Come Sail with Mistress

Saturday, June 14, 2014

THE MOON IS OUR FRIEND

The Moon is our Friend!

Sailors can be a superstitious lot….don’t sail with bananas……don’t sail with women…..don’t leave port on a Friday….and certainly not on Friday the 13^th…..

Not that we are falling into the realm of old sailors tales…..but we are now ready to set sail for Canada…..crew has settled in, the boat is provisioned, fueled and water….all we have to do is cast off…..

Of course we don’t want to be inhospitable to our hosts the Hawaii Yacht Club and their regular Friday night racing and BBQ……so we will do the right thing and enjoy the evening food and drink and set sail at first light in the morning….Saturday the 14^th!

Waikiki has been a great pit stop. Alex has surfed the local break…”Bowls”…..Nicci has found the Waikiki beach strip’s best Mai Tai…..and Skip has caught up on his sleep……

Mistress has had another crew change for the final sprint north around the Pacific High and easing of sheets into the Strait of Juan de Fuca….more than three years after leaving in April of 2011…..Milllsy; Skip’s constant number two has flown back to New Zealand to resume land based work and family duties…..Alex and Nicci continue to shine as the old hand’s of this voyage even at the tender age of 24 and 27 respectfully…. Joining the boat are Dylan Sydneysmith; a veteran of Mistress’s inaugural voyage from San Diego to San Francisco and his McGill University friend Hector Haynes from Gibraltar….

So Skip has four twenty something crew….. to share the adventure and pure exhilaration of sailing Mistress to her final destination….

It will be a great sail…..we depart on virtually a full moon, which will be our friend and help ease us back into the beauty and serenity of night time sailing….

Stay tuned and we will update you as best we can over the next couple of weeks.

Aloha!

The Mistress Crew

13/6/14 FAREWELL TO HAWAII BOAT CLUB

Sunday, June 1, 2014

TWO DOWN ONE TO GO

Two Down….One to Go!

Thirty days after departing Auckland, Mistress is now tied safely to the dock at the Hawaii Yacht Club, Honolulu…..looking like she simply went for an afternoon sail in the Hauraki Gulf as opposed to the almost 5000 miles of water that has slipped under her keel….

The passage from Papeete was right out of the brochure….warm winds and water, plenty of breeze for the most part, and some great Trade Wind reaching sailing….The crew of Millsy, Nicci, Alex and myself evolved further into an even better team, sharing the sailing and shipboard duties. It has been challenging at times….but certainly rewarding for all of us.

Having spent virtually 27 days sailing on starboard tack (we did have a couple of hours in the lee of the Big Island of Hawaii when we did tack out to sea to find more breeze!), life aboard will feel strange when we finally spend some time on port tack. The joke aboard is that with our new North’s mainsail we could advertise to sell the sail once back in Vancouver that it “had only been used once for a 7500nm passage and never been tacked!”

So the Mistress Crew is now enjoying life ashore once more. The contrast from the beauty and solitude of the tropical Pacific Ocean to the concrete jungle and crowds of Waikiki Beach is immense…..for the moment though the change is good….. friendly fellow boaties and staff at the wonderful Hawaii Yacht Club….great shore based fresh water showers, Cheese Burgers In Paradise…..and cheap cold beer! I don’t doubt that in a few days we will start casting our mind to life at sea once more and the preparation for the final hurdle…..the last leg to Vancouver…..

Aloha!

The Mistress Crew