Yippiyayeah!
ZERO and her crew arrived safe in Hilo, Hawaii, USA.
We set our anchor at 1:00 pm in Radio Bay on N 19° 43´91" W 155° 03`16".
It took us 20 days to sail from Cabo San Lucas in Mexico to Hilo Hawaii. We averaged 134 nautical miles a day and 5,6 knots to fullfill the 2667 nm passage.
Except a few days we had most of the time awesome summer weather with winds around 10-15 knots. The very exceptional days were the last couple ones with a little rain and winds between 15-22 knots, and right in the middle of the passage with hot days and low winds around 5 knots. So alltogether nice sailing weather. The wind direction didn´t make much variations. At the first 500 nm we had the wind from the North, afterwards it mostly blew from Northeast and turned to East as closer we got to Hilo. No exceptions! We were sailing with the wind from the starboard side the whole time. No tacks, no jibes. We just adjusted the sails a little. Thats all!
As it is the captains 39th Birthday today, landfall with both, the boat and the crew, in very good condition is the best birhtday present I could ever imagine. Thanks to Poseidon, I appreciate it!
This was our first big ocean passage. None of the crew ever sailed that far away from land and that long without interruption. So what do you do all the time..?
First of all.. we were not bored a single minute! ZERO needed some attention as her bilges weren´t dry and needed to be pumped out and cleaned every day. Because of the heavy rolling and -so guessed- a leaking venting hose from the port fuel tank, the water in the bilge wasn´t only salty, but had some diesel inside as well. That made the cleaning process a little dirty. We couldn´t finally figure out where the water was coming from, but we have an educated guess that one of the portholes of the salon leaks inside the wooden interior.
Because we decided to have ZERO with at least one person on watch all the time, with 3 hour night and free daily watches, we slept a little during the day as well. The rest of the time we spend with reading, watching one of the million movies ZERO has on bord, cooking a good meal or catching and preparing fish. We caught lots of Mahi-Mahi´s also known as Dorado. The seizes varied from 1 to over 3 foot. As Mahi Mahi is described to have the best food value, and there is barely any better fish to eat swimming in the ocean, we can fully confirm that a fresh Mahi-Mahi is the most delicious meal we had! Fresh means that we one time caught it, prepared it, fried it in a pan and eat it within 15 minutes. Yummie!
One sad side of our story is that we had battery problems. Our DC system ran great - and I really mean great! - since we installed the new batteries and the solar panels last year before we went down to Guaymas. We had plenty of power to waste with loud music, lights and anything else with needed 12 VDC. We didn´t need to connect ZERO to shore power anytime we´ve been in a marina. Even in Guaymas we only ran our power tools with 110 AC, everything else was charged by the solar panels. This should even has increased since we installed the 3rd solar panel just before we left. BUT..
..for any reason our system couldn´t fill up the batteries, so they got worse every day. One night, it was Sunday 24th May, our system collapsed. NO Power at all! Engine didn´t start and with no power our autopilot went for vacation. Of course, it was during nighttime and of course the night was pitch black. I grabbed the voltmeter and jumped into the engine room to figure out what the problem was, Frank steered ZERO by hand with a torch to light the compass and Rebecca assisted both of us with handing tools or other usefull things. After 1 hour I finally got the engine started and the light came back, and with that the autopilot went back to work. But the DC system wasn´t the same any longer. During daytime the solar panels provided us with enough energy to run our complete system, but during nighttime our batteries were drained to much. This got worse every day, so we had to run the engine at night for the last week to get enough power for autopilot and so. The problem was, that the batteries died and couldn´t store the energy any longer, so we needed an active power supply to feed the system. During the day the solar panels worked great, but at night the little power from the windgenerator wasn´t enough. We still have no idea why the batteries died, but we will have to buy new ones as soon as we can get some in Hawaii.
As I told you we weren´t bored at all. We had enough time to relax, sit in the sun and work on experimental tasks like writings songs and making music, reading and improving our fishing technics, etc..
The view was awesome and the deep blue color of the water was facinating. And depending on the wind the ocean looked calm and friendly or showed us a little teeth. Because we run downwind the waves rolled ZERO from left to right. A fact which started in Cabo and stopped in Hilo. To get used to it took us nearly the whole passage. Countless glasses fall down and when a big wave passed us, it looks like dancing when someone was standing or walking at that moment. We also figured out, that the continuous movement makes your body exercise all the time. Even when you lie in bed you have to stabilize the permanent movement.
Most cruiser say that leaving a port or anchorage for a bigger passage is always exciting, but arriving at your destination is much more exciting. We can fully confirm this as well. After we passed the middle of our passage we looked forward to arrive in Hawaii. That feeling grew bigger as closer as we came to Hawaii.
Now, swinging behind our anchor in safe calm waters of Radio Bay, it feels great. My personal feelings, as the person who signs responsible for fitting out ZERO for our first ocean passage and taking her to sea are even greater. Would I do it again..? Y E S! In a while, but know it´s time to stay at the shores... and get a good long calm continuous sleep.