Wednesday, May 27, 2009

good bye hawaii...


heading on our last leg of this voyage back to canada tomorrow.
we will probably be sailing for about a month. maybe our most challenging sail yet.

leaf bought himself a ukulele as you can see in photo.

thanks everyone for your best wishes and prayers for fair winds.

wishing star crew

Monday, May 25, 2009

hanelei bay






we are anchored in beautiful bay. voted number one beach in u.s.a.
it is also the bay in which peter paul and mary wrote about in the song puff the magic dragon, hanali. because it is beautiful and the mountains are the image of a recumbent dragon.

a wonderful place surrounded by dramatic emerald green volcanic mountains with waterfalls cascading down cliffs almost starting almost impossibly high from the tops.

the beach is long and and the sand is soft and the colour of light brown sugar.
the water is warm (27 degree)and the surf is large enough for serious surfing out by the reef, but inside the reef along the beach has a gentle swell making it lots of fun to play in. a real paradise. there is little development and the beach is so long that hundreds of people can enjoy it without seeming crowded. the surroundings are jungle like with banana plants and coconut palms and many other lush green plants and flowers.

this may be our last stop before heading back to canada. it is a real great finale to this voyage.

we have been spending our days exploring in the small character town and swimming.

Tuesday, May 19, 2009

birthday cookie recipe and radio link





yvonnes birthday cookies

1/3 cup oil
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup ground almonds
1 egg
2t grated orange rind
2 cups flour
1/8t salt
2T orange juice
2t baking powder

mix sugar, juice, eggs and oil
stir in sifted dry ingredients
adjust flour or juice to make nice firm dough
divide into about 30-40 balls rolled in hands
balls should be about walnut size
squish lightly with fork in two directions
bake on lightly greased tray or parchment paper
bake @ 375 until light brown about 15 minutes

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we found we could get internet in the bay and guess what? cortes radio is now online, it is so fun to hear it so far away. here is the link so you can listen too...

http://www.cortesisland.com/tideline/show21s/Cortes_Radio

we made it part 2






we have been in hawaii for one day now and we are really enjoying ourselves.

we met another sailor who has a car here and showed us around the island we are on (kauai). the highlight was the farmers market and we got some nice fruit and veggies.

leaf got a new boogie board and spent an enjoyable afternoon playing with it in the surf on a brown sugar beach on the bay we are anchored. he loved it.

our passage from mexico was what one sailor told us it would be, a little of everything, storms, doldrums and perfect sailing weather. fortunately the weather was mostly very kind and it was a classic downwind run with warm steady tradewinds on our back. we got lots of rolling swells and we got seasick a bit. however, once we got our sea legs we were cooking great meals and making the most of the challenge.

we caught at least five dorado (mahi mahi) these are delicious white fleshed fish and we made great meals out of them, two i soaked in soy sauce and dried on the hand lines, they turned out great, sort of like fish jerky. we caught some barracudas but we didn’t know if they would taste good so we threw them back. we also threw back many tuna as they are not our favourite and we can only eat so much seafood.

we all read lots of books, leaf read over thirty all by himself, yvonne and i probably read a couple of dozen between us. many of the books were sailing stories so we got to share the lives and stories of other sailors who went before us like robin lee graham on the dove, bernard moitessier, triston jones, tania aebi, magellan, herman melville, joshua slocum and others. with these sailors on board, we were we in very good company.

we also played lots of board games and cards.

in one big storm, our largest headsail ripped in two along a seam. it will be repairable. we have a large inventory of other headsails so it did not slow us down too much and that was about our only problem equipment wise. not bad for 33 days of non-stop sailing.

our wind vane autopilot (lucky the monkey) worked perfectly. all the upgrades in the last while all worked out well too. the electronic addition (her boyfriend, rob the robot) on our autopilot made her steer perfectly in even the gentles of breezes or when we motored.

we had very few squalls and in the whole time out, we only changed our sails four times. we never reefed our sails. the time our big head sail ripped, i should have dropped it earlier. we sailed for weeks sometimes with no need to adjust our sails.

cooking was big highlight on board and once we got our sea legs, we ate very well. best meals included fresh hummus with homemade pita bread, mahi mahi coconut curry on rice, curried fish soup with fresh limes, mahi mahi in camelized onions, salad rolls with peanut sauce, fresh tortias with chilli and rice. we often had california wine with our meals that we had bought in san fran. every day we had at least one big glass of fresh orange juice (we brought 100 kgs of oranges with us). our fresh food lasted until the end. we brought 8 dozen eggs with us and they lasted all the way. for breakfast, we often had pancakes or apple oat porridge with soya milk. yvonne made lots of bread along the way too. someday cooking was not too easy but those days we often did not want to eat too much anyway. leaf made yvonne orange almond cookies for her birthday, they were great!

our biggest challenge over all was probably boredom but mostly we handled that well. we missed radio a lot. we had a ssb for listening for weather but it offered but little in entertainment or news.

we had lots of dreams of family and friends, they seemed very real. we really felt the prayers and blessings from them.

we are going to rest awhile here and figure out what comes next.

blessings to all.
wishingstar crew

Sunday, May 17, 2009

HAWAII!


WE MADE IT!!!!! 33 days at sea from mexico to hawaii.

we had a great voyage. no real problems, one ripped head sail on seam, no big deal.

lots of reading and fishing.

the people here are friendly and we are so happy to be at a safe anchorage.
thanks friends and family for all the blessings, we had so many dreams and good feelings of many of you and on this voyage, you were really with us!

blessings to all!
i will post more later,