Hikianalia Update | Dec 6, 2018: Most the Way Home
Update by Hikianalia Co-Captain Jason Patterson
Dec 4 Update
We’ve just finished another glorious meal by Uncle Gary and Lei. This evening they prepared for us a Spear fish that we caught mid morning, sashimi, curry and pan seared style.
Today was another very productive day of sailing with excellent conditions as we made tracks towards home steering our course direction of ʻĀina Kona. The fresh wind of 15-18 knots out of Haka Hoʻolua has us moving at a comfortable 6-8 knots in the trough of a gradually growing Nāleo Hoʻolua ground swell. The ride is smooth and the lee drift is slipping us closer to our reference course line.
This evening after dinner, the navigation team calculated that we were 1353nm down our reference course and had closed the deviation from it to just 8nm north. If we maintain these speeds we will begin the hunt for the mauna of Hawaiʻi within the next 5 days. All for now, more tomorrow and in the words of the famous Timitete, “It’s good to be us!”
Dec 5 Update
All is well on this beautiful morning of the 13th day of our sail. We are currently 1436nm down our course line and just seven miles north. We had a wonderful, and at times cloudy night of sailing, but have continued this comfortable pace of 6+ knots into the morning.
The rising sun brought in tonight’s dinner with a nice sized Otado, looking forward to Otado katsu as requested by Uncle Bruce. Mahalo to Kanaloa, the iʻa, Uncle Bruce and Uncle Gary for what is sure to be another spectacular meal.
The crew is happy and healthy, some of us are even joking about turning back because we don’t want this voyage to be over with. We haven’t brought it up for a proper crew discussion yet, but all I can promise is that we’ll be home before Christmas.
Dec 6 Update
After a challenging night of navigation with 100% cloud cover to clear skys and shifting winds with some bobbing to and fro just before sunrise, we crawled along our course line for 35nm miles and deviated 17nm to the north. This brings our total to 1551nm down our course line and 24nm north as of sunrise. As we tortoise along these next couple days, we must remember to savor these waning number of moments along the Alahula Kai o Maleka Voyage. And appreciate the privilege that we are the first of many crews to do so in who knows how many hundreds of years, in reestablishing this as a well traveled path.
A hui hou,
Jason
We’ve got new gear in the PVS Store!
