San Francisco to Sydney
37 days to the Marquesas, and a boom rebuilt with bamboo and hand tools.
| Year | 2013 |
|---|---|
| Boat | Harmony, an Aries 32 |
| Crew | Me and my friend Chris |
| Route | San Francisco, Marquesas, Suwarrow (Cook Islands), American Samoa, Coffs Harbour, Sydney |
At dawn we motored out of Sausalito and under the Golden Gate Bridge into the Pacific. 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 to motor into port, we spent 37 days at sea: a near sinking, a temporary loss of steering, a broken boom, torn sails and a storm. We made it.
We spent ten days at anchor in the Marquesas avoiding French Polynesian customs and police. We repaired the boom with a piece of kauri, hand tools and some bamboo a local helped us cut from the jungle in exchange for rum. Then we set sail for Raroia in the Tuamotus, where the Kon-Tiki landed.
We stopped at a beautiful palm-lined anchorage for our first swim in months, and found severe damage to our rudder. After more improvised repairs the weather turned against us, and the dream of seeing the Kon-Tiki's atoll was over. We redirected to Suwarrow, simply because of my interest in the hermit Tom Neale.
We anchored inside the dynamite-blasted pass for a week, diving among sharks, eating coconut crab and fishing the outer reef. In American Samoa we saw the industrial tuna fishing and canning industry up close. I haven't eaten canned tuna since. Before long we landed at Coffs Harbour, then Sydney, where Harmony was sold with her makeshift repairs still intact.
Everything Kohutt makes is built by hand in our Tasmanian workshop, and guaranteed for life with free repairs.
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