s/v Begone: Aloha, Hilo, Hawai'i - Arrived on May 10, 2015

Tom, Vicky and I (Suzanne) have done our fair share of off shore passages -- Tom has sailed back and forth from Hawai'i, Suzanne's raced and cruised to and from the islands several times, and Vicky has sailed all through the South Pacific Islands (although never to Hawai'i).

What makes this passage so unique is "BEGONE" herself and the friends that are woven in her story. We've all three known and loved her for many years. She represents the engineering, creating and sailing talents of John & Dorothy Kiesling, Vicky & Chuck Levdar (and Frans Maas the designer/builder in 1961). Our dear friends, Matt & Jeannine Herron had purchased Begone in 1980's. When they were ready to find a new caretaker for Begone, Vicky & Chuck were instrumental enticing John & Dorothy to take on the challenge of restoring Begone - which they did from 2002 to 2005- then cruised her in Mexico for 5 years. Then Tom & Suzanne became her caretaker in 2010. So this feels like a "may the circle be unbroken" passage.

Begone in rainy Radio Bay, Hilo, Hawai'i

The PASSAGE -
We thought it would take 23 days for our La Paz to Hilo passage...we made it in 22. It was actually 19 days from Cabo San Lucus to Hilo as we decided to make a stop for additional diesel given that we used a bit more than we anticipated in the day and a half from La Paz.
We anorchored off the coast of Cabo San Lucas for a little sleep and then motored in for fuel.

Guess what? Cabo San Lucas (reportedly one of the most expensive marinas in the world) charged us $80 US - just to tie up to their fuel dock. We just laughed ourselves silly and paid the $182 bill.

Cabo San Lucas fuel dock -- $80 US for 20 minutes-- Really??!!!

After pulling out of port, we went to turn on our Radar / Chart Plotter for navigation. The screen went black. Our major navigation tool had died. I tried all my tricks, Tom and Vicky looked at me as if they thought I could fix this. I got us going with our handheld Garmin GPS and went back to tackle the problem. Using the manual, ran the tests and all systems worked except for the screen was black. Tom and Vicky still looked at me as if I should be able to fix it. So back I went to the manual and found that (like other tech things) was a reboot which I applied -- and YEA - she lit up like a top and got us to Hilo. We renamed it our "Chuck Plotter" (cause I know the spirit of Chuck was just messin' with us).

LIFE ONBOARD UNDERWAY

We had prepared 16 days of fabulous dinners and froze them in La Paz.

Plus we all loved Vicky's Pancakes!

There was often something to fix. Our watch schedule was 3 hours on and 6 hours off. It worked quite well for us to allow time to rest, read, recharge -- yet be ready for any "all hands on deck".

We did not have hot water -- nor a shower. So hair washing was either in the sink - or out on deck.

This is Vicky in the "Phone Booth" -- talking via Satellite phone with her Mom in Kansas! We needed a sat phone for emergencies -- but when we got to the end of the month and had minutes left, we just called our business managers, friends and family for 10 minutes!

Farm Living -- Vicky's sprout farm. Cabbage, Carrots, Beets, Jicama, and these sprouts kept us in fresh produce for the whole trip.

For the night before the 1/2 way party, Suzanne made Pizza's. Toppings included mushrooms, black olives, onion, garlic, cheese, and TOM wanted SPAM. Go figure!

Tom's Tongue de SPAM

Halfway party complete with umbrellas for the beverages and John in his cups. Lasagna was on the dinner menu!

It looks like a calm night!

But in the morning, Vicky toured the deck and found us a flying fish -- not quite big enough to eat. We actually did drag a line for a couple days but alas, didn't get a bite.

You can see on the horzon that we are passing near a large ship. On watch, we scan the horizon about every 10 minutes -- looking for ships, squalls and any trouble on deck. With this ship, I called out on the VHF to confirm that they saw us on their radar. I was tracking them on ours. It was an nice conversation -- they were bound for the Panama Canal. We crossed with 4 ships and 1 sailboat (Popoki) during the passage

We are grateful to Jessica (List) & Joel Steffan for taking care of our 15 year old dog, Sasha. This trip would have been impossible without their help -- but Vicky did bring the the spirit of the 'ole girl along for the trip.

No ocean voyage would be complete without a few pictures of sun rises and sunsets - we had 22 of them - but here are a few: