A Summary of our Crossing

As I write this, you might be saying “you are in beautiful Hawaii; how exciting”!  Hawaii was not what we expected but hang on to the end of this for the next chapter.

A brief recap of the beginning. Jeff and I had planned for years to sail away on Salpare, our 1997 Catalina 400. Actually, that’s what Salpare means; “sail away” in Italian. We were finally able to realize that dream last September as we sold our land possessions and cast lines off in Tacoma. Our original plan was to sail to Mexico then down to Central America. After visiting the Galapagos, we would continue west thru French Polynesia, Tonga and end up in New Zealand.

After the long passage down the Washington, Oregon, California and Baja coasts, we realized we wanted to slow down and spend more time in the Sea of Cortez. Change of plans! We would winter in Mexico and in early spring, do the “Pacific Puddle Jump” to French Polynesia and beyond. That is a rhumb line distance of 2800 open ocean miles; a major accomplishment for any sailor.

We convinced our friends Tom Miner and Kris Wilhelmsen to join us for this fun filled ocean passage where beautiful Polynesian women would greet them on the other side! Tom and Kris bought in to it and joined us in La Paz, Mexico. We sailed a pretty boring trip with little to no wind across the Sea of Cortez to Puerto Vallarta. Here, our fool proof plan would have us wait a few days for our long anticipated Long Stay Visas for French Polynesia. We waited and waited… During the wait, a curious new virus called Corona started making the news.

By the time we had visas in hand and were waiting a few days for the right weather window, the full blown pandemic had happened. Tom flew home as his priorities, (absolutely fine with us), were with his family. Kris would stay on as our crew. We anxiously waited until Wednesday March 18th for the weather to cooperate. We then met the Puerto Capitan of Nueva Vallarta and cleared out of Mexico. 

At that time, the news from French Polynesia (FP) was mixed. The islands were still open and we were still welcome. But as all of you know, things change very quickly with Covid 19. Through emails from other sailors and friends monitoring the situation at home, we learned on day 3 that things had changed. Options now were to sail thousands of miles past FP and land who knows where since no other countries were open or stop in Tahiti, surrender your vessel and they would repatriate you to the US. Ok… neither of those options would work for us. It was a painful and tough decision but we turned north.

I called my brother, a retired Vice Admiral in Coronado, and let him know our status. He quickly arranged a dock at his Yacht Club for us upon arrival in San Diego. Just one small detail… we had to get there.

As any old salt knows “Northing is tough!”. There was quite the storm brewing on the Baja Peninsula so we headed nearly 400 miles west offshore to try to skirt the worst of it. For 3 days we clawed our way north barely making way. The 10-12’ waves, coming from the north, more than overpowered our engine and kept us at less than 2 kts. Sailing was the only way. We had to tack back and forth, back and forth and back and forth to make any ground. On day 3, we reviewed the new forecast and it called for a doubling of wind and waves from the north. We felt defeated… We had a brief crew meeting and made the decision to try our luck going back to Mexico. Cabo San Lucas was a mere 200 miles away.  We loved Mexico and the folks we met there were part of our love for the country.

Now we knew we could not “legally” go back but we felt a bit desperate. I called my brother to tell him our decision and he merely had to say “have you talked to the people in Hawaiii about going there?” Those few words told me - DO NOT GO BACK TO MEXICO! I quickly had visions of the Mexican Navy - out of Cabo - boarding us, arresting us etc… Mexico had just started getting very, very serious about the pandemic. Perhaps this would not have happened but everything thing seemed so crazy and we were hearing bits and pieces of all sorts of scary stories.

Ok, let’s turn west and go another 2500 miles to Hilo, HI! When crossing the Pacific on an unplanned route that is better crossed later in the season is your best option; clearly something is going wrong in your world. We asked our weather router for yet another forecast for west this time and we turned Salpare to a course of 272 degrees true. 

The waves were a bit more off our beam and we started making way. We have read nearly every book and article about Pacific passages and had planned on motoring 30-40% of the time in light air. But that would be for a southern Pacific Crossing. The passage we were undertaking to Hawaii  is typically sailed in May and June when the weather patterns have stabilized. Well, we didn’t have much of a choice on this; we had to go.

For the next 21 days, we sailed in 20-25 kts true with gusts higher and full ocean conditions. I heard and thought the word “relentless” many, many times during those 3 weeks. If you have been in these winds in the Salish Sea, consider what the seas can build to with an endless fetch. I may be prone to overestimating wave height but when Jeff looks out at the sea and says “My God these are so big; and they just keep coming. I’ve never seen seas like this” well, you can imagine how I saw them.

We sailed with a double-reefed main and a 30% jib for 21 days straight. We averaged 6 kts for the entire 3200 miles of the full passage rising high above on the crest then sometimes sliding sideways down the other side. The noise of the breaking waves was deafening at times and when we did those big catywampus slides it was downright scary. We had an inflatable MOB pole on our port side upper rail. It was ripped off on one of those slides; nothing left but a string. 

After a few weeks of this, we were a bit more nonchalant when we would come up and get a watch report. Same old same old we would say. We staggered like drunks, hanging on for every step. Cooking was an adventure and more than once I was thrown across the cabin and landed on the other side with a bowl of food  - “hey honey, how about tossed pasta tonight!”.

We arrived in Hilo, HI under the dark cloud of being a non-resident of the island during the pandemic. We came to Radio Bay to check in and all was going fairly well. We had an additional 14 day quarantine (I know, crazy since we were out for 24 days), we could order take out food, make a trip to town for necessities and use the head facilities on land. On day 5, all that changed as the Governor was taking flack for not “tracking the people coming in to the islands”. That was directed to those flying in but the backlash hit us. They confined us to our boats and posted security guards! Of course, we were the safest people to visit their island but that didn’t matter. The fear of the pandemic on the island was palpable. The Department of Transportation also closed the Bay to incoming vessels. It felt a bit hostile and more than uncomfortable.

On day 12, after many emails with different authorities, it was determined that we could travel to another island as long as we would do ANOTHER 14 day quarantine. We agreed and took off the next day for the island of Oahu.

We had a beautiful sail to Oahu making terrific time though the much dreaded Allenuihaha Channel. We arrived at our new home in Ko Olina Marina. The resort is closed but the grounds and beaches look wonderful to walk on and swim. Well, we think they will be as we have to wait a mere 9 more days of quarantine to find out.

If you have questions or would like more information on how we outfitted Salpare for our Pacific Crossing, our email is 

fransharp@comcast.net