Sailing Solo across the Pacific Ocean - Hawaii to the Marshall Islands - 21 Days Alone at Sea

all right so I'm ready to sail to Majuro, Marshall Islands, from Honolulu I've been here now over three months so I've got like sort of a rental agreement going on with his boat I'm completely responsible for it he signed over temporary command of the vessel to me yeah I have a 2,000 mile pretty much straight route no land to the Marshall Islands I'll come close to Johnston atoll but I'm supposed to stay away from that because it's not only a toxic waste dump chemical warfare dump but also it's been turned into a Wildlife Refuge so I'm not supposed to go near that unless you're in an emergency okay I won't have an emergency feeling pretty good about it I'm most concerned about getting out of this Harbor I'm gonna give that a go tomorrow morning I have some helps I feel good about that have an extra hand onboard will be nice just in case something happens here we go think about the boat being upside down which is a really good thing to think about when you're going out to sea because the ocean can throw you all over the place now that glass jar would smash off the ceiling so that's really not a good thing ah these things right here these might fall upside down but it's only tortilla chips oh no big deal I've got some lemons over there this right here my emergency grab bag in case I have to leave the boat and hop and the life raft we've got lots of food and supplies and radio and even a little solar charger for for electronics and also as a last resort I do have this thing the EPIRB emergency position indicating reason rescue beacon yeah I flicked that on sends out an emergency signal very much last resort. Setting sail on Dolce got Reese here to help me out he's gonna just help me get out of the harbour and then hop on the waves and boogie board back in the wind is light gusting a bit not in the great direction yeah give it a go here pretty soon I think though the Marshall Islands Oh okay guys you're acting fast I wasn't ready yeah if you want to just tighten that around that would pull it with you as you go for the bow yeah I'll be bending her off here there's no end yeah you cannot go i watch yourself dead head wind blown over there on those flags There's no turning back! it's called a , There's a boat though. They'll be fine, they'll stay out of your way. Yeah, I'll look you up online man I guess you won't be posting that video for a month or something It's not too late to turn back Markus it's a Finnish name but I'm Estonian my dad was born in Estonia. in Hawaiian means tough brave and strange I'm glad dude, honestly I was a little worried about, I felt fine with the pull across the channel What are you doing now? Stay with me now Yeah, I'll look you up online man I guess you won't be posting that video for a month or something you ready? Sure man. Tacking.... Pull it through. Watch your head Pull it pull it Keep pulling. there you go. It's not too late to turn back Markus It's way too late Yes it is. What is that? Is That Russian it's a Finnish name but I'm Estonian my dad was born in Estonia. Pukonakona in Hawaiian means tough brave and strange Love you! Take care. An Honour bro. Just a bit stressed, you were the perfect person to have onboard I'm glad dude, honestly I was a little worried about, I felt fine with the pull across the channel but it was a tight squeeze, ya know the wind was like... the wind died like completely right as we're in that spot yeah I think I think I got the wind from here so get hop in oh all right yeah if you wanna wanna hop off I think I'm good here thank you yeah man I hope I run into you again some time. Alright good luck with everything. Cheers shoots. Shoots I'm doing it I am doing it I can't believe it I am sailing solo To the Marshall Islands saying goodbye to Hawaii Honolulu looks like I'm gonna have a pretty like straight downwind route as it is so I'm gonna have to put up my whisker pole set up the sails like that I also don't have the preventer line set up on the mat on the main right now I'm feeling pretty good it still feels a bit surreal by myself out in the big ocean and the weather's looking pretty good so should be fine Wow it's still day one here making my way away from wahoo a lot of adjustments to make on the boat things to fix already ate a massive salad I got the whisker pull out see both sails there see in the last of land here I imagined when I wake up in the morning the land will be gone it's a pretty decent swell right now actually sure feel it the motion of the ocean whew just finished eating dinner uh some guacamole and corn trips and I went about to do some laundry here or some print dishes and I looked down and look at what I saw here it's a squid you could obviously flew into my boat poor little guy it looks like he's sprayed his stuff all over the place he's still breathing maybe like maybe I can save him I'm gonna stop filming him actually day three it's about 5:30 in the morning I just slept most of the night it's pretty good all right still got up three or four times to make sure the pole wasn't sailing off in the wrong direction and most likely a boom from the boom that woke me or from the whisker pole wind vane has been holding strong I've been actually out to change the course during my sleep and I didn't actually have to do anything to the sails either they are both griefed a little bit right now the wind is not too strong so I'm probably actually gonna go right now and release those reefs yeah the Sun is gonna start rising here soon so I'm sort of glad that I woke up time for that it's been pretty smooth sailing downwind today I fixed well I actually changed the boom vang wasn't a great setup it was chafing a bed and just wasn't super strong I can see it breaking and potentially causing some serious damage and so I I acted on it before weeding it had to happen good move I had to drill some new holes in the boat always not really does never feels right to drill a hole of the boat but in this case it worked well it still feels a bit bizarre that I'm doing this I have this thought today I don't usually like anticipate or or have many expectations for what's coming next in my life I have an idea of what I want to do and I worked towards doing it but outside of that I'm sort of very much living in the moment day-to-day the moment I was out on the ocean actually sailing I just felt surreal it just felt like a dream I might have what what am i doing am i actually sailing across the ocean yep yep I am all by my lonesome on this 30-foot boat from 1968 built actually very close to where I was just 14 years before me, in Whitby, Ontario I was born in Toronto Ontario actually it's just like an hour hour and a half drive or a four-hour canoe a couple hours sail I'm averaging right now about 115 miles a day which is pretty awesome I'll take that all day long so I woke up pretty nervous deserts and bangs on back that was just when was getting light and as I was out just in the sail this guy landed on the solar panel right behind my head this is the first time a bird has landed on the boat and over 28 days at sea seen birds all the time but they never landed on the boat this guy seems like you could use a rest hopefully he's around in the morning still here in the morning you're welcome to stay for as long as you want buddy morning of day four onboard Dolce, she heading towards Majuro my view as I wake up sleeping on the cabin floor it's amazing how many noises there are in here for some reason there's this weird phenomenon where it seems like all of the noises are twice as loud when it's nighttime in the dark look even with earplugs in all the little clangs and clammers everything she's not much louder well it was nice having the company of that bird on on board for a while but he did leave a fair amount of his shit all over the deck not just on the deck but also on the solar panel it's just a mess now I didn't think about it but he probably also scratched it a bit might not be the best thing to do in the future is let a bird hang out on there for many hours I'm gonna go and clean it now I guess woke up pretty bad stomach this morning I'm not sure if it was I ate one of the first canned Thai curries that I made last night and I have a feeling it's the beef lard that that I used to cook it with is there's so much of it on this boat I think that might have been a bad idea I don't know we'll see I'd like to avoid eating it for the for the rest of this trip and try someone I'm back and harbor just to be safe those days just cruising I got beautiful for dinner here we have red and green cabbage salad with shredded beets and shredded carrots and then on top of that I'm gonna add some fried onions garlic tomatoes sunflower seeds and cashews and right now I'm just mixing in a lemon tahini dressing it's got actually lemon and lime in it too he me olive oil a little bit of maple syrup and some nutritional yeast and some pepper already tasted it it tastes delicious just smash my head off the ceiling here though I don't know how I managed to do that right on that nasty edge and I'm out in the middle of the ocean sailing listen to selectors galore awesome Bon Appetit day five onboard SV Dolce so at least three maybe four times a night I'm waking up a bit jostled there's a loud noise and I climb out to see what's going on thankfully usually nothing is going on and it's been pretty peaceful there was one time where the wind was picking up stronger and I had to read the sails which coming out of sleep well it wakes you up that's for sure I spotted a whale yesterday if it might have been a large dolphin I'm not sure what it was is a mammal of some sort and I imagine there's actually a lot more mammals and fish around that if it were call might be able to see but with these waves out here it's just you know it's so hard to see anything like then that sort of reminds me of the fact that like here with somebody out here and they're go overboard it's actually like even if you have an eye on them it can be extremely challenging to find them and pick them back up basically when you're out in the open ocean don't fall overboard solo if your other guys sleeping you're probably screwed a couple more flying fish landing on deck made some more guacamole last night though it's pretty tasty and this is a very rare moment where I'm sitting down and I don't actually have to hold on it's actually fairly mellow right now but I'm still balancing all the time and I think that's where the exhausting part comes from there's just no real rest from the balancing it's more a matter of what happened you do it just to it and so instead of balancing all the time you more just sort of learn to go with the flow I think there's still a certain degree of balancing happening all the time but you don't fight it as much sort of move with the boat, dig it, yah mooove with the boat rock'n'rolling rollercoaster heading downwind in the trades yeah I feel there must be a way to do this better but I'm not sure what it is I've build around tried different arrangements tried sailing at a different angle and it seems like there's sort of this is the best compromise I just sort of snake back and forth doing sort of an ass heading downwind it's the most challenging when I wake up in the morning once I got into the rhythm of the day I sort of forget about the whole sneaking weird movements of the boat and I just forgot about doing things like cooking and organizing new things and reading books and always essential part of life on the boat is making sure all your food is happy checking your your fresh supplies daily just to make sure there's no rot or fungus growing also got a different sky today a little bit more not as blue there's a bit more moisture in the air see it looks like it might be raining over there speaking of going crazy I just I just shared with some folks that so somebody's sailing the boat up there I'm not sure who it is Oh Captain Horn you there Captain Horn all right good stuff I'm not quite sure what the weather's doing right now you know there's always a concern that it might start twisting a bit again cyclone economy but don't think that's gonna happen I think we just got a system a little low-pressure system moving through probably create a little bit of interesting winds for me and some rain so I'm looking forward to getting a good shower in I'll wash it myself off really nicely and maybe doing the same to my clothes at least some of my clothes some decent size swells coming through here right now it's always a bit tricky to scale them from your own boat it's a lot easier if there would be another boat out there you double to see just how big these waves are and I think we got some high winds to some squalid conditions probably so I'm just gonna get ready for that batten down the hatches make sure I got everything where it needs to be I was right about that system coming through a tough 12 hours I actually checked the forecast that didn't show anything abnormal coming just similar wet conditions to what I had and I woke to range off and smaller my head and quickly got up to close the hatch and realized that I was gonna need to go out on deck pretty fast because full-on sideways rain so i briefed the mainsail and as I was reefing the mainsail the jib that was still whisker pulled rope across the bottom that can tighten the sail it could ripped out of the sail I was sitting there and this you know just sideways howling gusting to 35 knots I think it was that's what I saw it not boring at least and I came I started getting old naked in the rain night the ocean when the ocean splashed on me like I got away with my face it was actually quite warm shivered so I came inside put on merino wool rain gear grab some snacks in my pocket its water and climb back out there and again it was like just gnarly breezy conditions sideways rain big waves and I always got close right towards Johnson a tool so I had to like change course change my sail plan up I eventually took down the whisker pole which was not easy to do in these conditions but I did I got a little bit of a fellow break in the weather right now make some tea boats you can imagine it sometimes not so easy to sleep on Dolce have to dive a midday down attempt it's been pretty scary past 15 or 16 hours I just experienced probably the heaviest heaviest rain I've ever experienced in my life thankfully I wasn't out in it you can hear a bit of it coming now this is probably about 25% of what it was falling out a little bit earlier yeah it's coming down hard out there thankfully Cap Horn is steering the boat pretty well for me that's the wind vane seems we're doing pretty good I'll look it up even some bright sky over there thankful to have Dolce across this ocean this boat is actually handling really well I haven't had too many issues with her but yeah I had a pretty good sleep last night I got up at one point and I swear there was ash falling out of the sky I think I got some in my eye which is maybe what made me realize it was actually something and not just like the fogginess of my eyes or the spray of water flowing coming through the sky was actually it felt dry and then actually like got me on my eye and then I saw some fall and I felt it like stuff yeah if it wasn't massive I don't know what what it might pollinating trees actually that's very much what it could have been some seed of some tree that got sucked up into the atmosphere and flew its way over here I'll go with that if it did actually feel more like like a tree seed of some sort like just like guys you know I was like maybe I'll just saw a flying fish jump oh and the other day I saw two dolphins from a distance is this like the amazing sort of sensation where I was looking and I had a thought that there was something something with me in that there's probably a lot more animals around me than I ever know because the waves have been so rough and like at that moment I looked there's problems I probably looked about 500 meters away and saw two dolphins of course I yelled it that was like hey come over say like the whole boat just like I don't look like a whole meter I won't got to boom I climbed up I've managed in a bigger way to just like hop over the boards without even pulling them up so I did that climbed out and realized that the wind vane was sort of just doing this and the rudder wasn't reacting to the vein which means that the steering rudder that comes down off the vane has come loose so what I have to do is that basically I have to climb to a box turn of the boat hang half my body off the boat and flick it back in place eleven hundred and fifty miles to go similar conditions with this downwind 20 to 25 knots so not quite directly on a run straight down line goes a little bit on an angle and I ended up starting to get like a lot of waves crashing over the boat which just doesn't doesn't make me sleep well is that sort of the wind had changed but the waves hadn't changed directions so that was creating this sloppy conditions for me although it's super sloppy all the time and I didn't want to put up the whisker pole in the middle of the night and the pretty sick sort of squally condition so I just went to shoot the main and it actually worked pretty well I actually didn't have to touch it I went to sleep three I was out cold didn't wake up even for the sunrise unfortunately to send some boat and see how much I guess you guys can't probably see there's a lot of water that came in there I'd say I'm pretty lucky that more water came inside heater you know like some people might think you want to keep this hot to close at all times but I did not this place would just be just as wet with all my sweat thanks lad Nice landing buddy you're beautiful some fresh water I can get you some water water okay stick around Alright then, Day 11 this morning I woke up and the sales were flogging there was basically almost zero wind but 3 knots of wind so I climbed out on deck I filled in the jib and I was about to take down the main when it just started dumping like crazy and then the wind picked up and that actually made the motion of the boat quite more smooth and then it picked up quite strong actually up to like 20 knots which was exciting for a bit there for sure like that was how I woke up in the morning and saw the Sun sort of rise out of the sky I mean it was cloudy so he couldn't I just saw to get lighter I lost the wind there for a bit I haven't been in the water yet since I started I sort of feel like I've been missing something down there I'm pretty stoked to finally get in there maybe there's some scrubbing that needs to be done actually so should get some tools out here quickly all right finally go for a little swim maybe maybe there's some life under there maybe I've got a little fishy with me or something oh it's not nearly as pleasant as I had hoped was indeed making forward progress I thought it would be a little bit but it was it was more than I was expecting I was sort of getting dragged when I held onto the boat boat looks good under there doesn't it yeah I think so oh it's good I'm gonna lift the sails coz there's a bit of a breeze now get moving get myself to the Marshall Islands beautiful evening here on Dolce got some spaghetti cooking some tomato basil pasta sauce probably the calmest night so far of the journey is the night of the eleventh day it's day number 14 not really sure I just sat for a few hours with the sails down as there's very light winds under five knots couldn't go anywhere just flopping the sails around in the winds pretty annoying I finally got a little breeze back just a second ago pretty nice all by myself out here in this big blue ocean oh that's not entirely true actually a bird did just fly by usually see a few birds a day occasional dolphin or whale not too many so far though flying fish I see flying through the air all the time usually about once a day I find one dad on the deck one that didn't quite see where it was flying sealing downwind God about maybe 12 to 15 knots of wind probably the ideal conditions a little bit light on the wind maybe I might actually bring in that jib a bit to stop it from fogging a bit it worked system coming through here I don't like to call it a squall more just a little low-pressure rain cloud might create some high winds I don't know I've got the sails reef just in case should be fun I could use a shower it's starting to really stink here so sort of good timing Oh classic bottle I've been in these sort of really mellow winds now for I'd say three days I'm about a little under 400 miles from Maduro and I have a feeling that this is gonna sort of be the weather pattern that it's gonna take me there not ideal but not bad either another day it sees no big deal quite happy about that who knows it could be another week if the wind completely dies I'm definitely prepared and ready for that but just in case I go missing and nobody ever hears from me again I've got a message in a bottle what the message is they never know what that message is but you will know that there's a squid in there for the lucky fisherman who finds this perhaps a little Fisher boy in need of a lure I hope somebody finds it I don't like throwing stuff into the ocean that just sits there it's definitely a contemplation I had whether I want to throw another piece of little plastic into the ocean but I have a feeling that the glass will hold up and somebody will find it hopefully yeah message in a bottle message in bottle message in doo-doo-doo-doo to the person who finds the message in the bottle I wish you all the best in the world and bring you many fish ah quite a bit of no wind lots of no wind today but got some nice wind now cruising straight downwind to the Marshall Islands feeling pretty happy feeling pretty good and I felt the need to express that happiness and share it with you because life on the ocean is pretty good life on this planet is pretty good day number 16 how does that saying go red sky at night sailor's delight at sky in the morning sailors warning well I don't think I need the color of the sky to tell me that looks like there's system of some sort move in my way for the first time and the whole trip sixteen days I'm actually close hauled then right into the wind and heading straight into that stuff to say I can't really see the other side of it but I have a feeling it's just uh gonna be a brief shower that's what I'm hoping winds are probably gonna go a bit wonky in here change directions flop around it should get a bit exciting see my toilet out here that's that's it that's how exciting not to be be calmed out on the ocean this is actually a very nice nice version of being becalmed because waves aren't too choppy I still get a bit of rocking like this but slight breeze coming through well it's sort of swirling around and disappearing every once in a while so I haven't done anything yet we'll see well I did do let's make this tasty salad just at about 8 to 10 hours I recently have no wind so it's just walking around out here but move it now feels pretty good another 300 miles or so to go to Marshall Islands I know this looks like a bit of a mess but it's actually fairly good over nice it's just my bike makes it look really messy there got my little drove there well it's actually a big Joe's big heavy thing it's in the way life is pretty good though on my I'm adapting to the ocean as I always do tend to do still have way too much food and plenty of water I thought you might be interested in my kitchen here pretty fancy black ice pump-action sink that stoves not the best this this little thing here though is pretty good just in bullying stove rocking the boat rocking the boat learning Mandarin I'm reading a fair amount practising my knots and such yo-yo shit me go da ba Dei 19 on more Dolce I actually move it now this is good good sign it's been very slow going for the past five days one of the things that I consistently happens to me when I'm out on the ocean is I just realized how grateful I am for everybody in my life past weeks been really slow and I have to admit that looking up at the skies and seeing sort of different skies that I'm used to I've been definitely concerned about tropical storms cyclones forming around where I am I've heard that when trade winds get disrupted it's what can create a cyclone but anyways I've just been looking up at the sky and seeing really really bizarre different cloud structures and long used to go out on the ocean at least seen a lot of really big dark cumulonimbus which I don't think of as forming a cyclone or tropical storm but sometimes I just picture some of these bigger ones spinning around that's what gets me a bit nervous I'm now within a hundred and sixty nine miles where's Rose over there towards the sunset probably made about 10 miles towards it today wind just blowing straight from there right now see the Telltale's are working that's a good sign on the bucking bronco now forecast called for about 11 12 knots of wind but I'm getting more probably like 16 17 which feels more like 20 parent win because I'm heading pretty much straight into it a little bit violent at times unless you've been really impressed with the wind aim it takes a lot of strength the tiller and the rudder just jerking back and forth damn my top put in another reef here 25 or 30 birds there no lad is beer we see so many birds it's probably hard for you to see through the screen but there's actually more like hundreds of birds out there land is near yes captain I spoil answer I oh I'm eight III but that's not the land we're going to we're going to mature oh that's that's it that's the best I could come up with our new it's all spotted not much pretty low lying little island around an inner Lagoon probably some coconut trees on the islands there not much going on anyhow I'm going another probably 30 miles pass down or at all to Majuro at all which is where I need to clear customs and immigration but unfortunately the thing is it's Friday night and I read that if you arrive on the weekend outside of business hours you have to pay some pretty crazy overtime costs like up to $250 I guess I might just not clear customs until Monday and so just have to stay on the boat so I'm gonna wait probably slow the boat down a bit so that I arrive in the wee hours of the morning and then enter into the lagoon the calmer waters all's well that ends well do I look like I'm going crazy because I feel like I'm going crazy there the wind is indeed coming directly from the direction that I need to head through us narrow passage so this could be tricky that's it right there pretty much there's a boat there motor boat looks like it's hanging around hopefully it's not the military or something like that I have this bad feeling that somebody who's really nervous for me called them and told them to come and help me get in I would be painful that was the case I don't think that is the case though I think they're probably just heading out fishing down that way is the capital which is where I'll be heading towards commercial islands apparently the fourth least visited country on the planet we go split in the gap four times I've seen my first people some Chinese fishing boats this is a very very bizarre feeling right here lot water and it's so so calm and smooth still a little bit of wind in here but the waves are blocked from the islands that go right around their toll I can just walk around the boat very comfortably some really sweet little places on these islands here I'm really curious who lives on them they have their own private little surf breaks and I'm heading towards industrial land it looks like there's actually quite a few ships in the harbor majora is busier than I imagined I have to do some tricky maneuvering in here I'm about two point eight four nautical miles from where I need two more but for the past few hours I have not been able to get there because that's go wind taking whatever short gusts the wind I can get to make a little bit closer to my anchor up in the dark it's a bit deep where I am right now to throw an anchor down I could maybe get away with it it's a hundred and fifty feet where's goes where she goes 21 days to measure all sales right in here that some people help me actually came out in their dinghy and took my rope and put it through the Waring there made sure they did not told me there is a whole bunch of really gnarly looking Chinese I'm guessing tuna fishing boats in here that's what all those boats are out there

Channel: Routes of Change

Views: 706,978

Keywords: Sailing Solo across the Pacific Ocean, Hawaii to the Marshall Islands, sailing solo across the pacific, hawaii to the marshall islands sail, single handed sailing around the world, sailing pacific crossing, solo sailing, single man sailing vlog, sailing pacific, sailing around the world, sailing solo, sailing alone, routes of change, sailing pacific ocean, sailing across the pacific, sailing to hawaii, solo sailing around the world, sailing alone around the world

Id: P6oVHrLMP5Q

Length: 55min 35sec (3335 seconds)

Published: Wed Feb 12 2020