Pittsburgh

No – we didn’t fall off the face of the earth but internet service (even in Hawaii) has been pretty tough to come by. Now I understand why the harbor master at Ko Olina warned me that Hawaii is really third world as we even had difficulty there.

Iron Lady arrived at Ko Olina Marina on Oahu in Hawaii at the end of August after traveling more then 6800 nautical miles since her departure from New Zealand in May. I arrived back in Pittsburgh yesterday after helping Steve with our post season chores. He will be aboard until early October finishing things up and will join us in Pittsburgh for a few days after to enjoy the fall foliage here.

We will have a relief captain aboard to keep up with things between Steve’s departure and our arrival back aboard in March of 2014. Cruising plans currently call for a direct 2200 nautical mile passage to Kodiak Island in Alaska. We will then gradually make our way back down to the Vancouver area by September. It has long been a dream of mine to do this and I wouldn’t be too surprised if we went north again in 2015 – many folks devote a lifetime to cruising this piece of the world so two seasons really ins’t much.

My last post left you in the Tuamotus – which we are long gone from. That leaves all of the Marquesas in French Polynesia and additional stops at Christmas Island (Part of the Kiribati Line island Group) and Palmyra Atoll, a protectorate of the US Fish and Wildlife Service and the Nature Conservancy. Palmyra was truly spectacular and worth the effort to get the permits to go. We were only the third cruising boat to visit this year. This was followed by our final four day leap to Hawaii while keeping a weather eye to the east for bad stuff of the tropical sort along with the vagaries of the ITCZ and the uphill battle against the northeast trades.

So much yet to cover in future posts once I get thru the inevitable press of first days home.

Cheers