Mahi Mahi and More Mahi Mahi

I think we have been out for a while now…. All the days are starting to blend together, though some stand out items included some great spinnaker sailing (again), and lots of fishing. We landed 5, including one we guestimated at 30+ pounds and at least 8 got away. I have almost perfected my Mahi filleting skills, but it is not fast as I am crouched over the fish on the swim deck of the boat. It does keep the mess contained, but the space is cramped without a 3+ foot fish on there with you. Hopefully all the pictures the crew has taken turn out.

Dave and i lost a big one about 40 minutes ago, it was at the side of the boat, then the leader broke or the hook snapped, but it was gone. Earlier today, i saw about 8 Mahi charging at our lures. I was looking out the back of the boat, when one jumped coming in at about 90 degrees of the boat, then right behind that 4 more.. then 2 or 3more. They were going super fast. it is a fun fish to catch.

We have spent many hours motoring, and many more sailing. The sailing today was a surprise for me, I expected we would be motoring for many more miles to the next pressure system, but our total motor hours today were about 6 or 8. So far fuel levels are about what I expected, so that is a bit of stress off.
We are just starting to get into the "garbage zone", but so far it feels like there is less than on the way down here. Maybe our route? Maybe someone cleaned up while we rested in Maui?

Turnagain is the blue one in the middle

Dinner today was Mahi, rice, spinach salad with a great pineapple salsa….. no one has had any issues with the food yet : ( I think "yet" is the key word there). The biggest current issue it appears we may run into is freezer space for the fish!!!! Hopefully, that is the biggest issue we will have on the trip. We are hoping to start getting into the albacore tuna range once we hit 39N (about 400 miles north of where we are), so we will keep the Mahi coming and freezing (or eating) that until they stop biting our hooks then try to arrange our freezer space so we can have some tuna as well.

We are missing our loved ones back home, but making the best of a GREAT sail so far.

Turnagain

Waikiki

July 28, 2014 9:00pm

After loading the boat and having a quick bite to eat at the Pioneer Inn, we slipped our mooring for Honolulu. Winds were light and "from every direction", so we chose to motor for the first 45minutes to hour. Then there was WIND!!!.. we quickly got the sails out and had steady pressure to 28kts with gusts to 35. Turnagain was in her element, rocketing along at 10-14kts. Slowly the wind built as we got closer to Molokai to a steady 35 and gusts to 38kts. Our top speed for the sail over to Honolulu was into the 16s, but I was not watching as I was busy driving, Dave had a keen eye on the speedo though and was saying something about 16.4kts. Not bad for white sails!

We made quick work of the 75miles to Honolulu and pulled into the Hawaii Yacht Club "Aloha Dock" at 7pm.  We rafted to an Andrews 56 that had completed the Pacific Cup (from San Francisco) around the same time as our Vic-Maui completion. We got straight to sharing beer and swapping war stories.  The furthest in boat of our raft was Tatoosh (sp?), an 80ft wood sailboat that has quite a history, including being owned by Peter Fonda at some point in its history (according to the crew and totally unverified).  The Turnagain crew quickly made for some shore food as we knew we would be on the boat a lot over the next few weeks and ended up eating at the Tropics bar on Waikiki beach.  Service was great, food was average, but I was able to eat way too much.

We will be in Honolulu until Wednesday am, at which time we will leave and head to Ko' Olina for fuel and then around the west side of the island and on to the Strait of Juan De Fuca.

Until tomorrow

Travis

Homeward Bound

Time has passed REALLY quickly since the race officially finished.  Everyone consumed their fair share of mai-tais and coconut shrimp over the past week, and now it's time for the return trip.  Losloper is staying in Hawaii for the season (lucky dogs), and Kahuna will be heading to Honolulu for mast repairs of course!

Ty, Adam, Steve T, Travis, and Jason.
Missing are Steve C and Darin.
In the background is Kinetic with El Ropey...you'll have to
ask them for details!

Callum, Daylie, Sylvia, and Travis with the trophy

The Awards Banquet was perfect....great music, perfect sunset backdrop, and a million trophies to hand out. Turnagain won best in division (never mind the fact it's the slow division...), and of course a few boats cleaned up! (don't need to mention who THEY were...cough cough....Longboard).  Of course Anduril won the trophy for best race to San Fran, wink wink.  Congrats to all!

Five Boats (Avalon, Longboard, Kinetic, Family Affair and Turnagain) will be carrying trackers on the voyage home. Their position can be followed at:  http://yb.tl/vicmaui2014return for the Full Yacht Tracker. Note: this is a different link to the tracker than for the race.  

Turnagain is in blue now

Over the past few days Travis has been joined by MacKenzie, Dave, Eric, and Elisa for the return trip.  Elisa had planned on delivering Kahuna back to the continent, but alas, without a mast that would be difficult so she's joining the guys on Turnagain for the trip back. They left the docks in Lahaina this morning en route to Honolulu for a few days (for provisioning and a better wind angle home).  

Wishing them a safe and fun trip home!