After almost exactly one year in the water Aluna is once again on the dry. Having her in the water it was literally impossible to do any kind of serious activity on land. There are no safe harbors on the Big Island, no place to leave her for longer periods unattended, so we heavy heartedly decided to pull her out and store her for a couple of months to be able to take our mind of her for some time.
We’re now house sitting at the Hilo waterfront for two and a half months.
I got up this morning after some heavy rain showers during the night. Nothing unusual here in rainy Hilo. The sun was braking through the clouds, again like usual, but then those towering cumulus are a little mightier than what I had seen before…
The latest is that Felicia is in fact being slowly torn apart. High level winds have dragged her top convection clouds and thunderheads way up Northeast, visible brightly in the satellite picture. The darker contours underneath is the nasty stuff bearing down on us. The system seemed to have slowed down, it moves now at 10mph towards us.
Felicia's tail
It is now 1pm and the winds start picking up under clear sky…
A quick jump into the present, which blogging should be all about, right! We were going to depart yesterday on a sailing tour around the island. While busy preparing for this Tropical depression Felicia was born off the Mexican Coast and soon turned into a monster category four hurricane aiming straight for the Big Island. By now, noon Sunday, Felicia has weakened to a Tropical Storm with 80mph sustained winds and is expected to weaken further before churning by just North of the Big Island Monday night. The forecast mentions gale force winds from the North at nightfall, veering to the East after midnight. The system should bring 6 to 12 hrs of very heavy rainfalls. Nothing too tragic if all goes as planned. The latest satellite view of Felicia agonizing though her disintegration.
We decided to sit it out here tucked inside Radio Bay. Having set two additional anchors for a total of three should allow us to pull Aluna away from the wall, where we are tied off stern to. Here’s a visual of our disaster preparedness:
We human beings are always looking for some sort of rituals, giving certain places or events more meaning than other’s. This definitely was not the highlight of our trip but since you like it so much here it is:
On her way to Hilo, HI, Aluna passes under the San Francisco landmark that arches across the narrow passage of the Golden Gate. The Golden Gate Bridge was completed in 1937 after more than four years of construction at a cost of $35 million. Aluna was completed in 2008 after four and a half years at a cost of $35 thousand.
So here’s the weather forecast on the morning of our departure date:
The North Pacific High is stationary at 30N 145W, building slightly and only on June 18 starts to shift slightly to the North. There’s some nasty weather passing through the North, the chain of gales will be pounding Thomas’ surfing friends up in the Pacific Northwest, but all this is way out of our way and of no major concern. In our direction of travel there is a retreating warm front, slowly occluding and being pulled up North by a wicked low making its way westward , but having to squeeze around a High just off the Oregon Coast. A slight headache causing upper level trough is crossing our intended pass, but should be out of the way by the time we pass under it. You can see it spawning a shallow low over the Southern Californian Coast in the 500MB forecast for June 18. The 500MB charts depict the howling winds of the jet streams, which push the surface weather we earthlings suffer around and about and it’s windy meanders seem to be involved in the forming of low pressure systems, which every mariner dreads.
To sum it all up: Not ideal conditions, but no major concerns in the foreseeable future. Of course, what’s beyond the foreseeable is rarely part of our decision making process and so, I guess the major factor here is: It’s time to go and has been for some time. If only the press would get here…
Our on-board medical kit states that heavy partying makes you susceptible to seasickness. So how are you supposed to tell your friends that it’s time to go? Aluna is ready to set sail, it’s June 14 shortly before sundown. After a hectic day of last minute chores and a parade of friends passing by we’re close to turning in for the last night tied up to tierra firme.
Finally! Our journey has begun. We just sailed out of our home port of San Leandro and are on our way to the Golden Gate, entrance to and for us exit of the San Francisco Bay. We will stop two more times, tonight at South Beach Harbor and tomorrow at Sausalito. monday morning, if everything goes according to the plans, we’ll be riding the ebb current through the narrow passage under the famous bridge out into the open ocean.
You have to believe me! There’s just not enough time in a day to do what we need to do! So adding blogging to it would cause a dangerous turbulence in the supersonic vortex of these hyperhectic days. And we had thought it was intense and stressful to organize cultural events, to teach kids in schools, to create a new productions. Nothing comes quite close to the huge effort that is needed to simply disappear!
But no more of the whining and wincing. For those who are unfamiliar with our work here’s two links that should bring you up to speed:
http://movingbeyondproductions.org
http://web.mac.com/mobeyprod
So in spite of many obstacles and setbacks we’re set to leave the land of silicone on June 15, heading out into the wide blue ocean of the Pacific. We would like to thank everybody here in and around the beautiful city of San Francisco who has in one way or another supported out work and participated in our activities. Keep up the spirit of moving beyond normality and the indifferent grind of running after the money! Setting sail for new lands should be a constant effort of ours and letting go of our jalously guarded possessions is nothing but the beginning of a new and blissful way of living the beautiful splendor hidden away under the many crevices of the always troublesome present.
We will put great effort into meticulously documenting the adventures of our voyages towards the receding horizon and once safe and sound on the other side of pond we will make them available to the world wide spiderweb of not always very useful information.
