Since our last HAWK update, we've sailed 6,000 nautical miles, covering some 67 degrees of latitude and 50 degrees of longitude, in forty days at sea. We took two short breaks of less than a week in French Polynesia, on Raivavae in the Austral Islands and Makemo in the Tuamotus. We're now two-thirds of the way through our voyage to the Pacific Northwest, and enjoying a much-needed break on Oahu in the Hawaiian Islands.

We could summarize our voyage to date with the single word: Contrary. Nothing has been quite as we expected, or as the pilot charts predicted. Our biggest challenge has been getting north as almost all of our winds for the past two months have come from the northerly quarter. Instead of running before a consistent, light to moderate westerly winds in the roaring forties, we had to make headway into a series of northeasterly gales, the last with sustained winds over 40 knots and gale force winds for almost 48 hours. Instead of making fast northing running in front of the southeast trades from 20�S to north of the equator, we had over two weeks of westerly winds, and for the entire four-day passage from Raivavae to Makemo we were close-reaching into northwest winds. When we finally did find some tradewinds south of the equator, they were northeasterly. After passing through the 300-mile wide doldrums belt, we found ourselves close reaching into reinforced northeast trades of 25-30 knots, and we were grateful for every mile of easting we had made.

All of that northerly wind meant that we spent over thirty of those forty days with the apparent wind forward of 60 degrees, the boat heeled over at 20-30 degrees, waves washing over the decks, and almost all the ports and hatches closed in 90 degree heat to keep water from getting below. Only on the last day of the passage, sailing down the coast of the "big island" of Hawaii and the smaller islands beyond it, were we able to ease sheets and run dead downwind, the boat flat and fast, and life aboard close to civilized. We spent much of the time when we were heeled over and beating our way to windward sitting in the cockpit and weaving intricate fantasies together of an alternate life in a little cabin in the woods in the mountains of Vermont.

If Evans and I have found the sailing somewhat uncomfortable, HAWK's been in her element. Over the course of one week, she averaged 179 miles per day, and for the first time she hit 200 miles in a single day reaching in 15 knots of wind in flat seas. We would have had several more 200-mile days if we hadn't blown out our mainsail a few days after crossing the doldrums. The high-tech sail was a prototype we were beta testing for North Sails. It had four years and 25,000 high latitude miles (reefed 75% of its life) on it so it didn't owe us a thing, but we had been hoping it would make it to Vancouver. North Sails has been incredibly helpful, and they're in the process of building us a new sail. We should take delivery in early June, giving us an excuse to spend a month enjoying the Hawaiian Islands. Then we'll head north again on the last leg of our voyage, bound for British Columbia.

Now we're tied up on the transient dock in the Ala Wai Yacht Basin just off Waikiki beach in the shadow of Honolulu's fanciest hotels. We're paying $10 per day, an incredible bargain compared to any of the hotel rooms we can see from HAWK's decks. We plan to be in Honolulu (with good internet connections) for a couple of weeks, so feel free to get in touch. We love hearing from all of you, catching up with your lives and learning about your adventures.

Fair winds and safe anchorages,
Beth and Evans
s/v HAWK