Hawaii

I flew into Honolulu on the evening of Tuesday July 26, picked up my rental car, and immediately headed over to the Ilikai Hotel to check on Barking Spider's progress. The race committee staff let me know that they weren't expected to cross the finish line off of Diamond Head until 9 am the next morning. This was good news for me, as I would get to see them cross the finish line and greet them as they arrived. I happened to run into David's wife, Carolyn, who said she'd call me in the morning so I could join her family on the "follow me" boat which would lead the Barking Spider from the finish line to the marina. Great! So at 5:30 am (which is fortunately 8:30 am Pacific Time, which is where my head still was), I got my wakeup call, and was off to the marina. We headed out to the finish line in a little power boat with some memebers of the Hawaii Yacht Club.

As we headed out of the marina, I noticed surfable waves breaking adjacent to the narrow channel. One of the Hawaiians said during rough weather, the waves break in the channel. In fact, once he saw a sail boat get rolled over on the approach, and the helmsman get tossed off. His story got better. The boat then righted itself, did a 360 turn, and came back at the swimmer, near the break. When the boat rolled again, the guy saw his chance and grabbed onto the boat, made it back on, and motored out of there. Sounded pretty incredible. Then Carolyn piped up and said, "Hey... that was Hans. The guy Marianne circumnavigated with." Small world. Marianne said she has pictures of it, which I'll try to get a hold of.

Anyway... back to the boating story at hand... we motored out toward Diamond Head, watching the little spec which was the Barking Spider growing in the distance. The seas were calm, it was warm and breezy, and the intermittant spray felt good. As they crossed the line between the lighthouse and channel marker denoting the finish, we all cheered. They looked really happy. You may notice in the photo to the left that they're flying only one sail. And that the boom is lashed onto the deck instead of hanging above the deck like it usually does. The pin holding the boom to the mast sheared about 250 miles from the finish line, so they had to finish with just the headsail. Note for sailing geeks only: While in the Molokai Channel, they hoisted the spinaker to try to make a good looking finish. However, without the mainsail to stabilize the boat, the helm was unable to control the boat. They pitched from one side to the other, and ended up following going around in a circle before putting the genoa back up (see the chart at right).

The equipment failure and the light, variable winds contriubuted to their arrival two days later than David had been hoping. They had anticipated being able to hoist the spinaker and leave it there for 9 days, doing a nice easy downwind sail, but that wasn't how it ended up going. To try to keep up with the changes in the wind strength, they were alternating between the spinaker and genoa at least once per day. Sail changes are exhausting. Although the crew were tired when they arrived, they didn't let that stop them from enjoying cold drinks, fresh fruit, dry land, and new company.

David spent only three days in Hawaii, just enough to resupply, fix the boom, attend the parties, and then he loaded up the next crew and headed for Glacier Bay and then Juneau, AK. While I was in the hospital a few weeks earlier, I thought that I might be able to rejoin the crew for the sail to Alaska. However, as the date grew closer I was not healing as fast as I was hoping I would. My lung capacity was slowly increasing, but Xrays still showed a lot of fluid in there. The inspirometer gadget (measures how much you can breathe in) showed my lung capacity was at 500 mL at the hospital, then 1500 mL a week later when friends came to visit. They all gave it a try, and it turned into a strange little competition. The smokers averaged 3,500 mL and Sam maxed it out at 5,000 mL (way to go, Sammy). So I still had a ways to go to get back to normal. I could go for slow, short walks and got tired easily. I couldn't lift anything, but I was beginning to be able to raise my right and then left arm. Which was very exciting for me. Showering is difficult and exhausting when you can't easily reach all the parts you want to wash. So, anyway, I decided that I wasn't fit for sailing... or even being a passenger on a sailboat, as I really didn't have the arm strength to keep from flailing about.

But that meant I had more time to spend in Hawaii!! My friend Jenny Ryan had recently moved to Waikiki from Santa Cruz. She let me stay in her second bedroom and was a fabulous tour guide. Although you can't actually see it in the picutre, it somewhere behind us, just below Diamond Head -- a choice location near the park, the beach, the Diamond Head Grill, and a walking distance to the Waikiki tourist strip. She took me for a walk through the botanical gardens near the Manoa Falls. The flowers were amazing, as were the mosquitos.

Niels joined us, after the boat left, leaving him without a bunk. Jenny took us up to the north shore to a beach with swimming turtles -- which were very difficult to photograph -- and to the best fabulous mahi mahi burger place. The next day we went on a hike one the windward side and then to a beach with sand that was like sugar. Jenny introduced us to the love of her life -- shave ice. We ate some poke (like a salad of sashimi), checked out a ukelele festival in the park across from her house, and went shopping at the flea market. All and all a good time.

And all the walking, sunshine and ahi did wonders for me. My doctor was quite impressed by the recovery my lungs are making. She has cleared me to meet the Barking Spider in Juneau and sail down the Inside Passage to Vancouver. However, I'm not allowed to lift anything or to fish. Which is going to be difficult...