Omoka Time
"What island are you from?"asked the boy. He must have nerved himself up to talk to the papa'a (white people) and come up with the safest possible opener. People lived on islands, so, clearly, the papa'a must come from some island. It left Dave and I pretty stumped however. Do we go the glib "island of America" route or start a geography lesson?
Natives, of course, know where everything is - who has the freezer full of chicken, where the phone is and when it works - and have known it for so long that, they can barely explain it to an outsider. So, when we asked if there was a store, people said "Warrick, down at the airport, he sells stuff," and we walked 3km to the airport to see Warrick and found out that he sold diesel. He isn't a "store" but sold us a kilo of frozen lamb chops anyway. Warrick doesn't exchange money either (everyone says he does) but arranges to change a few US dollars into kiwi dollars when he delivers our diesel so we have some cash to clear out with.
It turns out that we had been walking right past Kimo's Store (house
with the orange container in the front yard, across from the school) all
week. Kimo's store has frozen chicken (Australian), many cans of spagetti,
toilet paper, toothpaste and beer. Everyone we asked about a store must
have though that we wanted something exotic, not available at Kimo's and
thus only (possibly) available from Warrick, one of the resident
papa'as. From Kimo's we bought a 12-pack of NZ Lager for NZ$ 27 and a
couple of chooks and were advised to hide the beer unless we want to
gain a bunch of new "friends." They didn's seem to have much else that
we needed. Later, we stopped by Kimo's again found them sorting onions.
It had been a couple months since the last freighter from Rarotonga and
the onions were starting to go bad. The onions looked pretty good
relative to those we had left from Samoa, so we got onions and also some
rice which they had in the back. I also swapped our 220-volt fan with
the harbour master for a sack of coconuts and some limes so we were in
pretty good shape if we decided to go straight to Hawaii.
Omoka is the main village on Penrhyn with a smaller village Tautua,
across the lagoon to the east. Normally, one anchors off Tautua
after clearing in at Omoka but as we were planning to leave on
the first steady easterly breeze we never bothered with the trip
across the lagoon.
While there are a couple of planes a week to Rarotonga, most of the island's goods come aboard an irregularly scheduled tramp freighter. Having given a few litres of petrol to Papa John back on Suwarow, we were down to our last few litres of dingy petrol but there was none to be had in Omoka. Petrol arrives via freighter in large square tanks and and is almost immediately sold out. The local fishing skiffs stayed on the beach and the officials that came out to check us in had to scrounge around for a skiff with some fuel. Thankfully, we didn't have far to go in the dingy and the Honda 5hp is pretty fuel-efficient.
Real Polynesia
The package we were carrying from Papa John was for Alex, the island's sole catholic, baker, and radio man. Alex was continuously helping us out, starting with locating the quarantine inspector who had missed the first group of officials who came out to our boat and decided to go back home. The local pearl farming industry was recently decimated by an oyster virus but Alex still runs a few strings. When we came to say goodbye, he gave us each a black pearl.We did a lot of walking around the motu. For the most part, it is covered with coconut palms and populated by fist-sized land crabs which scuttle furtively down their burrows as you pass. The crabs prevent most forms of agriculture - veggies are available only in frozen form - but the locals seem to keep a few pigs per family, usually tethered by the leg to a palm tree and attended by small boys. Mostly, we met kids, who seem to have the run of the island. Their parents would give us a friendly wave from the shelter their porch, but didn't make a big deal of our presence one way or the other. A relief, as one never knows to what extent the "honored guest" routine is genuine and to what extent you're simply a meal ticket.
We were invited by several different people to come to rehersals for a dance performance the island was giving for the hundredth anniversary of this or that mission. The rehersal was to take place at the warehouse next to the dingy landing but at the appointed hour, all was quiet and dark. Dave and I gave up on it, ate dinner and were just washing the dishes when we heard sporadic drumming start ashore. We left the dishes for later and piled into the dingy.
Ashore, on the cement outside the warehouse, a rehersal gradually coalesced out of pandemonium. The old logs that we had noticed earlier turned out to be drums, drums which were being vigorously abused by a crowd small children. Gradually adults arrived, infiltrated the "orchestra" and a rhythm began to emerge. The adults never discouraged the kids, just integrated themselves into the ongoing chaos. The drumming gradually improved and someone came with a guitar, some ladies sang a bit while the dancers did their warmups and we were off.
I was gratified to see that polynesian dancers are like dancers everywhere. Given a break, they all lit up cigarettes and the girls picked at their clothes and posed (hula goddess) lackadaisically. A lady in the audience explained the subtlties of the Cook Island Hula to Dave and me: "The girls' hips must go straight back and forth, not in figure eights like the Tahitians." The way she rolled her eyes when she said "Tahitians" indicated that a great deal of moral decay could be attributed to this figure-eight hip motion which Dave and I both developed an inexplicable hankering to see. Purely for cultural reasons, mind you.
The fact is, "real polynesia," or perhaps just that louche Tahitian figure-eight business, cost Bougainville 6 anchors in the space of 9 days. The anchoring still sucks today.
On thursday, I awoke to a view across the lagoon. Easterly wind.
The morning's MSLP charts confirmed that the high to the south of us
was firming up instead of moving east. This would make ideal weather
for us as we'd have continuous isobars like rungs on a ladder heading
north.
Also the moon was just shy of full so night watches would be less gloomy.
Sailing to Hawaii
The basic idea that had firmed up in our minds was to head straight for Hawaii, with a possible stop at Christmas Island if we couldn't get any further east or the weather deteriorated or we felt like a stop.The lows on the chart looked a little goofy: we could get veering wind, NW or even W, or they might sink down south of us and we should have NE backing E as we get further north. Pretty much any wind would be fine by us as any course between N and E would be OK for a few days. It looked like there is a nice high forming up west of the dateline which should be in command of the central South Pacific in a couple of days. If so, we'd get easterlies, possibly even south easterlies if we're lucky. The previous high pressure system extended all the way up to Hawaii. Of course, this one might be different.
The bearing to Pt. Kumukahi (easternmost point of Big Island) is 7° so we'll hang onto the starboard tack as long as it keeps us east of due north and hope for a lift. I'd like to be as far east as 150°W or so before going north of 5°N. We've got plenty of time (13 degrees of lattitude) to get it sorted out.
Day 1 - Friday
| weather | Initially, winds were just a touch E of NE (NEbE for the old timers) at 5 - 8 knots. Winds gradually veered until solidly N at midnight when we tacked E. |
|---|---|
| noon position | 8° 48.3 S 158° 03.6 W | distance remaining | 1708nm |
We upped anchor just before 11 and by noon were due west of the north pass into Penrhyn.
I made "cross-swell vindaloo" for lunch, so named because an ill timed lurch caused the cook to dump in a bit more hot pepper than he intended. Dave and I had a long discussion about a nautical version of the "Iron Chef" program. Special ingredients would be things like spam, wilted lettuce, canned beets, dairy products 3 weeks past their dates, and anything with weevils. In addition to cooking (on a gimballed platform that could simulate various sea states) contestants might be required to stop in the middle of cooking for 10 minutes to reef.
Day 2 - Saturday
| weather |
Winds stayed light and N most of the night, backing NE in the
morning. Light squall (12kts) and rain followed by 5kt NW winds
which eased and backed to NE. After some gyrations, the wind
died completely at 4pm. Just after dinner we got a new wind,
E 3kts, building to 4 - 6 kts and ENE.
Naturally, the lows did the only thing I didn't anticipate: stop. |
|---|---|
| noon position | 7° 36.3 S 157° 39.1 W | distance remaining | 1627nm |
I took advantage of one of the squalls to get a shower.
Attention: at or near 7° 26.850 S 157° 39.715W a stainless Andersen winch handle was lost overboard. Should it be found - the ocean in the Penrhyn Basin is only 5km deep - please contact Endless Summer to arrange for its return. Assistent Scullery Mate 2nd class Gilman will be very grateful and will defray any and all salvage claims. Thank you.
Day 3 - Sunday
| weather |
The ENE wind strengthened to a solid 5 kts and veered gradually
back NE. By noon it was north of NE and just 4 kts so we tacked
east and were promptly and savagely headed and so tacked back N again.
The wind continued NE at 4kts all afternoon, but backed to E and
increased to 5kts in the evening.
An almost cloudless day. |
|---|---|
| noon position | 5° 59.7 S 157° 34.2 W | distance remaining | 1532nm |
Inspired by our Iron Chef discussion and a general lack of inspiration on the part of the ship's cook, Assistent Scullery Mate 2nd class Gillman whipped up a batch of "Sweet & Sour Spam" which was a huge success with the crew. In consequence, he has been re-instated as Able Seaman.
We had a clear horizon so I actually saw the green flash at sunset.
Day 4 - Monday
| weather |
The wind stayed E/ENE all night strengthening to 6 - 8 kts
by mid-morning and strengthening further to 7 - 10 kts in the afternoon
where it stayed for the rest of the day.
Sparse fair weather cu-nimbs. |
|---|---|
| noon position | 4° 14.4 S 156° 51.5 W | distance remaining | 1424nm |
Dave saw the green flash at sunrise. Otherwise nothing happened.
Day 5 - Tuesday
| weather |
During the night, the wind gradually veered NE, still at 7 - 10 kts.
Veering NE would be consistent with our personal high moving east
but the barometer, steady at 1010 doesn't agree. The morning's
tropical analysis was NOT AVAILABLE.
In the afternoon, winds moved gradually to ENE, strengthening to 10 kts after we passed under line of clouds near sunset. By 10pm winds were up to 10 - 15, still ENE, so we put in the first reef. |
|---|---|
| noon position | 1° 52.0 S 155° 55.5 W | distance remaining | 1278nm |
During the night I had seen one fishing boat off to the west. Daylight revealed two more, one ahead of us. We would have passed him astern but as he didn't respond to my radio enquiry about gear in the water, we tacked E just to be safe. Listening to the gibberish on the radio (Dave thought it was Korean) we were able to gather that there were about half a dozen fishing boats in the vicinity working some sort of search pattern. I hope the tuna gives 'em the slip.
When I woke up, I noticed that there was hydraulic fluid leaking out of the port-side helm. Hmmm... The leak was from the fill valve which, due to the way it aligns with the exterior glasswork, evidently can't be tightly closed. More alarming was that the starboard helm (no leak) had air in the hydraulic lines as it felt bouncy and spongy. Since a quick check of the rams revealed no leaks, it had to be the leakage from the helm itself that was the culprit. I added fluid to the starboard helm. Thankfully, the port helm steered just fine so the air problem was confined to just the starboard helm portion of the system, the rams and autopilot were still air free. After some thought, I decided that the best way to clear the starboard helm would be to have Dave steer it one way while I steered the port helm in the opposite direction. This should cause the hydraulic fluid to circulate in each side of the system separately and should drive the air out of the starboard hoses instead of further down to the rams. Dave checked the starboard helm a bit in each direction and then turned toward the least spongy side while I countered with the port helm. It seemed to work as the sponginess was gone from the starboard side. Hurrah!
But why was this happening? My best guess is that hydraulic fluid can shift between the helm reservoirs, tending to collect in the lowest (leeward) helm where it eventually leaks through the ill fitting filler cap. Both times leakage has occurred, it has been in the leeward helm after days on the same tack.
Right after our 10pm chat with Egon (Ganesh is still at Isle of Pines, 2500 miles away), we gave up on the wind moderating - it had been blowing 12s and 13s - and reefed for the night.
Day 6 - Wednesday
| weather |
The wind stayed ENE, 10 - 15 all night and dropped off to the 8 - 10
range towards lunchtime. The morning's analysis chart (at right)
suggested that we should have winds in the 10 - 15 knot range for
several hundred miles.
In spite of the chart, winds ba... no veered (careful, different hemisphere!) gradually to ESE where they stayed all night. We reefed at sunset because we were approaching an ominous band of clouds but the winds remained 11 - 13 all night. |
|---|---|
| noon position | 1° 07.0 N 155° 24.1 W |
| distance remaining | 1099nm |
"Dave, half a mile to go."
Blinking owlishly, he stumbled up the steps to the cabin and we watched the GPS lattitude count down together. I made the log entry:
0317 0° 0.0 155° 37.7 Shellbacks!
Both of us had figured we'd cross the line around dawn, but the wind had stayed right around 13kts all night so we got there at the end of my watch. We celebrated by drinking a beer, sending Neptune a sip and the empty beer can to chase it with.
At this point, due S of the Big Island, I decided to aim straight for it and pick up easting only if it looked like winds might come hard out of the NE.
Day 7 - Thursday
| weather |
Winds moderated during the night and by morning were ESE 8 - 11 kts.
Sunrise revealed puffy fair weather cunimbs. We shook out the reef.
By 11am winds had dropped to 7 - 9 knots and veered to SE. We put up the spinnaker but took it down shortly after noon because the winds had come back up to the 13 knot range. Most of the afternoon we had a bank of clouds to our NW. We hit it just at dark: squally, rain and winds SE/ESE to 22 knots. Squalls continued off and on throughout the night. Overcast. Waste of perfectly good full moon. |
|---|---|
| noon position | 3° 56.3N 155° 04.5W |
| distance remaining | 930nm |
Sailing through the convergence is arduous because there's always a squall ahead to worry about but light variable wind in between. If you don't reef for the squalls, the off watch gets irritated because it is impossible to sleep when you expect to be woken up to reef momentarily. If you don't unreef between squalls you don't get anywhere. During one of our midnight reefing drills, we decided to crank the reef in without heaving to to take the strain off the main. We'd done this several times in the past without incident. I put the reefing line on the winch while Dave led the main halyard around the winch pedestal so that he would have something to snub it on when I released the rope clutch. As it had worked in the past, I would release the clutch on the main and grind in the reefing line while Dave eased out the main halyard, keeping enough tension on the halyard to keep the battens off the shrouds. Seeing Dave braced against the pull on the halyard, I said "Here comes," and popped open the clutch. "Zook!" went the halyard and Dave, undergoing a life lesson about static vs. dynamic friction and the falliable judgement of skippers at the end of their watches, was instantly draped around the winch pedestal as though he were a cartoon character who had suddenly developed an overwelming affection for it. Fortunately, the winch pedestal was slow to take offence. Dave didn't hit any of the pointy bits and nothing got sucked into the winch or clutch.
We've been putting our coconuts in the fridge next to the ice and the result is coconut milk ice cream. Still have 6 nuts to go.
Day 8 - Friday
|
|
| weather |
Early in the morning a change in the relationship between
the GPS speed and the log shows us to be in the North Equatorial
Counter Current. About 60 miles wide, it sets us east at about 1
knot for the next hours.
The weather was overcast, rain and squalls with winds to 18 knots. A small warm front? In between squalls, winds would drop back to 7 - 9 kts out of the SSE leaving us slatting and banging along at a dreary 6 knots. Finally at 2:30 we get a squall and then a huge wind shift, from SSE to E. The 2:07 streamline chart shows what has been going on: we've been sailing through the convergence of the SE trades and the NE trades. The isobars give no hint of the glop out here. Neither did the streamline charts until today. |
|---|---|
| noon position | 7° 01.2N 154° 38.6W |
| distance remaining | 746nm |
As it was overcast and squally all day, I baked a cake. It took 3 of our 4 remaining eggs and was completely worth it. Huge improvement in morale.
At night we discovered that we can pick up AM radio stations from Hawaii. Just talk radio. Dave didn't want to set the AM presets so I knew he was tired. Nothing much must have happened "in the real world" because they're still going off on Kerry.
Day 9 - Saturday
| weather | Squalls & rain with winds E, 25 knots gusting over 30. At dawn, winds had moderated to E, 15 knots. Some breaks in the overcast. The day alternated between squalls to 15 knots and 5 - 8 knot variables. After a final squall just after sunset, we sailed into a steady ENE breeze, 10 - 13 knots. |
|---|---|
| noon position | 9° 14.1N 154° 38.7W |
| distance remaining | 613nm |
At midnight, I came on watch. Dave mentioned something about some darker clouds ahead so I checked the radar but saw nothing out of the ordinary. At 12:30am winds began to pick up, building gradually to 20 knots or so by 1am. As we were on a beam reach, the ride was fast with occasional slamming as we hit some chop. Well within the limits of the first reef. Instead of lightening up as previous squalls had, this one intensified with every 5 or 10 minutes bringing a new peak windspeed. At 25 knots, some things fell off the counter. At 28 knots, more things fell off the counter. As the wind gusted over 30, the boat took off on a wild tear, with continuous plumes of spray from the bows obscuring what little there was to see of the horizon (the GPS said 17.5 knots afterwards). We had a few really good bangs as the boat launched off some of the chop and then Dave appeared next to me at the nav station. Seems it had been a little difficult to sleep.
We rounded up uneventfully, fast, but uneventfully, and hove to which
seemed stable enough. I figured that the wind would drop back to the
sub-20 range pretty quickly, but we spent 3 hours hove to before
deciding that the wind wasn't going to give up. Hove to, we were moving
ESE at about 1 knot, right down the E - W convergence line. It could
keep blowing like this for weeks, until we got to Mexico. We had no
choice but to sail out of it. Fortunately, we still had the second reef
up our sleeve. Under second reef and full jib, boat speeds were
moderate, 10 - 12 knots, and the winds finally eased towards dawn.
It was a gloomy, bouncy day with both of us a bit bleary from lack of sleep and physically tired from holding on all the time.
Day 10 - Sunday
| weather | Steady ENE trades, 12 - 15 knots. Occasional squalls to 18 knots. The gloomy overcast turned into fair weather cunimbs. |
|---|---|
| noon position | 12° 14.9N 154° 30.5W |
| distance remaining | 433nm |
Endless Summer has left the convergence. We sailed out of a big black wall of clouds into the NE trades and puffy fair weather cunimbs. And there was much rejoicing.
Day 11 - Monday
| weather | Steady ENE trades, 10 - 13 knots. A few squalls. Seas decidedly calmer. Our barometer read substantially lower (1010) than what our position on the chart predicts (1013) and since we can be sure that the 1016 line through Honolulu is pretty accurate, the isobars must be tighter than what the chart shows. More wind coming in the next 24 hours. |
|---|---|
| noon position | 15° 27.9N 154° 33.4W |
| distance remaining | 241nm |
The winds (and seas) moderated overnight and morning found us seeing the occasional 6 on the GPS. Out with the second reef! Dave and I are both really tired from the last 4 days. At around 200 miles per day, we're making great progress but the motion is exhausting and it is hard to summon the energy to unreef between the squalls. Averaging 8 knots for 24 hours means spending most of the day with boat speeds better than 10 knots. My calf muscles ached from bracing against the galley and it was hard to keep pots on the stove.
The afternoon brought several vigorous squalls with winds to 20 knots. Back in with the second reef for the night.
Day 12 - Tuesday
| weather | At midnight, winds were E, 14 - 16 knots and they gradually eased and backed NE during the day. Squalls every few hours throughout the day. |
|---|---|
| noon position | 18° 45.6N 154° 38.4W |
| distance remaining | not much |
After lunch, winds were light enough for us to shake out the second reef. We were still getting squalls every couple of hours but nothing over 15 knots, and the sea state had moderated to the point that more power would actually translate into increased boat speed. The Big Island was hidden by clouds and we didn't sight the land underneath until afternoon when...
The wind backed as far as NNE and squandered my careful hoard of easting in just a few short hours. At four I started hand steering, trying to keep the Pt. Kumukahi light on the port side of our bows. The point itself is quite steep to so rounding it closely would not be a problem, but the coast north of the point would be a lee shore and I wanted to be at least 5 miles clear of it until we were ready to turn towards Hilo. 5 miles sounds like a lot, but we'd blow ashore in less than an hour under bare poles and an hour can go pretty quick when you're trying to bleed diesels or deal with some gear failure.
Fortunately, the wind veered back E and we cleared the point
comfortably, and were even hard pressed to steer deep enough downwind to
parallel the coast. Along the 30 miles of coast between Pt Kumukahi and
Hilo we had three "fish aggregating devices" to avoid but saw only the
first one (flashing yellow, 4 seconds). The other two never put in an
appearance but we avoided 'em just the same. A pleasant evening's sail
with the prospect of a snug harbour just ahead.
At around 11pm we were due east of Hilo and turned towards our final
waypoint HILO2, just off the harbour entrance. Up to this
point, we had had good luck with squalls in that they mostly missed us
and the moon had given reasonable light through the clear patches of
sky. However, as soon as we dropped sails turned towards Hilo our good
luck came to an abrupt end.
A huge squall came down the coast, blotting out the moonlight and
engulfing us in a torrential downpour. Shivering in full foul weather
gear, I tried to keep the boat on course to our HILO2
waypoint at the mouth of the harbour. ES was surfing down the waves
which made Otto steer erratically. And the waves, which hadn't looked
very big at sea were suddenly looming up rather impressively. Down in
the trough, we'd lose sight of the nav lights ashore, Otto would swerve
one way or the other and we'd have to pick out the lights again at the
top of the next wave.
When we passed the breakwater and sailed into the relative calm of the harbour the squall tapered off to a light rain so it was relatively easy to find our way through the outer harbour, to the brightly lit main warf We looped once off the main warf while Dave convinced me that we really did need to drive between the warf and the breakwater to get into Radio Bay. The entry channel is only about 30 metres wide and the bay itself is tiny, about 200 metres by 200 metres. Fortunately, there were only two other boats anchored so it was relatively easy to find a spot.
Trip Statistics
| time | 11.5 days |
|---|---|
| great circle distance | 1737, average: 6.3 kts |
| GPS track miles | 1853, average: 6.7 kts |
| log miles | 2196nm, average: 7.9 kts - log is a touch fast these days |
| motored | 6 hrs |
| diesel consumed | not much |
| wildlife sighted | birds |
| winch handles per hour lost overboard | 0.003623 |
On Luck
I've decided that I'm a sailor first and an atheist second. An atheist of convenience, if you will. Luck is just too important to risk screwing up for merely rational reasons. Here's an example: A few days after we came in to Radio Bay, I noticed the oil pressure alarm starting to chirp on the port engine. A quick look inside revealed about 2 litres of oil in the bilge and not much left in the engine. Thank god (see?) for synthetic oil. As crummy as it was to come into Hilo in storm, imagine how much worse it would be trying to get into a harbour on a lee shore at night in a storm with a big swell running and only one engine.The oil leaked out of a faulty gasket between the engine block and the crankshaft cover. As Yanmar felt that this sort of behavior was acceptable for an engine just out of warranty, it was going to be an $1800 repair but I hit on the idea of smearing a bead of 3M 5200 across the leaky area which actually seems to be working. So far.
Back to luck. Motoring in on one engine should work just fine. Close quarters manuvering is a bit dodgy but not that big a deal. But wait. The starboard engine developed a faulty fuel transfer pump just a few weeks later, on the dock in Honolulu. So we were just a few engine hours from having to sail into a harbour on a lee shore at night in a storm with a big swell running.
But sailing has been dead reliable. Even with both engines gone, we'd still be fine right? Well, a few hours after replacing the fuel transfer pump on the starboard engine, the block on the main halyard broke and the mainsail fell down.
And I can assure you that the mere thought of sailing under jib alone into a harbour on a lee shore at night in a storm with a big swell running is sobering enough to cut right through 3 or 4 mai tais.
Of course one could always anchor. Did I mention that, at that time, the rope-chain fleming on the windlass was shredded making it hard to lower the anchor in a hurry?
So the point is, don't mess with luck. All blessings, vibes, juju, mojo, etc. accepted. And carry a tube of 5200 in the spares box. And some extra oil.
Yachtie Details
Hilo - Radio BayDave Longacre, the customs officer (also quarantine and agriculture), was enormously friendly and helpful and clearing in was straightforward. Dave even gave me a ride into town. As Dave also handles customs duties for the airports, we had to wait a day to clear in. Not a big problem. The only unexpected occurrence was the confiscation of 10 litres of UHT milk. The dairy lobby must be well funded. Anyway, losing the milk was a bummer because there is only one variety of UHT milk in the stores around here and it tasts funny. For you Americans, the whole rest of the world seems to buy most of their milk ultra-pasturized in 1-litre cartons which do not require refrigeration until opened. There are also very tasty juices (better than frozen concentrate) available in this format.Holding in Radio Bay was indifferent. It took us a couple of tries to get a good set in mud and coral rubble. And another try before we worked out an acceptable swing. Swinging room is quite limited and the land breeze frequently swings everyone 180° at night. You have to leave the coast guard cutter Kiska room to get in and out. For the same harbour fee of $10/night you can also med-moor to the seawall. Having heard rumours of really bad surge when a big north swell breaks over the seawall, we elected to stay at anchor and dingy back and forth. Showers (hot water!) are available ashore. Radio Bay is about 2 miles from downtown Hilo and a similar distance from the Prince Kuhio plaza (suburban shopping mall). You can dingy about half the way to town, but there isn't a secure place to leave the dingy. When there is a cruise ship on the pier, there is shuttle service to downtown In Hilo, Beach Dog Computer Center (62 Kinoole) seems to provide the best internet access.
Importing a BoatWe imported Endless Summer at Hilo. I had phoned someone at the SF customs office a few years back and the story that I got was that ES would be imported as "used" and thus that we'd have to go through some sort of appraisal process. I was thus surprised to find out that the norm was to calculate the import duty on the purchase price. This was not a nice surprise because when you build a boat, the idea of "purchase price" is a bit of a fiction. Technically, I had bought a bunch of supplies and paid someone to put them together. Had I been hip to this problem, I would have created a us-dollar "bill of sale" which I could have given to customs immediately. It might have worked. As it happened, we were soon wrangling about Australian dollar payments and the exchange rates applied thereto which was pretty impossible for both sides. I didn't even have records (handy) of all the payments and in any case, the problem was trying to prove a negative, ie. that I had not written 10 cheques instead of 9. Probably because it would cost them more than they could plausibly make in (increased) duties Customs didn't want to do the appraisal so, after a couple weeks of haggling like Persian rug traders we wound up entering Endless Summer on a "Pro Forma Invoice" with a value more than I actually paid but less than what customs wanted.Another surprise was the need to use a customs broker and to purchase a customs bond. The bond, indexed to the value of the item being imported, serves as a guarantee to customs that everything is copacetic. Should you skip town, customs can collect fines and/or duties from the bonding company. My price on the bond was $5.00 per thousand for the first $100,000 and $2.50 per thousand for each subsequent $100,000. Writing customs bonds seems to be a good business.
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