San Francisco to Sydney

Boat: Aries 32, doublehanded

Route: SF -> Marquesas -> Cook Islands -> American Samoa -> Coffs Harbour -> Sydney

At dawn we motored out of Sausalito and under the Golden Gate Bridge into the Pacific Ocean. It was a false start, a day later we were in Half Moon bay making repairs, a chill in the air. After several bowls of chowder, we set sail for the Marquesas. With only enough diesel onboard to motor into port, we spent 37 days at sea. A near sinking, temporary loss of steerage, a broken boom, torn sails; a storm, we made it. After ten days of avoiding French Polynesian customs and police at anchor in the Marquesas, we repaired our boom with a piece of Kauri, hand tools and several pieces of bamboo a local helped cut from the jungle in exchange for rum, and we set sail for the landing place of the Kontiki.

We snuck past a beautiful anchorage lined with palm trees and stopped for a swim, our first in months. We dove in the clear waters, noticing severe damage to our rudder. After more improvised repairs, we departed again, the weather was becoming too difficult to make Raroia atoll in the Tuamotu group, the dream of seeing the atoll Kontiki arrived on was quashed. We redirected for Suwarrow, simply because of my interest in the hermit Tom Neale. We anchored inside the dynamite blasted passage for a week, diving amongst sharks, eating coconut crab and fishing on the outer reef. In American Samoa we witnessed the canning and the industralised Tuna fishing industry - in response, I have not eaten canned Tuna for 5 years. Before long, we landed in Coffs Harbour, along the eastern Australian coastline.

Complete voyage stories & notes in the blog.