Aloha from Oahu

CLICK ON ANY PICTURE TO ENLARGE

Aloha we're currently in beautiful Oahu, Hawaii. The plan is to leave on Thursday, February 14th, for a shakedown day sail and overnight anchor. On Friday, February 15th we'll be heading across the Pacific Ocean bound for our first stop in the Marshall Islands, Majuro Atoll. We'll do some diving there, then head out to Pohnpe, Truk (Chuuk), Palau and lastly Cebu, Philippines. There will be lots of diving along the way at some incredible sites. We'll be updating the Blog site with written updates via the SSB radio along the way, and if we ever get a good internet connection we will put some updates with photos in.

We're traveling on the s/v Sugarcane which is currently docked in the Ala Wai Harbour. Sugarcane is a 55 foot Gulfstar Ketch Rig. The vessel is captained by Jerry Logan and we have a crew of three.





Originally we had a crew of four, Mike and I, John and Ian. John was the Mechanic/Fisherman and all around great guy, he is moving on to better opportunities.


Ian the Dive Instructor. Ian has gone back to Viet Nam working as a dive instructor. Unfortunately, we lost John and Ian, we will miss them we were looking forward to traveling with them.

The good news is that we found Bill, a retired Fire Fighter/Paramedic and a Mechanical Engineer. So now there are three.






It's taken us three weeks to get the boat ready, but the previous crew had already done two months worth of work. Then there is Dave the electrician/mechanic/magician and fixer of all things (except changing light bulbs) who has been a tremendous help in getting the boat ready. He lives here in Ala Wai Harbour on a Coast Guard boat that he bought and is refurbishing. He is retired Coast Guard.


We've had Sunday's off and have managed a few escapes between work while we've been here. We took a bus to the North Shore and saw the Pipeline unfortunately the waves were not breaking.





We accidently got off the bus too soon, and weren't quite sure where we were, but no worries we found something to do while we were there. It was a little local area, with a local park. Later that day we stopped somewhere on the North Shore for a great mexican food lunch and some cervesa. When we were leaving to catch the bus home we had a downpour hit and were starting to get soaked when a guy comes up to us with an umbrella and shares it with us...very cool... he helped us get the right bus back into Honolulu and catch the right bus back to marina. I know it's an island and it should be pretty straightforward to get around a circle...but look who your dealing with...we will get off the bus just to look at a beach, or a boat, or a person or a..well you get the picture :))))

We also visited Waikiki beach many times for swimming, sun, good food, drinks and sunsets, our favorite pastimes.













It's very crowded here in Honolulu but we have enjoyed our stay. To the left is the world famous Dukes. We tried to get in there and have a drink and look up an old friend from Huntington Beach who is a manager there, but it was soooo packed, we chose to walk.








As always we hope you all (or y'all) are doing well and we will be checking in when and if we can, we wish you a warmer, dryer and sunnier winter......



Aloha and Cheers Mike and Kim currently on the s/v Sugarcane

CREW NEEDED

We have a need for one (1) able bodied crew member to go from Honolulu HI to Marshall Islands, to Truuk, to Palau then Cebu, Philippines - 3-6 months time frame. It is a 54 foot Gulfstar, your own cabin, $1,000 month and airfare one way - what do you say? Must be able to sail, be able bodied, stand watches and general boat help. It is a dive trip, so along with working on the boat we will be diving all these spots so you need your own dive gear. We need this crew member ASAP - so any ideas let us know, it is going to be an awesome trip.

Cheers Kim and Mike email us at klangelk@yahoo.com

Adios Georgia!!!!

DOUBLE CLICK ON ANY PICTURE TO ENLARGE

Well........ we've had a change in plans - we are leaving Georgia for awhile. We have accepted crew positions on a 54 foot Gulfstar sailing vessel. She is currently docked in Honolulu, Hawaii where we will fly next Friday the 18th. From there we will be heading to the Marshall Islands. We are very excited about this new job opportunity and can't wait to get started. We will update the blog as often as we can to share our adventure.

We leave Delegal Marina on Monday to travel up the ICW to Thunderbolt Marina haul out where we will put Ka'imi on the hard (out of the water) while we are gone. The one great thing about Delegal Marina is it's Harbourmaster. You will always get a smile, a great attitude and a helping hand. Jimmie is the Harbourmaster, he does an excellent job and we will miss him a lot. Thanks for everything Jimmie!!!




We didn't see a lot of Savannah since we started working right away and we never had the same days off, but we did get out once in awhile. The Landings, which is the gated community that the Marina was in has some beautiful places to walk. We followed one of there nature trails one day and came across this spider - ewww.





We also saw lots of different butterflies, deer, birds, plant life and huge trees.








Next we headed for Tybee Island to see what that was like. We needed a sandy beach fix. We stopped at the Crab Shack on our way because we heard it had great atmosphere, which it did. The food was good and there were cats roaming around - you know where Kim was - and alligators out front.

The alligators were in a big pond out in front of the restaurant. They are bred and raised in captivity. They had fishing poles with strings on the end and if you got some alligator treats from the store you could feed them. We didn't but watched some kids feeding them, pretty scary to see those jaws open. I really don't want to go in the water with one of those!!! SEE THE VIDEO AT THE BOTTOM OF THE PAGE.

The beach was very nice and the water was still warm enough that you could of swam in it. Mike is walking on the bridge that goes from the street to the beach. Kim is on the pier.

We loved this insurance ad, we asked if he would insure our boat - but he said no only cars.






Here is a little bit of fog as we wake up one morning on the dock.










So we have both quit our jobs - Mike at the Plantation Golf Course. He wanted to say goodbye to Frank, Tom, Paul, Matt, Ed, Charlie, Austin, Bill, Richard, Lady Bob, Roy, the rest of the Rangers, his boss Brian and wanted to wish Jeremy good luck with that Caddy Job. He had a great time working with these guys.







Kim wanted to say goodbye to her friends at Home Depot - Jaime, Sandy, Sunny, Kia, Jennifer, Terry and Ebony.





Cheers for now and we will keep you updated on our new adventure to the South Pacific. Kim and Mike on Ka'imi

Jekyll Island to Skidaway Island

We stayed at Jekyll Island for a couple days. It was here that we learned how to communicate in the south. People here are very friendly and you will always get a "How y'all doin?" We would reply "Very well, thank you, how about yourself?" With that we got a quizical look and silence, so we thought we must be saying something wrong. We were determined to get to the bottom of this, so the next time we came across some people, we were the first to give the greeting. Mike said "How y'all doin?" and their replay was "Fiiiine" followed by "It's hot for sure though." Next people it was Kim's turn, "How y'all doin?" their reply "Goooood" followed by "Those clouds might make a visit." So we tried it out, when anyone asked how we were doing, we'd say Fiiiiine or Goood, and we got a smile in return and sometimes even a conversation. It was also here that we found out about Delegal Creek Marina and decided to give it a shot. We had asked about staying at Jekyll Island Marina because we wanted to stay in Georgia, but there was a long waiting list for long term transients, so we decided to head on to Skidaway Island and Delegal Creek Marina.

So here we are a Delegal Creek Marina in Savannah, Georgia working and saving money. We are getting alot of improvements done to the boat, like replacing all the port windows, replacing all all the hatch lexan and revarnishing the teak. We are also working on a new hot water heater, new showers, faucets and sinks, the list goes on. In the next posts we will show you a few pictures of the surrounding area, which is beautiful, and some of the improvements we have made.

Hope everyone has a very Merry Christmas, Cheers from Mike and Kim on Ka'imi

See VIDEO Of Conception Island

Click here to see the video of Conception Island.

Tiger Point Marina, Fernandino Beach, FL

CLICK ON PICTURES TO ENLARGE

Before we left on our road trip we made sure Ka'imi was safely hauled out and ready for the work to begin. The travel lift had a flat tire so they were not able to haul us out until the next day. They never power washed to bottom we had to do it by hand when we came back from South Carolina so we could get started on the sanding and painting. You can see the black creosole on the sides of Ka'imi from Seafarer's Marina which was very hard to remove. The water line is tape that was also very hard to remove, you can see where it had already started peeling off. That happened at soon as we launched in St. Martin, we used old tape :(.

Before they hauled us out, we gave them a picture of where to put the straps - but they obviously didn't use the picture because they broke the cable that goes from the keel to the skeg. We we asked him about it, the owner said oh ya, what do you have that on there for and do you want us to put it back? We thought a moment and said ---"YEESSS, we would please like you to put it back that way it was. It will hopefully protect our prop and strut from crab pot lines. Thank you very much." The lift bay is very shallow at low tide, and since they could not get our boat out right away, you see the mud on the rudder and skeg where Ka'imi had sat in the mud for awhile.

We cleaned and scrubbed the hull, cleaned and sanded the bottom and finally applied the bottom paint. It paid off, doesn't she look beautiful. While we are here in Georgia we will be replacing the back window and next time we haul out, we will be having the name plate redone. We had done it hurriedly when we left St. Martin when we changed to name of the boat to Ka'imi, so we hope to get a more professional job done next time.

One day we were talking to the owner of the yard when we heard a loud noise, then the crunching of metal then some loud profanities. Some guy had been working on one of the boats and removed a boat stand that he shouldn't have and the boat toppled over on it's side, luckily not damaging any other boats but crushing the guys truck who was working on the boat. Ooopss!!! Wish we would of taken a picture of that.

We are finally ready to launch and we say we want to go at slack tide. The owner puts us into the lift bay on the incoming tide and starts to launch us saying he can't wait - crap. To make matters worse they let the lines go too soon, even though Mike told them to hold them until his signal. Well Mike got us out of there, but it was very difficult. We were glad to be gone!!!! We hit the ICW and left Florida.

We anchored overnight in Georgia waters then headed to Jeckyl Island, Georgia

Cheers Mike and Kim on Ka'imi

Seafarer's Marina, Jacksonville, FL

CLICK ANY PICTURE TO ENLARGE

It was Memorial Day weekend, 2007, and we decided to head up the river to Seafarer's Marina in Jacksonville, Florida. We thought it was a good idea to get off the ICW for the weekend because there would be lots of traffic on the water and it would be a good time to rent a car and drive up the coast of Georgia and South Carolina to look at potential marinas to settle at. We call the marina and they say they have a slip for us no problem, so off we go.

We get to the marina and were not happy campers. First off, it doesn't have protection from three directions of the wind. It was the roughest seas in a marina that we have experienced. The chop was about 3 feet and they wanted us to go into a 35 foot slip with our 45 foot boat and the crosswinds were 20 knots. Captain Mike decided it was not a good scenario so we asked if we could tie off at that only other spot they had at the end of the dock. A tug had just left so the owner's son said we could give it a try. A portion of the end was damaged so we had one shot to come in with the crosswinds and the seas. We needed to go to the forward most portion of the slip, which Mike did and we threw our line to the dock. This is the unfortunate part, the dockhand didn't tie us up far enough and the current and the wind slammed us into the damaged part of the dock. We were stuck between a piling and the broken dock and our brand new stanchions that we had replaced in Venezuela were now bent on the starboard side, where the swim ladder hangs. Captain Mike did an excellant job of manuerving Ka'imi to safety and we finally got the lines tied. As we are on the docks securing the lines we notice that the tug had left a huge chain on the pilings and we were rubbing against it - further drama ensued as we got the chain off the posts. The seas were so rough, and they were slamming us into the dock, that we spent about two hours securing fenders and lines. We had a very sleepless night. When we woke up it was calm, slack tide and no wind, so we started the engine and gentle pulled into a more appropriate slip......although when the winds and seas picked up again it got pretty rough. To further add insult to injury they had creosote (a wood treatment) in the pilings which is a tar like substance that stains very badly. So here is Ka'imi with bent stanchions, scratches in the paint and tar all over her....not our best day. Click here for a video of the marina dock. This day was much calmer that when we came in, and you can see the end of the dock where we first tied off. Lesson learned - never go into a marina in conditions like that.

Since we were there and secured in a slip we went about trying to rent a car. We called five car rental places and none of them had cars available as it was labor day weekend. We were bummed, we had very little provisions because we didn't want to leave a lot of food on board if were going to be away. There were two tiny convenience stores within walking distance but they had very little to eat. Dominoes did deliver though, so we didn't have it so bad :). By Tuesday morning we were ready to LEAVE! At dawn the tide was in our favor so we let the lines loose and proceeded to back out of the slip when something in the wheel mechanism snaps and yep we lose our steering. Captain Mike was able to get us into open water clear of the boats and the dock and we threw out our anchor to see what had happened and to hook up our emergency tiller. It seems the steering cable housing broke off it's mount. So we hook up the emergency tiller, bring up the anchor and take a test run to see if we can get back into the slip. One person had to be at the helm controlling the throttle and the other was at the stern steering with the tiller. We decided we would head out into the open and anchor out instead of going back into the slip, which was hard enough to get into when we had good steering!

We finally jury-rigged the steering and had made the decision to find a haul out yard and pull Ka'imi out of the water to fix the steering, get the stuffing box fixed (which had gone from a drip to a pour) and get the bottom painted. We phoned around and decided to try Tiger Point Marina. It was pretty tense going down the river, about a day's travel, knowing that the steering could snap at any moment. We left the emergency tiller hooked up, just in case that did happen. We finally make it to Tiger Point Marina only to pull into a lift bay up a very narrow inlet that could only be accessed at slack tide otherwise you would be up against a cross current. The travel lift had a flat tire when we arrived so we couldn't be pulled out until the next day. Renting a car here was easy, so we got a rental car then rented ourselves a hotel room and had chinese take out, hot showers and a king size bed :))))))))))))))))))))))))). The next day we headed up the coast to South Carolina to see some marinas. We found a spot in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, the Myrtle Beach Yacht Club, put a deposit down and headed back to Tiger Point the next day.

Cheers, Mike and Kim on Ka'imi