Salpare Odyssey Update

With less than a week to go....this will probably be MY last post, as the next one will come directly from Fran Sharp - Carolyn

From Fran:
"We are now on day 18 of this journey and less than 700 miles to go! It’s a rare moonlit night with fairly calm seas and winds. I can only remember one other night like this on this passage and it was interrupted by squalls and winds. Nope, we are definitely not on the southern passage where the warm trade winds carry you like a magic carpet to the islands...

Depending on the winds ahead of us, we should arrive Wednesday or Thursday. My sister, Mary Ann, has been working hard to find us information on arrivals. She finally tracked down the District Manager of HI DOT and he is now organizing the arrival of our boats. We have about 10 in our fleet of northern puddle jumpers. We shared, by email, all the information with the incoming boats and they super appreciated it. Four have now arrived and over the next week, the rest of us will set foot on land in Hilo.

The folks there are more than happy to help us and understand we pose little to no threat virus-wise. They do have to follow the rules and we will have a 14 day quarantine but we will be allowed a trip a day to land for groceries, laundry etc... I think Babba, the Manager, is happy to have something to do as commercial traffic has stopped for a bit. He emails with to of our boats responding to our questions and gives my sister a daily report on arrivals. We could not ask for a better welcome!

We are looking forward to seeing the other boats that we have come to know while in Mexico. It’s a terrific group of cruisers ranging from Darwind, the 19 year old, solo sailor from Alaska to Carpe Ventus, the 65 year old solo sailor; to Ticket to Ride a fast, state of the art catamaran to Gudgeon, a small, simple sloop. They are our tribe.

Those who continued down to French Polynesia have an entirely different welcome. Many continued although they knew the islands were closed. As I’m on the big email list for the puddle jumpers, I get to see the situation. The islanders, who depend on tourists for their livelihood, have pleaded to the cruisers to not come to their islands. They do not have the provisions, fuel etc... necessary to supply the additional people. They also do not have adequate medical facilities if the outbreak continues. The islanders are scared of what the future months will bring.

Currently in the harbor of Nuka Hiva, where we would have landed, there are 100 boats anchored. No one can go ashore and you cannot even swim - not that you would want to with all those boats anchored. They are now turning away those that are still arriving. You must go to Tahiti and surrender your boat or just keep going. It’s thousands of miles more to New Zealand - who may or may not take you in. I fear the damage being done by those who put their “dreams” above the reality on the ground will last for years within French Polynesia. To say we are happy with our decision to cross to Hawaii is an understatement. And, as my friend Kila would say “boo hoo... you have to go to Hawaii”.

Aboard Salpare all is going well. We catch up on sleep during the day, problem solve different issues that arise on the boat, Kris serenades us with his ukelele, we read and I do a lot of cooking. And, always or thoughts on all of you at home and what the future holds...It’s a strange existence this passage making.

My next update will be when we reach land!!!!"