Captain: Adam
First Mate: Brooke
Day 1, 05/22/2015:
Easy sail over to Pokai today. We were expecting to meet Tide Roller with Captain Brett outside the Pearl Harbor entrance and so sloooowly sailed by in light winds lying in wait. I guess we wouldn’t make much of a blockage back in the day because he somehow snuck out. He must have beat us to the entrance and motored on ahead. After an hour of waiting, we sent a text and got word he was almost to Pokai Bay already!! With the crappy winds and slow going, Brooke and I reluctantly started the engine after spending some time over the side scrubbing the hull clean of algae. Rounding the breakwater into the bay we saw Tide Roller on the hook along with two other friends’ sailboats floating serenely nearby. Captains Markus, Brett, Wade, and I joined forces and began 3 days of heavy drinking, dinghy runs and nights at Sunset Cafe. Total time under way: 9 hours and 30 minutes! Ouch.
Day 2-3, 05/23-24/2015:
The next couple days we picked up and dropped off friends from the beach, watched crazy-Marcus jump off the top of his mast, learned that there are no legal dinghy drops on the beach (Wade and Sarah got a $300 ticket) and generally relaxed while drinking beer together. We also went for an exhilarating 2 hour sail with Tim, Rachel, Star, Katy, Mal, Matt, Josh and Brandi. Where was the wind yesterday?? Note for the future: The only legal pick-up point is the marina located at the northwest end of the bay. Even taking off the motor and rowing to the beach is illegal. In fact, it’s even worse: No stand-up paddling to the beach! The police called it “illegal moorage.”
Day 4, 05/25/2015:
The run home had better wind and we made it back to the channel entrance in three hours without motoring. However, we did have one eventful stop at Ko-olina Marina on the way back. The huge mega-sloop Encore was moored in there and we decided to take a look at the 145 foot behemoth. We entered the marina and sailed by as she was moored against the pier. At the other end we tacked for the exit and were quite slow in light wind. Of course, just as we were alongside Encore, a gust of wind hit the jib turning us towards the ship. I immediately turned the engine on (it was ready to go just in case) and hit the gas. It looked like it was going to be way too close for comfort and as we drifted towards the $70 million sloop we both started shoving off as we slowly slid by. Whew! That was close!!! Unfortunately, it turns out we did leave a light scratch about 2 feet long in the paint, most likely from one of our stanchions. We tied up, talked with the boat’s crew, waited an hour for the captain and exchanged insurance info. Looks like my insurance may have to pay around $40,000 to fix the $1 million paint job. My lesson? Never have your sails up while in tight quarters next to $70 million boat!
P.S. Still waiting to hear back from the insurance company.
