What a week! First thing Sunday morning I went for a sail up around Diamond Head crater with Greg and Mary Lynn on their boat, "Ci Dancer". It's a 42' sloop outfitted for cruising and racing. We had winds upwards of 24 knots and as we rounded to windward of Diamond Head, the seas picked up to between 3-4 feet. Even though we only used the headsail, we were smoking right along. It was a fantastic, bluebird day with great wind. It was a real eye opener when several times while manning one of the jib wenches, the boat heeled over so far, my whole right foot went under water. I quickly glanced at the other two to gauge their reaction, you know... was that supposed to happen, or were we getting in over our heads. They were cool as cucumbers but were both equally interested in gauging my reaction to the event. Fortunately, my ear to ear grin from the moment we shut off the engines and hooked in to ole' mother nature was still plastered across my face. Greg handed over the helm and let me sail us downwind 3 miles back to Honolulu Harbor. We motored in and got to check out two of the top 3 boats that had just finished the Trans Pacific race that morning. This included "Alpha Romeo" which set the record from LA to Honolulu a little over 5 days, covering around 400 miles a day (for those of you who don't know such things, that is FAST!!!). What else... We sailed right by 3 different sea turtles and saw a double stacked rainbow, the later of which has since become at least a daily occurrence here. Sufficed to say... I GET IT, Sailing Rocks!.
(The weather out of New Zealand is still somewhat problematic. We are now talking of sailing to Samoa and leaving the boat until more favorable conditions occur. I will not likely be able to make the second leg of that voyage but am in great spirits and working hard to provision the boat and review its various systems for what ever trip is possible. Dad arrives on Friday and there's so much to be done by then. I will be one busy fellow.)
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