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October 14, 1998

San Francisco to Hawaii, Second Attempt. Update #23

23. Date: Wed, 14 Oct 98 03:44:22 GMT
Latitude: 31 degrees 51.520 minutes North
Longitude: 129 degrees 20.474 minutes West

I wake to the sound of rain drumming the roof of the sleeping compartment and Smith crashing about like a bull in a china shop trying to catch as much of the precious stuff in pots and pans as possible. By the time I haul myself out of the rat hole, he's got at least half a gallon of slightly salty tasting water that has run off from the roof of Moksha Good enough for cooking. Why sweat when nature will do it all for you!

Our upbeat opportunist mood is slightly dampened by a weather report from our Trimble Galaxy about Hurricane Kay, a 90 knot hell-raiser currently 16 degrees North by 117 degrees West moving WNW at 3 knots. It's still about 1,200 kilometers away, but if it continues with its current speed and heading of 300 degrees True and we continued with ours... We'll hit bang on in about 12-13 days. High noon here we come!!

It's strange to have a Hurricane so late in the year. We deliberately timed our departure from San Francisco to avoid traditional Hurricane season, May to September. But then the global wether has been so messed up the last year with El Nino, it's hard to predict anything. Actually, it's very unlikely Kay will come anywhere near us. Hurricanes like warm water and we expect it to turn parallel to latitude heading west in the next few days. However, we have taken a precautionary heading of 270 True, due west to avoid going to much farther south into warmer water and we're all ears to the wether reports and preparing Moksha accordingly... Readying the small sea-anchor, checking lashings, running through 'what if' scenarios and re-capping various drills should the worst happen. She's a plucky little boat is Moksha, but if high noon should head our way and we have any say in the matter, there'll just be tumbleweeds blowing across the big blue where we used to be!

Lewis & Smith,
The Moksha crew

Posted on October 14, 1998 5:52 PM