Hikianalia Navigation Report | Sep 5-6, 2018

We continue to grab a water sample each morning and look for marine debris throughout the day.

For our 6 p.m. – 10 p.m. watch, it rained, partly cleared up for a bit after the rain and then back to 100% cloud coverage by the end of the watch. We headed toward the star house Lā Koʻolau this watch at an average of 4 knots. So we made 15.7 nautical miles of easting and 3.2 nautical miles of northing. Tonight we viewed the celestial bodies Mars, Venus, Jupiter, Iwakeliʻi, and navigator’s triangle. We checked our heading with the setting of venus.

For our 10 p.m. – 2 a.m. watch, we headed lā koʻolau averaging 5 knots to cover 20 nautical miles total. So 19.62 nautical miles of easting and 3.9 nautical miles of north during this watch. Stars came out during this watch too! Ke ka o Makaliʻi, Kapuahi, Hokulei, and lots of stars to use as markers. It was a beautiful night!

For our 2 a.m. – 6 a.m. watch, we saw a Aʻa rising so we checked our heading off of Aʻa for a bit until the clouds came back and covered up the skies. We headed Lā Malanai for our watch averaging 4.5 knots, covering 18 nautical miles. So we made 17.65 nautical miles of easting and 3.51 nautical miles of south.

In total, we have covered 973.67 nautical miles of easting and 73.057 nautical miles north of 41 degrees, which puts us at 42 degrees 13.057 minutes.

Our 6 a.m. – 10 a.m. watch headed Hikina averaging 5 knots. We used the sun and clouds for steering. So we made progress 20 nautical miles eastward. We had sunny and clear skies during this watch.

Our 10-2pm watch, we headed Hikina over water average 5 knots. So we covered 20 nautical miles eastward. We had another sunny and clear skies during this watch. During this watch, we had a navigation meeting with Captain Lehua to talk about the course.

Our 2 p.m. – 6 p.m.  watch, held Hikina and used the sun to check heading. It was so nice to have the sun out for us to use! Promptly after the sunset, the clouds came in and covered 90% of the skies. So no planets, no stars, but very thankful to have had the sun to check the heading!

While we will continue to hold the reference course of Hikina, we are going to be heading more south starting tomorrow morning so that we head down towards San Francisco. So starting tomorrow we will intentionally cover some ground south.

For our last three watches, we continued our heading toward the star house Hikina. So we have covered 16, 24, and 20 nautical miles of easting due to 4, 6, 5 knots of speed respectively. We are currently at 1093.67 nautical miles east and at 42 degrees and 13 minutes in latitude. We have not been able to do a latitude check in about a week – hopefully we can do a latitude check soon!

During our 6 p.m. – 10 p.m. watch, we had 30 minutes of clear skies. Mars and navigator’s triangle and Ka Lupe o Kawelo showed up. During our 10 p.m. – 2 a.m. watch, we got to see the moon rise. During our 2 a.m. – 6 a.m. watch the winds clocked a bit so we put up the kite and then back to our jib. We saw Aʻa rising but then we were right back at 100% cloud coverage.

At 6am, we changed our heading to ʻĀina Malanai to make some ground south.

We have arrived to an area of consistent winds and while we still have 100% cloud coverage for the most of the day, we are relying on consistent swells and the sun when we can see it. We are in 100% sailing mode again!

During our 6 a.m. – 10 a.m. watch, we were holding Lā Malanai at 6 knots, covering 24 nautical miles. So we covered 23.5 nautical miles of easting and 4.7 nautical miles south. So we are at 42 degrees and 8.3 minutes in latitude and have covered 1117.17 nautical miles east. During this watch, we used the sun’s height to check our heading when we could see it.

During our 10 a.m. – 2 p.m. watch, we headed ʻĀina Malanai averaging 6 knots. So we covered 22.167 nautical miles east and 9.167 nautical miles south. We used the swells to stay high and true into the wind.

During our 2 p.m. – 6 p.m. watch, we headed ʻĀina Malanai at 6 knots on average. We covered a total of 22.17 nautical miles east and 9.18 nautical miles south. We had the sun to check our heading and we moved around water with the hoe down and adjusted the sails to make sure we were heading to ʻaina malanai.