3PM. At anchor in 22 feet, sand bottom, Hanalei Bay.
Lori wasn't able to find a parking spot in busy Waimea Bay Beach Park, so she couldn't swim out to join us. Kara finished skunking me at cribbage and then swam in to catch a ride home with Lori.
We pulled the hook, hoisted the mainsail, and drifted out of the bay at 6PM. The wind filled in as we worked our way offshore, and with double reefed mainsail and single reefed jib, Moku pe'a sped along on a broad reach at about six knots.
At 9PM when we were about ten miles north of Oahu's Kaena Point the boys woke me from a nap to deal with some strange approaching lights from the south west. It looked like a tug and barge, but we couldn't see any red and green side lights on the tug. We were on a converging course, and when nothing changed after a few minutes we called him on the VHF radio.
No, he hadn't seen us. We described our position and heading, shined lights on the sails, and he then saw us. The tug "Navajo", with tow behind, altered course and passed just behind Moku pe'a. It was a pretty close call in a normally deserted channel. I suppose he was on his way to Seattle.
The wind in the channel wasn't much more than twenty knots, and reefed down Moku pe'a charged right along without overtaxing the autopilot. There were swells from the north, northeast, and east which caused us to rock and roll and occasionally deposited some water on deck, but I've seen worse. At least we were broad reaching, and at sunrise we poled out the jib for the run down Kauai's north shore to Hanalei. We anchored at 9AM, had some breakfast, and all took naps.
The trade winds have really filled in as the day has progressed. It is well over twenty knots in the gusts, and a boat behind us dragged his anchor forcing another cruiser to move. The offender has since reanchored, and then continued to drag. Looks like he needs to invest in some proper ground tackle.
I am a bit concerned about our ability to ferry David in to shore to meet a buddy, Charles Regan, this evening in all this wind. I'm not sure our little dinghy and outboard are up to the task. Charles took this photo of us from his Princeville condo as we sailed into the bay this morning.
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