawaii to Alaska - Week 2

noon local - Wednesday, May 20, 2020
36 20.1N / 156 49.6W

Week 2 of our passage from Hawaii to Alaska was another disappointing mileage week. We only sailed 582 miles making just 408 good to our destination. This total even included a day of motoring when the wind went to zero. We had one good wind day. The rest of the time the wind averaged around five knots. We'd hoped to be 2/3 of the way by today, but, unfortunately we aren't even half-way yet, still 171 miles short. It always feels better once you're past that 1/2 way mark. As it is, unless we can make better time in the days ahead, this will end up a seriously long passage and cut into our cruising time in Alaska.

The "North Pacific High" is known to settle over this area as a huge, slow-moving high with calms and light winds, but, it's not here yet. It probably won't start to move in for another month. There are still lots of low pressure systems, with significant wind, all around us, somehow we've ended up sailing in a high pressure trough between them. Normally, that's a good thing, but, you still need wind to sail and more than five knots would be good!

As mentioned in last week's post we took a glancing blow from one low pressure system, it was only about twelve hours and easy to deal with, just a little uncomfortable. Unfortunately, there's another one heading our way which we'll be in the middle of come Saturday/Sunday. We'll probably be altering course a bit to try and avoid the worst of it, thus, delaying our progress even further. Oh well, we'll get there eventually, we have lots of food/water and fuel. We have about a 1,500 mile range with our fuel capacity of 1,200 litres. As we're only about 1,270 miles from our destination, we could theoretically motor the whole way if we had to, but, where's the fun in that.

The weather has started to get a little cooler now, around 16C and we're enjoying the change. Fleece tops and long pants have made an appearance. Our down duvets, freshly laundered in Hawaii after a long hiatus spent squashed into a cupboard, are on standby.

We've seen no wildlife whatsoever, no whales and only a couple of dolphins way off in the distance. We're seeing quite a bit of plastic pollution in the water, maybe 2-3 pieces a day, doesn't sound like much, but, we're used to not seeing any in other places/oceans. Surprisingly, given our remoteness, there are a lot of ships around. They seem to be on a route between the US west coast and China/Japan. One of them called us up around 4 a.m. (this is very unusual, first time ever actually) to ask us if we were ok as our erratic course and speed of 1.9 knots didn't seem right. Well, yes, we answered this is the best we can do with the light winds. They're usually steaming along at around 16 knots. Nice of them to inquire though! Also good to know they are picking up our AIS signal from a long distance away.

Speaking of remoteness, we have to be in one of the most isolated sea areas of the planet. We are 1270 miles to Alaska, 930 miles to Hawaii, 1618 miles to San Francisco and 3005 miles to Tokyo.

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Hawaii to Alaska - Week 1

noon local - Wednesday, May 13, 2020
30 22.6N / 162 52.1W

It's not that often that you get this close to a pelagic seabird. Usually, they're off in the distance doing flight cartwheels. They're a joy to watch and actually, out here in the big blue desert, they're often the only thing moving. It always lifts your spirits to see them. On day six of our passage from Hawaii to Alaska, it was windless with a totally flat sea to match. Without much wind for flying, the birds were bobbing around the boat instead. Beautiful to see them so close up. We don't have a bird book aboard, so, don't know which kind they were. In flight the wingspan looked to be around two metres!

The first four days of the passage were typical tradewind conditions, around 20 knots from the NE blowing constantly at the same velocity and direction. We didn't touch the sails for four days. We've only had conditions like this once or twice before, so, it was a joy to start the passage this way. The wind soon died. Days 5-6 were spent moving at about 1-2 knots, but, we weren't complaining, at least we weren't stopped dead with the sails slatting. Overnight on day six we decided to stop for a while. There was a large, deep and nasty low-pressure system hovering over us. We had been watching it come towards us since day 1 and knew we would intersect at some point. We didn't want to get in the middle of it. It looks like we'll get the worst of it overnight tonight, but, it should only be a glancing blow along its bottom edge. After that, it's looking good again for getting more northing in.

Due to the calms, it wasn't a great week mileage-wise, but, not too bad, we've had worse. We sailed 680 miles, 516 miles were good to our destination (Kodiak), which started off 2,200 nautical miles away, only 1,684 to go. We'll be leaving the tradewind belt soon and move into an area where westerly winds prevail. In that area we will be able to travel more on the rhumb line, so, will hopefully make up some time.

Due to the light conditions, week 1 was relatively drama-free. There's always something though and this week was no exception. We use our generator a lot on passage and on day 4 (late in the evening of course) it just wouldn't start. It reported a 'fuel supply problem'. We spent three hours changing filters everywhere we could think of, bleeding injectors, manually priming the fuel lines, inspecting fuel pumps and starter motors etc...etc. Nothing worked. Then, G decided to use his 'magic wrench'. This is a tool that everybody should get. It's maybe not as good as a 'sonic screwdriver' (Dr. Who's favourite tool), but, this is the fourth time it has saved the day for us. You operate it by taking a medium-sized wrench and whacking the offending object as hard as you can with a short, sharp blow. One whack to the fuel pump and away it went. It has been running flawlessly ever since. In the past it has worked on our autopilot pump twice and our Yanmar starter once!

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