Home

British sailors are world renowned for their sailing skills- exploring and taking over the world in the days of sailing ships. My good friend James is from the UK and we had always talked about how sailing in the English Channel was a totally different game. So I was really stoked to have the chance to experience it myself with James and Susanna recently on a charter sail out of Southampton. The boat we chartered from Hamble Point Marina, a Bavaria 36 is a really well designed boat – exactly the same model as my friend David’s in Portugal that we sailed the Algarve on.

Sailing in these latitudes could certainly be a lot colder than I’m used to in Hawaii, but luckily it’s summer so it’s not too cold. The days are long and we’re lucky we have good weather for the 5 days we’re planning to sail. The plan is to charter the boat from Southampton and sail out the Solent, across the English Channel to Guernsey island and back. Guernsey is part of the channel islands of the English Channel, off the coast of France, that have a unique history resulting in their autonomous political status. Honestly, I didn’t know anything about the Channel islands until I got here and making landfall and exploring I learned more.

But first, to sail across the English channel we had to experience what makes British sailors so good… the tides and currents! I’ve studied about sailing in tides and currents but honestly never really had a reason to care too much about them, especially in Hawaii. But in this part of the world if you don’t take into consideration the tides and currents, you’re not going anywhere. James looked into this very carefully and actually had the trip all planned out before we even started, researching the exact time and flow of the tidal current and timing our passages through the Solent, out past the Isle of Wight and into the English Channel so that we were surfing with the tides, not against. Of course on a passage lasting more than a half a day, you’re going to have a counter flow so we have to also set our course so that we’re not losing ground or being pushed off course. All this requires very precise navigation, or a lot of wasted time.

We didn’t waste time at all, sailing quickly across the English Channel at night, we arrived on the other side off the coast of France in time to catch the current past La Hague and Alderney island, past Sark and Herm to Guernsey island. There’s a big harbor with available dock space that we were able to easily get and safely tie up to go out and explore Guernsey. The island is an interesting place that has more historical ties to the UK but became independent at one point when England and France were at war. Guernsey had an interesting experience in WW2 as well, being one of the last places liberated despite being so close to Normandy. The local WW2 museum completely leaves out any mention of the US.

We wanted to stay longer on Guernsey but looking at the tide charts it made sense to cut our visit short and head back across the channel early. This turned out to be a good plan as it gave us an opportunity to stop in Yarmouth on the Isle of Wight. Sailing again across the channel in good wind conditions, mostly at night we sail past the Needles rocks at the tip of the Isle of Wight and into Yarmouth harbor. This historic and picturesque town is amazing. The wonderful thing about the Isle of Wight is that is was mostly spared from bombing in WW2 so a lot of the old historic buildings still stand and are well preserved. There is a rich nautical culture here, the marina is nice and welcoming and it’s a nice place to stop long enough to explore. After safely tying up in the harbor, we took a bus to explore the island, as far as the Needles rocks on land and back to Cowes to check out what James says is the center of UK yachting life. This place gets crazy fun during the race around Isle of Wight that ends in Cowes. Definitely want to come back for that!

After exploring Isle of Wight it’s only about a half day sail from Yarmouth up the Solent back to Southampton, if you time the tides right. Which we did and end up back where we started with another cool sailing adventure down on the books!

One of my former sailing students bought a new Max Marine 48 cruising catamaran and asked me to help them bring it part way home, from near Singapore through Indonesia to West Papua New Guinea (Raja Ampat). We needed one other crew for the trip on s/v Taz so of course we asked our favorite crew member – Zach to join us too. Other crew were to continue and finish the trip to Palau and ultimately Guam. I flew ahead of Zach first into Singapore, took a ferry and met Paul and the boat in Batam island. The plan was just for me and Paul, the owner to sail the first leg to Bali and prick up Zach and re-provision there. The first leg, down the coasts of Sumatra and Java was to be pretty straightforward for only two crew. However the second leg from Bali to Sorong in West Papua New Guinea was going to be more challenging with a lot of reefs and islands to avoid so we need Zach to join is for that. Plus Zach always brings the laughs and good vibes!

s/v Taz is a very beautiful and well equipped brand new boat with every technical upgrade including twin hybrid diesel electric engines. I’m very impressed with the design of the Max Marine catamaran. The layout is very well thought out and they seem to have all the angles and ergonomics figured out. The staterooms even have USB C chargers. Paul the owner is very tidy and clean, which is my style too so this is a very comfortable ride. Paul is also a serious a sailor so he has all the sails and intends to use them: not just your standard main and jib/ genoa but an asymmetric spinnaker and a code zero head sail for when you can’t decide between a spinnaker and genoa.

The sail with Paul down the coast of Sumatra and Java took about 4 days as the boat sailed fast mostly down wind. Paul wanted to switch the sails every time the wind changed slightly, which kept me on my toes but it was an experience that I don’t usually get to practice on s/v Gemini or other simpler boats. Not as much boat traffic as I expected on this leg but as we approached Bali I was quite appalled to see so much trash in the water! It was a sea of trash and we were worried that some of it would get sucked into our engine, luckily it didn’t.

Sailing into north Bali, around Menjangan island in to Benyuwedang bay, we had the full sails up screaming along in good winds until the end. As we entered the bay, we had to navigate around some reefs that were well marked on the chart plotter but we still managed to bump something as we circled around looking for a good spot to drop the anchor. Diving in, we saw that we actually damaged the rudder- but luckily the Max Marine catamaran is so well designed that the rudder was easy to drop and remove in the water. After wee met Zach on shore, we were able to bring the rudder ashore and we found a local metal shop in Bali that was able to bend it back for us and do some minor fiberglass repair. The few days they took to do that gave Zach and I an opportunity to explore Bali a little bit and we took a day trip to Ubud and went free diving on Menjangan island- some of the best diving I’ve ever done!

Once the rudder was repaired, reinstalled and we topped up on fuel and provisions, we set off to the north east from Bali through the Banda Sea, south of Sulawesi and up towards West Papua New Guinea. The sail was nice and uneventful and once we got to Raja Ampat it became paradise. Jungly islands and a particularly pleasant pass through a narrow straight at daybreak before arriving in Sorong. Sorong, the capital of West Papua New Guinea, at first seemed very sketchy and poor. We learned a lot about the sad local politics that you don’t ever hear about but after spending a few days here the place warmed up and we could see it’s lovely character. A side trip by ferry to Waigeo to check out diving in Raja Ampat was a check off the bucket list. Too bad we couldn’t stay longer but Zach and I had to fly out from there and left with awesome memories!

My good friend and primo David bought a nice new Bavaria 36 yacht in Albufeira, Portugal and invited me and our friend Phil to join him sailing on s/v Alma along the Algarve coast of southern Portugal. Flying into Lisbon first, we all met up and explored this historic and beautiful city, before driving down to Albufeira to check out the boat. David got a really nice yacht, the Bavaria 36 is very well designed, comfortable down below and topside, and she sails well too!

Cruising out of Albufeira harbor, this picturesque part of the historic city, modern yachts sit next to traditional and brightly colored fishing boats. The harbor is one of the most colorful and fun that I’ve ever seen, with a nice promenade surrounded by restaurants, shops and really cute apartments/ hotels that I’d love to live in. We’re having just as much fun on land here as sailing, having some of the best seafood and vinho verde with every meal… but we did come here for sailing.

Sailing with David and Phil on s/v Alma is amazing. Alma means spirit in Portuguese and David’s yacht certainly has that. One interesting thing about sailing in Portugal is that all the boats have Polish flags. Portugal has some strict rules about private boats but being part of the EU, people find it more convenient just to get Polish registry. So our boat has a Polish flag and they sell lots of them in the local chandlery.

The winds aren’t too strong here in the summer so it’s light sailing along the coast on this 3 day trip. Just day sailing, we’re going back into port at night and sleeping on the boat in the marina. We actually only make it as far as Portimão, deciding to stop at a few anchorages along the way to admire the beautiful cliffs that remind me a lot of San Diego, where I’m from. The waves are calmer here though and there’s anchorages where we stop and go for a swim. The water is calm, the anchorage is secure and the beach is close enough that we’re able to swim ashore and back to the boat. Fun times!

I’m very fortunate to know people like David and his family who hosted me and Phil and showed us an amazing time in Albufeira and Lisbon. I’m definitely coming back to Portugal again!

One of the coolest families I ever sailed with in Hawaii bought a boat in Fiji, sailed it down to New Zealand and asked me to fly over and help them sail it to French Polynesia. Usually people sail the other way downwind, but this is where the boat was and that’s where they wanted to go. The ancient Polynesians sailed that way upwind so this great opportunity to sail with Tore and his sons on their Leopard 46 catamaran s/v Gobe would be an amazing experience to see how the ancient voyagers did it.

I flew in to Aukland New Zealand, where I met Tore and we drove a few hours to Opua, where s/v Gobe was docked. Opua near the Bay of Islands is a wonderful beautiful place that has a very nice sailing and yachting scene. Several boat yards and chandleries and nice marinas, it’s hard to leave New Zealand. But that’s what I came here for so we got the boat ready, stocked with provisions and Tore, his two sons and I set sail across the South Pacific.

Planning this trip, we wanted to go at the right season, before the southern hemisphere winter. The plan was to get to the Marquesas islands where Tore’s wife would join the family and they would sail down wind and take their time exploring the islands together. My job was to help them with the “hard part” of sailing upwind. However the hard part wasn’t as hard as it could’ve been since we were lucky to have a good weather window with favorable winds to sail a rhumb line instead of going south. The voyage started off cold but soon got warmer as we pointed mostly north east from New Zealand.

The main thing that made this “hard voyage” actually very easy was that the boat was equipped with Starlink. Tore installed it and had a roaming plan for basically unlimited internet use in the middle of the ocean so it was crazy… we actually had full internet access the whole voyage which meant we had Premium Predict Wind subscription, which we checked everyday and kept us on the safest, straightest course. Having full internet access at sea meant that we could also check our emails, do our land based work and even video chat with our friends and families on shore. Starlink is a total game changer! Honestly it sort of takes the fun out of sailing if you don’t truly disconnect, I almost felt like we were cheating. But just for fun though we did practice celestial navigation and got some interesting sights on southern hemisphere stars.

The plan was to just sail straight for the Marquesas but looking at the chart and our route, you know what… this island called Rarotonga was just right in front of us. Rarotonga was almost exactly halfway along our route and after about two weeks of sailing we were itching to get off and explore so on the fly we decided to make a port visit. In times past it would’ve been a hassle to make a port visit on the fly like this but with Starlink we were able to research the formalities, got in touch with the Harbormaster, sent them our paperwork and we were welcomed when we got there. Another boat that came after us without prior permission wasn’t so lucky.

Approaching Rarotonga we had the worst weather on the trip and had to wait out a storm in the lee of the island before entering port. Add to that drama we had an issue with engine oil alarm giving a faulty reading, gave us more of a scare, but we managed to safely enter port. In Rarotonga we were lucky to have a nice med mooring in the main harbor, which was a convenient walking distance from everything. We stayed in Rarotonga about a week, rented a car, explored the island, checked out some beaches and did an awesome hike across the island. I was even able to go on a dive trip and got a tattoo. Rarotonga is an amazing place and we felt like we could’ve stayed longer but we had to continue the voyage.

The second half of the trip across the South Pacific just got warmer and nicer as we approached French Polynesia. We sailed past Tahiti and through the Tuamotus. The Tuamotus atolls are a little scary to navigate through, especially at night and I don’t know how sailors did it in times past. I’m sure there’s lots of shipwrecks around there, but with accurate GPS and chart plotters it’s easy to navigate. We wished we could’ve stopped to check out these beautiful atolls but the Marquesas were our goal and final destination and the larger island of Nuku Hiva was just about 3 days sail past the Tuamotus and on our horizon one morning when we woke up to a glorious sunrise.

Nuku Hiva feels like the edge of the Earth. One of the most isolated places in the world, it is still very much stuck in time and even though they’re not small islands, they have a small population so you feel very remote and exotic. The island is green but surprisingly not the kind of green you see on other tropical islands, as the Marquesas are out of the prevailing winds and have more of the trees you see in higher latitudes. The anchorage was wide and protected with high mountains on each side, with quite a few other visiting boats, big and surprisingly small joining us. Taking the dinghy to shore, the dinghy dock was right by where they clean the day’s catch of fish and discard the rest of the fish into a feeding frenzy of large sharks right by where we tie our dinghy- don’t fall in.

Nuku Hiva was amazing. We found some nice beaches, went for a swim, found a nice restaurant overlooking the bay and a nice local market selling all sorts of local wood carvings and artwork to bring home. After exploring Nuku Hiva a bit and taking a long drive to the smallest airport I’ve ever seen, I flew to Tahiti, explored a little more and caught my flight back home to Hawaii.

Did you know that Guatemala was a sailing destination? No, neither did I until my sailing student and good friend Claes found this really awesome Hallberg Rassy 35 yacht, s/v Safari in Guatemala of all places! Guatemala has a long Pacific Coast but just a small coastline on the Caribbean side where the Rio Dulce meets the Caribbean Sea. The Rio Dulce carves a steep pass through the country and makes a spectacularly beautiful turn through jungly cliffs and opens up into el Golfete and Lago Izabal. In Golfete especially, there are numerous secluded hideaway resorts which are dotted nearby a few well equipped boatyards where skilled local Guatemalans work with foreigners in the know to refit their yachts in this hurricane safe haven. This is where Claes found his boat, had it refitted in the RAM boatyard and had it docked at the Hotel Catamaran where I met him.

Hotel Catamaran is the kind of place that you never want to leave- a really cool community of expat yachties who bond over drinks at the bar every evening, coffee in the morning and volunteer helping the local orphanage during the day- a truly wonderful place. But Claes had to move his boat out of the country since he just bought it and its allowed stay was expiring. The plan was flexible, possibly sailing all the way to Sweden, where he’s from but at least check out some of the destinations on this side of the Caribbean. We decided on sailing out of the Rio Dulce, check out Utila Honduras, back track and check out Belize and then head up the coast of the Yucatan up to Mexico and keep the boat in Isla Mujeres if we ran out of time and couldn’t go any further this round.

So that’s what we did. After fixing a few things on the boat and getting a new dinghy motor from the professional Guatemalan boat people here, we got provisions in the Golfete town of La Frontera. This wild bustling place is on the edge of a busy road with trucks big tires inches away from your toes, blowing exhaust in your face, toxic pollution if you look to your right, beautiful pristine nature if you look to your left – a weirdly surreal experience since we found it easy to stock up on plenty of fresh produce and very easy to eat healthy here. The local supermarket even had a whole section of chia based foods and the local Guatemalan brand of ready mix Ono Chia, Chiabena!

Before we set out, we had to make a trip by launcha boat to Livingston, the main town on the mouth of the Rio Dulce, where Customs and Immigration are located. This cool little town has a lot of character and is fun to explore- we didn’t mind having to wait and come back a few times to get our paperwork done. But once our papers are stamped, we had to go. Cruising down the Rio Dulce, it’s about a full day motor cruise, looking up at the spectacular jungly cliffs all around really puts you in awe of nature.

At the mouth of the Rio Dulce, entering the Caribbean Sea is where it gets interesting. The Rio Dulce deposits silt that makes the entrance very shallow, about 2 ft deep in some places on the marked channel so you have to transit only at the highest tide and even then you’re almost guaranteed to run aground! I don’t know how bigger boats do it, except like we did by just powering through the mud and when you get stuck, just rock your boat every which way to wiggle your boat through the mud. Crazy!

Once we left Guatemala, we turned right and headed for Utila Honduras. Just wanted to explore this place, we heard it was cool so about 1 day sail away in good conditions we got there, anchored out and dinghied in to the main harbor. Checking in with the local authorities was relatively quick and painless as long as you have all your paperwork. Utila is a really cool little island that caters to more adventurous travelers with a few nice bars, restaurants and dive resorts everywhere. Utila is really well known by divers and so I decided to book a boat dive from Utila Dive Center. The diving around Utila is really nice. Taking a dive boat to the further north end of the island is where some of the nicer reefs are and it’s truly a diver’s paradise. We finished our exploration of Utila with a little red moto-taxi ride around the island to check out some of the other sites, like the iguana farm and the resort at the end of the road, and then back to the harbor.

We can’t stay too long on Utila so we check out and we’re off to Belize. Sailing about 2 days up along the coast of the Yucatan, there’s many reefs to avoid. There’s one big reef system that we had to navigate between that and the coast to get into the reefs that guard the coast of Belize. We decided to check out Ambergris Cay, and the cruising guides say the best place to enter is right there by San Pedro, where we wanted to anchor and explore anyway. Getting into the anchorage isn’t too hard as the cruising guides are pretty descriptive. Once at the anchorage, it’s actually pretty shallow and the day we arrived it’s pretty windy so we were a little nervous about setting the anchor but it all worked out well. We arrived too late to check in but the next morning we take care of all that and then explore Belize. Honestly, after Utila Belize seems a little less exotic since English is the official language and the place caters to less adventurous American tourists with more expensive resorts dotted between poorer looking buildings. Gas powered golf carts everywhere too so it’s loud and kind of chaotic on some of the roads.

In Belize I got a chance to go diving again. The first day we were there it was too windy and rough for boat dives and it had been for a few days. So the day I went it was the first day of boat dives for a awhile and this turned out to be awesome because all the fish – and sharks! … had a chance to come back and we saw lots of them. The sharks were especially curious and fearless and some big ones swam pretty close to our group. After diving, Claes and I enjoyed some of the best conch ceviche and found the coolest shopping market for souvenirs and got our friends and families some really unique things like woven baskets and intricately designed bottles with colorful artwork.

After a short but fun stop in Belize, Claes and I continue our sailing adventure up the Yucatan coast to Mexico. We set a course for Isla Mujeres, because we heard it’s the most popular and favorite place to stop for passing yachts. The 2 day sail up the coast and past the island of Cozumel, and passing by the resort city of Cancun, we finally arrive in Isla Mujeres. The sounds of partiers on the beaches can be heard out on the clear blue water as we arrive and we just know before we step foot on land that this place is going to be fun. We weren’t disappointed. The fuel dock when we first arrive is where the port agent is located and they help us with the formalities and give us some ideas of where to dock. We didn’t make arrangements for dock space before arriving, since we didn’t know what it would be like and wanted to check it out. But it’s not a problem to leave the boat on the port agent’s dock while explore a bit and find a longer term solution, since we figured we’ve run out of time on this trip and need to keep the boat here for a little while.

Of the several places to dock your boat in Isla Mujeres, we found Oscar’s Marina to be the best place that had availability for us so we motored the boat up the lagoon aways and navigated through the shallow pass to the dock. The marina, part of a restaurant seems old and quiet when we arrived but has a lot of character and looks like the kind of place that could host some really fun parties. The other boaters and staff of Oscars are really friendly and offered to take care of s/v Safari while we unfortunately had to leave and end this amazing voyage here for now.

It’s 2020, the world is on Covid lockdown. What’s your escape plan? A friend of mine had the idea to buy a boat in Tahiti and sail away with it. But life got in the way and he couldn’t get the boat out of Tahiti so he called me and Zach again, along with another friend we recruited along the way, Mallorie and we hopped on a plane and flew down to Tahiti to get s/v Enfants Terribles, a Fontaine Pajot Salina 48 cruising catamaran to bring to Hawaii.

This was to be my first time visiting Tahiti and my impression when I got there… Tahiti is way underrated. I mean, Tahiti is way more awesome than it sounds! Words can’t describe how beautiful this place is and if you’re someone like me who loves tropical paradise, -and- Europe, then Tahiti is truly magical. Unfortunately we didn’t get to explore much, just a a day trip to Morea on the ferry and then we had to get the boat ready for the trip. The owner was there and helped us as much as he could to prepare the boat with everything and introduced us to another friend, Nicola who we met and joined us as our 4th person on the boat.

s/v Enfants Terribles is fully kitted out. The boat has 4 private cabins and heads so we each have our own private space. The boat is very technically equipped too with all the best electronics and alternative energy generation, i.e. a really cool hydro generator that makes more than enough power while we’re under sail. The twin Yanmars will come in handy though when we cross the equator where there’s typically very light variable wind. This will be an interesting experience to see how the Polynesians came from Tahiti to Hawaii.

The voyage plan is to sail straight up the Line Islands of Kiribati. The owner doesn’t mind if we stop along the way but we won’t really be able to since it’s a world pandemic right now and we can’t get country clearance to visit the country’s inhabited islands. It was hard enough flying to Tahiti, having to get a Covid test and quarantine.

Departing in ideal conditions, s/v Enfants Terribles sails like a dream and feels like a floating condo. The three week trip goes by very fast, cruising within view of the uninhabited and jungly Caroline Island, where we attempted to stop and explore but couldn’t find an anchorage and Zach was almost attacked by sharks swimming around checking out the reef. Lesson learned: one waving arm means distress if you’re using the other arm to fend off with a speargun. Another island we passed, Maulden island was mysteriously barren and we learned later that it was the test site for a British atomic bomb blast in the 1960s, still only a few pathetic looking palm trees and ruined building on the island.

Crossing the Equator was an opportunity for a Crossing The Line Ceremony. Nicola and I were Shellbacks, myself having crossed the Equator in the Navy, Nikola helped me induct Zach and Mallorie into the realm of King Neptune’s court. Something to do while crossing the Equator and the International Date line twice! Look at a map, Kiribati does this weird shape so in this part of the ocean you don’t really know what date it is for awhile. The Equator is in the part of the ocean also known as the Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ), which has stalled prevailing winds, the Doldrums are really a thing and we had to motor for about 200 miles. I don’t know how the ancient voyagers did it.

Once we crossed into the northern hemisphere things seemed to start to speed up. We caught the biggest tuna I’ve ever caught, hardly put up a fight but fed us for a while. Wonderful trip overall and I was very fortunate to have an opportunity to travel and sail like this while the world was going crazy with Covid.