m/v Tortuga is a Chesapeake 50 charter fishing boat that was purchased in Key West, Florida to be brought to Hawaii for charter fishing operations. The delivery through the Caribbean Sea and Panama Canal was done by another crew and the new owner of the boat hired me to do the final California to Hawaii leg, since I delivered the Pirate Ship for him before. The engineer since the Panama Canal, Dave remained onboard and Zach from the Sansiri delivery was available to join us in San Diego for the approximately 2400 NM 15 day transit motoring a great circle route to Hawaii.
We loaded the vessel up with about 2000 gal of diesel fuel in one big tote on deck and many smaller jugs below deck. The vessel by design is very top heavy and even with the smooth seas we mostly had on this voyage the boat rolled too much to stand watch at the helm, so we set the autopilot and spent as little time as possible in the pilot house, especially when the seas picked up.
Overall the voyage was very smooth and twin Caterpillar diesels ran perfectly all the way to Hawaii. Even caught a nice big tuna and enjoyed a mid ocean swim call a the halfway point.
