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August 16, 2013
Latitude: 39deg.12 N/ Longitude: 143deg, 56 West
1094nm to Anacortes
1351 nm under our keel from Kauai

We are seeing a lot more debris from the Japan Tsunami.

This morning I made a small course adjustment to go around what looked like a small patch of kelp. While passing, I saw that it was a submerged fish net that was about 6-8ft x 12ft, it was a brown blob-like shape.

Later this morning we altered course to avoid two groups of fishing floats. The two groups of floats were linked about 20-30 feet apart. On closer inspection we could see netting and line connecting the two clusters of floats. 

We decided to turn around and drag a fishing lure past the flotsam; often, larger fish will hang around the junk and feed off of whatever is in the debris. We immediately hooked up to two fish, one a small tuna that we released and the other a 10-15 lb Mahi-mahi. Yumm!

 Yesterday Dave woke me to ask about an odd vibration and a reduction in boat speed of about ½ knot. We stopped the boat, and then backed down to try to shake off whatever we were dragging. The seas were rough, so we didn’t get in the water. We did shake off the garbage and our speed went back to our normal 8+kts.

So, what do we do if/when we get something in the prop?

Here are some of the tools we would use to resolve the problem:

Use our GoPro Hero live TV camera to get an immediate view of what’s happening under the boat. This camera is in a waterproof housing that allows the live video feed wire to be hooked up to a small TV monitor. EYE OF MINE makes the housing. The GoPro is hooked onto a pole with underwater LED lights so we can use it at night.

To cut away the line or cable we have two pneumatic cutting tools, one is for doing car body sawing and the other is a hi-speed cutting wheel that can even trim off a badly bent propeller tip if needed. We haven’t needed to use either….so far.

Don

p.s. we still haven’t seen another vessel in past 7 days. Where are the cargo ships? We think we are close to their East-West routes.

August 9, 2013
Starr is heading back to Seattle

We have spent the last three weeks at anchor in Hanalei Bay, on the North Shore of Kauai. Starr departed from Nawilliwilli, Kauai today at 1330, and will make the two-week run back to the Pacific NW. We …

August 14, 2013Current Location: 935nm NNE of HawaiiLatitude: 34deg, 35N/, Longitude: 150deg, 30WDestination: Seattle
We’ve been running for 5 days and seen zero signs of another boat. It seems like we should be seeing some soon, as we are nearing th…

August 9, 2013
Starr is heading back to Seattle

We have spent the last three weeks at anchor in Hanalei Bay, on the North Shore of Kauai. Starr departed from Nawilliwilli, Kauai today at 1330, and will make the two-week run back to the Pacific NW. We …

August 14, 2013Current Location: 935nm NNE of HawaiiLatitude: 34deg, 35N/, Longitude: 150deg, 30WDestination: Seattle
We’ve been running for 5 days and seen zero signs of another boat. It seems like we should be seeing some soon, as we are nearing th…

August 14, 2013Current Location: 935nm NNE of HawaiiLatitude: 34deg, 35N/, Longitude: 150deg, 30WDestination: Seattle
We’ve been running for 5 days and seen zero signs of another boat. It seems like we should be seeing some soon, as we are nearing th…

August 14, 2013
Current Location: 935nm NNE of Hawaii
Latitude: 34deg, 35N/, Longitude: 150deg, 30W
Destination: Seattle

We’ve been running for 5 days and seen zero signs of another boat. It seems like we should be seeing some soon, as we are nearing the shipping route for cargo vessels doing the SE Asia to Panama run.

The first 2-3 days out of Kauai were sloppy, as we were getting the remnants from Hurricane Gill, which was downgraded to a Tropical Storm. This is only the second time in 13 years of cruising Starr that Sharry has gotten sick, and only the first time that she upchucked!

Starr seems to know she is heading to Seattle for a major refit. How do I know? Stuff is just now starting to fall apart. It’s been 14-16 years since most of the equipment was installed, so it’s time!

Minor things, such as:

The foam inside the engine room headsets that have built in communications (so two people can talk over the noise of the engine) has turned into a greasy tar like mess and are unusable.

The Iridium sat phone’s handset cable sheathing has fallen off in messy pieces.

The Main Engine Day Tank Fuel Gauge has shut down.

The Port Wing Fuel Tank “tank tender” has stopped working. This is no problem, because we have the site gauges.

I’m on watch, and must keep an eye out for tsunami debris. I am mostly seeing Japanese fishing buoys, small plastic floating stuff; and an hour ago, a coil of one-inch poly line. This gives me time to daydream about what changes I want to make to Starr.

So far part of list includes:

A new paint job from top of mast to bottom of keel. Our last paint job was in New Zealand in 2001.

A new radar. The Furuno 1510 is still working but it’s time for Furuno’s new stand-alone commercial unit.

A Possible hull extension adding the space for an aft deck dining area.

 Fine dining on Starr’s current back deck

Sharry and I were spoiled cruising in the Queen Charlotte Islands last summer on Neil and Margery Hokonson’s, Nordhavn 68, Wind Flight.

We really liked their aft deck layout. So, how about adding another 5 feet to Starr’s stern?

And the list goes on….5 pages so far.

Don

August 9, 2013
Starr is heading back to Seattle

We have spent the last three weeks at anchor in Hanalei Bay, on the North Shore of Kauai. Starr departed from Nawilliwilli, Kauai today at 1330, and will make the two-week run back to the Pacific NW. We …

August 9, 2013

Starr is heading back to Seattle

We have spent the last three weeks at anchor in Hanalei Bay, on the North Shore of Kauai. Starr departed from Nawilliwilli, Kauai today at 1330, and will make the two-week run back to the Pacific NW. We hope to join our CCA friends on the Pacific NW Fall cruise on the Sunshine Coast of BC before returning home to SBMC.

It’s been two short years since we pulled into Honolulu from Japan. I know that we haven’t posted many messages during our past two years cruising around in Hawaii and we have no excuses…It’s not that we have been tied up to the dock doing nothing. It’s just been more of a quiet phase.

We have explored the islands and added another 1800nm under our keel visiting almost all of the little notches in the coastline that are called “anchorages” in Hawaii. Best of all has been making Waikiki Yacht Club our Homeport, and meeting many people from Hawaii and from all over the world. WYC is unique because it the Crossroads of the Pacific.

Our plans upon our return to Seattle are to haul Starr and do a complete refit, including a new paint job. Next summer we will cruise back up to Alaska, before returning to Hawaii via the South Pacific. We look forward to retuning to Hawaii to rejoin our WYC friends.

Cruising with us on Starr are two friends from Honolulu:

David Schmidt – Dave is a former Coast Guard man, and was an engineer on tugboats in Hawaii. We met Dave on the docks at the Waikiki Yacht Club shortly after our arrival in Honolulu in 2009, and he was our “boat-watch guy” when we would fly home to Seattle. Dave stayed on Starr in Japan during a short trip home in the summer of 2010, and was part of our “crew” of friends who helped bring Starr back to Hawaii from Japan in 2011.

John Ruscetta – Dave introduced us to his friend John, just recently. We were looking for a 4th crewmember who is a diver, to come with us on this passage (in case we ran into tsunami debris that required a diver to clear, like a rope wrapped around the prop). John is a professional driver, is Captain of a commercial dive boat in Honolulu, and has always wanted to do an ocean crossing. We are happy to have him with us.

July 2011

The Problem:  Seawater intrusion through the Port Stabilizer assembly.

After departing from Ashiya, Japan on May 5, I noticed that there were a few drops of salty water dripping from the top of our port stabilizer.  I first …