18 days, 10 hours, crew of 4.  Oahu, Hawaii to Meyers Chuck, Alaska – A journey that would take us from Kewalo Basin in Honolulu to our first touch of land again in Thomas Basin, Ketchikan Alaska for a few days of re-provisioning to La Costa’s new homeport of Meyers Chuck Alaska. A journey that Captain Josh and 1st Mate Sophia have planned since the purchase of La Costa (formerly known as ‘Mandarin’ and ‘Lucky Duck’) in May 2021 in Honolulu Hawaii.

Setting off for our last trip out to Oahu, Hawaii on Wednesday May 26^th, excited for it to be our last flight to Honolulu – and booking  a one way flight. (It may sound bizarre to many… “excited to never have to fly to Hawaii again”, but since purchasing La Costa in Hawaii (during Covid) with a goal to cross her to Alaska in June 2022, we had to fly to Oahu every month for 7-10 days to complete a refit and prepare the boat for the Pacific crossing; all while also running our businesses/jobs from afar.

The long 7 hour flights always with a red eye returning flight to Phoenix would be met with landing at 7am and starting our work day at 8am with no sleep and a 4 hour jetlag to boot, makes for a very long and exhausting day!) The 7 hour flight would consist of constant gazing out of the window at 30,000 ft to the vast blue ocean below that in just short of a week would be our newest journey and one that would last a lifetime for us all. The blue ocean so vast and big and so surreal that we are about to embark on crossing the Pacific Ocean, the largest one of them all.  So many things race through my mind, are we prepared, what is the weather going to be like, how will the boat/crew handle the trip, is the boat ready….the list goes on and on.

Landing in Honolulu late in the evening,  we collect the many boxes from baggage claim of the necessary items for the crossing and arrive at La Costa late into the night, we are quickly reminded of the many last minute, important and “need to be completed” projects that have been on-going. One of which being the debacle with our Furuno Auto-pilot that is quite a necessary component when crossing the ocean – cruise control…yes please. As we turn on La Costa and settle in for a few hours sleep – the 4 hour time change reveals an early rise and start to our workday at 4:30am. As we are both taking a “sabbatical” from our jobs, we button up some last minute work emails and finalize projects to now focus on the boat and the projects that are staring us in the face. As we work endlessly on the auto-pilot we are sad to realize the newly made custom made hydraulic lines for the steering have incompatible adapters and are basically no use to us at all. Quickly locating another vendor on the island that can make them as we wait…thankfully a local company came to the rescue and made them as Josh waited and also made a spare for him.

Later in the afternoon we would make our first contact call to Bob Cook at WeatherPros to let him know that La Costa is gearing up to be ready in a few days and check in with the systems and communication for the passage. What he also relays to us is that we have an incredible weather window of 5-6 days with a high pressure ridge that will allow us to leave far earlier than June 1^st as originally planned and give us fantastic weather getting offshore from the islands, which often times can be like a washing machine like seas and usually gives everyone the green gills for a good day or two. Within this news also comes a tad of bad news as well. The Pacific High is not forming quite as it has in past years and we have quite a few low pressure systems that Bob has been watching including a very large storm off the coast of Japan that hopefully will downgrade as it crosses East and quite possibly will run into during the trip. Knowing La Costa and her capabilities in heavy seas and our trusted Captain, we are ready and prepared. Friday May 27^th would welcome another early 4am wake up call with a day full of last minute work items before we can both set our out of office and prepare for our Saturday departure. Excited with the news, we welcome the arrival of our crew Kim and Dwayne and share the news that in just less than 24 hours from their arrival, its GO TIME! No time to get cozy yet, we have a long list of things to get done before we untie from the Kewalo dock for the very last time. There will be plenty of time to kick up our feet and relax -but now is surely not the time.

 As Josh and Dwayne work on items on the boat, Kim and I jump into an Uber and head to Costco and Foodlands for provisioning groceries. With 3 ½ weeks worth of food, now its time to play tetris as well as the memory game of where did I put that item?! Thankfully, La Costa was the only Diesel Duck to have a custom pantry built into her starboard panels that surely comes in handy for storage.

  We are lucky to have a send off visit Friday evening from our cousins Jesse and Megan from Washington who were also vacationing on the island at the same time. After an hour or so of conversations, its back to work and Dominos pizza delivery to the rescue for a late night supper. During dinner we have our first of many crew meetings to review expectations and responsibilities, emergency preparedness, plans for departure, etc.

The decision has been made that La Costa is ready to leave and that we will plan for a 10:00am local time departure to begin our journey. Off to bed for yet another early morning wake up call.

Departure Day!! Saturday May 28, 2022

Its 5am, and the coffee is hot, the crew is busy stowing items and preparing for departure for approximately 19-21 days at sea. The crew (with the exception of Josh) puts on what would become our lifesavers, scopolamine patches for seasickness and continue to work on securing the stabilizers with a back up lead line, (picture above)  double checking the mast, the sails, the engine room and the electronics and topping off the water tanks. As we are busy working to secure every last item, we also make calls to loved ones back stateside. The time is 9:45am now. 15 minutes until our last line is hoisted from the cleat in slip B27 and La Costa makes her way out of Kewalo Basin for the last and final time. We sadly missed saying our farewells to our slip mate Tom from S/V Garbo who was at his morning pickleball game, but were able to chat briefly and say farewell to our slip mate Larry on S/V Audacious who also took pictures for us of the crew and our departing photos of La Costa as she made her way out of the marina to the Pacific Ocean for her last and final time in Oahu.  La Costa has been outfitted with an In Reach for satellite communications to communicate with our weather routing company Ocean-Pro and we have assigned our oldest daughter Taylor to be our communication to a small group of family members for our daily updates. Thankfully she would also capture our daily positions and apply the weather layer when we started to get into some real weather situations!

The time is 10:05am as we enter through the channel into the Pacific, we are greeted with a flat rolling ocean swell, beautiful blue skies and winds just barely at 3knots. As we make our way towards the North Shore we continue to enjoy a following sea and beautiful weather for the 4 ½ hour journey to the North side of Oahu which leads us to the vast ocean that would be our journey for the next 3 weeks.

As we round Ka’ Ena Point and head towards the North Shore we leave the protected side of Oahu into little more ocean activity and waves which would then be felt even more upon leaving the lee side of Kawela Bay at Kahuku point, the winds now are off our starboard side and the waves begin to pick up and build a decent swell of 6-8 feet with only 5 or so seconds in between -meaning as we come off one wave, there is another one already crashing over our bow. Hello to the open and vast Pacific ocean!

We would beat into the waves off the coast of Oahu for approximately 4 hours which would lead to our first green gills award being presented to Kim along with a bucket and PFD to wear as she sat in the stern deck with fresh air to help calm her sickness. Smiling still through it, she was ready for it all!

Welcome to the Pacific Ocean and being 100% into the crossing with nothing but ocean ahead of us. No turning back now! Our first sunset would be one of many to awe over. The golden sky would then lead to calmer winds and sea state and as the sun slowly set behind the blue ocean, the sky would present the most beautiful purple and pink sky to welcome us into our adventure. The crew had assigned 4 hour shifts that rotated each day to allow everyone sunsets, sunrises, decent sleep and daytime shifts. Every hour, on the hour, the engine room was to be thoroughly checked and temperatures monitored – have to say that the engine room is the most important vital item in any trip…but especially for an ocean crossing!  Thankfully our engine room is rather spacious in comparison and has great navigation room to carefully view all important.

Day #2 -Sunday May 29^th, 2002  

We would experience the first of many failures; our auto-pilot. Poor Dwayne is the first crew member for the beginning of the overnight shift midnight to 4am. Alarms begin to sound on the auto-pilot at 2:45am signaling “Rudder Failure”  that the auto-pilot has malfunctioned and La Costa must be manually steered – except that the steering has also failed and is frozen. Leaping out of bed, Josh runs into the engine room with information from Dwayne. No idea just yet what has broken or failed, but red hydraulic fluid spraying everywhere is a sign of the autopilot and steering. Quickly Josh glances over every inch of the auto-pilot pump and finds a manufacturers pressure plate screw that is loose and the cause of the issue. He removes auto-pilot pump and takes it to the bench to rebuild it, taking down the pump side completely and reassembling and re-torquing it back together. (We had a new spare as well)  Plumbing is hooked back up, fresh hydraulic fluid added at helm pump, and the spraying had come to an end!  It seems the pressure plate had just worked loose on the reversing pump, and thankfully reassembling and retorquing has solved the issue.  The clean up process begins; however we must try and reclaim what we can in the hydraulic fluid as the stores in Oahu were mostly out of stock and we seemed to locate the only 2 quarts extra to add to the ½ gallon already on board.  That is all we have for the entire crossing and we now just lost almost half of it. Within an hour and a half, the auto-pilot is back up and running and the engine room cleaned of hydraulic fluid and a tub of oil diapers reclaimed what we could salvage though straining through a cheesecloth. .

Thankfully Josh was able to go back to sleep for a bit. Our first of many sunrises would rise to an incredible golden yellow sky at 5:10am and the first frigate bird would be off our port bow who would follow us for the next 5 days (seemed like same one, lol). Thus far we have already travelled 114 nm (nautical miles) and are making faster headway than expected. Sure…We’ll take it!

By noon that afternoon we have two lines in the water for a hopeful catch of mahi-mahi for dinner and just two short hours later we land not one but two mahi at the same time. All hands on deck to reel them in and filet them up for a bbq dinner!

Every day at 10:00 am- Josh would take our coordinates and plotted our course manually with compass, ancient brass protractor, parallel rulers, etc on the chart, then transmit these coordinates to Ocean-Pros Weather to constantly watch weather ahead and assist us in avoiding any potential severe storms – the final voyage would be pretty epic when you look at it!

We would have to learn to translate UTZ (Universal Time Zone) to HAST (Hawaiian Aleutian Time Zone) as the weather company would only provide our times in UTZ.

As mentioned before, the engine room is the queen of the trip getting checked on every hour and quite a bit of added time spent by Josh who has been fighting the fuel polishing system for sometime not wanting to get a good prime to run. Polishing fuel is the key to ensure that we have clean diesel running at all times through the engine. The fastest thing that will stop us in our tracks is bad fuel in the engine. We made sure in our preparations before departing to fully clean inside all 5 diesel tanks removing years of sludge build up and also a bit of bad diesel. Below is the process to transfer our diesel from one tank to another and clean it while we were still in preparation mode prior to departure. 5 tanks in total all emptied and cleaned out with the remaining diesel polished before pumping back into the newly cleaned tank. In all we would polish 4 tanks, fill the stern tank which was empty with new diesel, topping off La Costa with a total of 1750 gallons for the crossing. Most Diesel Ducks have 6 fuel tanks which allows for 2100 gallons, however by prior owners, one tank was converted into a larger black water holding tank.

The discovery of a thin layer of sludge on top of the diesel in our inspections of preparation months before lead us to completely cleaning and polishing all diesel tanks on board, followed by re-polishing the fuel and topping off all of the tanks with new diesel.

Wednesday May 30^th, 2022 –Memorial Day -Thank you for those who gave the ultimate sacrifice. 24.59.570N 155.52.359W  -Holding at 7.3kts steady

Incredibly the sea state is glassy calm and the white puff clouds clearly reflecting in the blue quartz colored ocean make for an impressive photo opportunity early in the morning and La Costa easily glides through the water making waves that we would find porpoise playing in the bow wake every so often. Simply magical! As the sea state is so calm we slow down the boat to pull in our stabilizers and see if we can gain additional speed as we have had the stabilizers in since leaving near Kaneohe Bay. This would prove to be very short lived and the realization that the stabilizers not only are truly a stabilizing factor to keep La Costa Low into the water and keep her from pitching side to side…even in calm weather; but also that once retrieved and stowed, our speed didn’t change at all, still cruising along at 7.1 kts with following seas. Comfort is certainly key and we all agreed to put the stabilizers back into the water where they will stay for nearly the entire trip.

Another day for a calm sea-state would welcome fishing lines in the water at 9am and a small batch load of laundry to be done in the sunshine in buckets to line dry on the stern makeshift clothesline. While La Costa is outfitted with a combo washer/dryer unit, this requires the generator to run and quite frankly it’s just not needed as of yet. A few buckets and soap and it’s good to go! While running the generator it would lead to our repair of the day which unfortunately would be our Northern Lights generator’s water pump…a spare oil side bearing race seal part that of the hundreds on board (literally), a backup we simply do not have. Plenty of impellers, and wet side rebuild kits, but missing the oil side! Thankfully Josh can repair what has broken with JB Weld and holds for the remainder of the trip – we just run it when needed – making water mostly. With the generator up and running and confident in all the systems, it’s water day! Which means we will be able to take showers and replenish topping off our 200-gallon water with only about 30 gallons by making fresh water with salt water through our water maker / desalinator.

 We receive a weather email update from Bob at the end of our day that gifts us with another 4-5 days of amazing weather, but following good news seems to always be some bad…there are storms forming in our path that we just can’t avoid. Until then, we will enjoy the great sea state and weather we have been gifted. Our evening dinner would be a delicious steak BBQ followed by a delightful bottle of wine for all to enjoy. Alcohol was not permitted while crossing except for special occasions and tonight we would give a toast to those who made the ultimate sacrifice for our Nation’s freedom.

Another incredible show of Mother Nature’s sunsets graced our eyes as the sun set over the blue water and off in the distance, we watched a squall dance across the horizon thankfully nowhere near our path. Cruising into another blissful night with clear skies allowing for millions of stars to shine bright…truly a sight that can only be witnessed in person. Stars like you have never seen before! The brightest of them all, our guiding star, the North Star shines bright to lead us on our journey North to Alaska.   One welcome and mesmerizing event for the overnight shift crew was the amazing Phosphorescence nightly dancing in the waves and wake.  Many attempt to video all failed of this amazing phenomenon.

Wednesday June 1^st, 2022 – 30.10.231N 152.13.815W

Its June 1^st, our original “go date for departure” and we are already 5 days into the trip with 650nm traveled thus far. We are welcomed with another bright golden sunrise that lights up the whole sky and glassy sea state for another amazing day! We are simply spoiled with the weather and are in complete awe of the seas as they pass below La Costa’s bow and the bright sun reflects the deep blue ocean below. As we sit and enjoy the beauty and take it all in, Whizzz goes one of the fishing lines! Dinner! Josh and I quickly run to the reel that has quite the bend only to confirm that we have quite the fish on the hook! Josh begins to fight the fish and reel as we witness a 6ft sail fish leap from the water to fight being brought on board for dinner. As Josh and the sail fish continue to have a wrestling match, it will be in the sail fish’s victory that he will win and is able to live another day and we will have chicken for dinner. Quite the excitement and would have been amazing to bring a 6ft sailfish on board!  Our sunset would reveal a line of squalls throughout the horizon to the West and also covering the northern horizon, hoping they pass us by and pay us no attention…we know we cannot have this amazing weather much longer – but we surely will enjoy it while we have it.

June 2^nd, 2022  32.50.492N 150.19.627W

The day would welcome us with another golden sunrise but a few hours into a calm sea, the winds would shift to a noticeable sea state change. What was a calm sea state with minimal rolling swells (less than 1 meter) would now change to a swell of about 2-3 meters with 8-9 seconds between each, the sky has turned from golden to grey and it is our 1^st overcast day since beginning our trip. We are now noticing ocean trash (plastics) and must watch to avoid them getting caught up in our prop/rudder. Today will be the day that we notice the engine not consistently running at the same rpm – unable to see on the rpm gauge as it failed on us on day 1 and has been a known problem as well. We all keep an open ear and try to determine if there is something specific that is causing the engine to rev higher rpms, but also drop in rpms. Its becoming more and more noticeable – and worrisome. The last thing we are going to do is turn off the engine in the middle of the ocean in fear that it wont start again! Josh will spend many many hours in the engine room sweating in the sauna attempting to diagnose the inconsistent, and random small RPM changes to no avail. We will continue to monitor and do all precautions and preventative to keep it running and healthy.

Our daily email from Bob will be the first of some not so spectacular news…storms ahead in our direct path. We begin to locate all of the storm windows that are 1/2 inch thick polycarbonate coverings for the outside windows of the wheelhouse. As we locate only 6 of the 11 we should have…its better to install those that we have. Long story we wont go into of the numerous things that suddenly went missing during the closing process of our purchase. That’s a whole different story for some other time!

Tonight will also be the first night that we spotted other forms of life in the vast ocean with us! Two cargo ships will appear on our AIS in route to Hong Kong from California, its something about knowing that there are other people out there with you that is oddly comforting for the moment…then they are gone cruising along their course. As quickly as they would appear, they would disappear and the night would become the darkest dark I think I have ever experienced. Tonight would be another moonless night and cloud cover would hide the sparkling dancing stars that would light up the sky in our earlier evenings. Having only the glow of the instruments in night mode, the sea is an eerie dark that one really cannot explain. The swells will become larger as the night goes on and will occasionally toss La Costa side to side enough to catch you off balance if you are not holding on! I will experience my first “green gills” of the trip from the constant rolling of the seas but more so, not being able to focus on one thing in the complete darkness to avoid the seasickness that flutters in my stomach.

Night view of the helm overnight from inside and outside total and complete darkness

As I am relieved from my shift at midnight and fighting a queasy stomach, I retreat to the master stateroom which in our boat is the entire stern of La Costa only to hear loud banging coming from under our bed with every change of the auto-pilot making corrections to counter the waves. Attempting sleep after an hour I give in and make a bed on the couch in the salon. With each wave large rolling wave I am nearly thrown to the floor and cannot hold myself in place. Off to the helm table trying to wedge myself in enough to avoid rolling off the bench and onto the floor. Hello new sea state and hello fluttering stomach! Its off to the back deck, donning a PFD and a bucket for another 30 minutes to overcome the nauseous feeling.  As the sun rises, Josh and Dwayne will investigate the noises from under the master stateroom bed to find that the steering ram mounting plate has jolted loose (slightly on one side), and the steering ram was moving a bit with every correction to course. With a few quick adjustments, the repair was made, and the noise reduced…not completely quiet as the rudder is directly below the head of the bed and with every course correction, the steering ram makes quick jolts of power to move the rudder. Zofran to my rescue allowed me to go and get 3 hours of needed sleep along with a handful of saltine crackers to ease a grumbling stomach.

June 4^th, 2022 – storm #1 day

34.58.749N 147.14.442W 11-15kt wind steady, traveling at 4.5 kts  

8 days into the crossing since our departure. Ocean swells make their appearance at 4-5 meters and word from Bob states that we need to slow down to only 4knots and head East…towards San Diego now instead of Ketchikan. Winds have been steady at 15 knots off our stern and we are still in following seas with the sea state growing making it a bit more challenging to hold course with the waves pushing our stern side to side as we slide down each wave.

We would experience pitching side to side 20-30 degrees, wind gusts that would hit 20+ kts and its time to prepare for what we hoped not to encounter…the big low pressure system that is currently a Force 11 storm and holding steady. We prepare the storm sea anchor, and get it placed along with the drogue in the event that we need to literally hunker down (lay up) and go into the storm with the sea anchor holding the bow into the waves and the drogue holding us in place. According to the Beaufort scale – we are approaching what would match winds of 56-63 kts, 30-45ft waves and reduced or limited visibility with driving rain. We have a disaster plan discussion over dinner, ensure all crew know responsibilities for an emergency and try to stay hydrated and rested. No time to let our guards down and now we must stay alert and prepared. The guys will take the overnight shift and manage the storm as Kim and I attempt sleep once again.

Storm windows bolted in place and ready for the next 5 days of storms ahead.

June 5^th, 2022 – Another Storm Day  35.55.139N 145.38.577W; Winds steady at 15kts, traveling at 4 kts, seas 2-3 meters

 The morning sunrise into June 5^th would reveal the old salty tale, “Red sky in the morning, sailors take warning”… that is exactly what we were greeted with…a bright red sky, large building waves and a constant wind of a steady 15 kts. We all take showers, make water to top off the tanks, transfer fuel to the ops tank, polish the fuel as we run the generator and prepare easy to grab meals and snacks for what Bob has reported, 3 large low pressure systems that are in our direct path one of them growing with each day. Today we hit the 1200 nm travelled mark – what we thought would be our ‘halfway’ point. After our celebration dinner (marking our halfway point), Kim and I will take the helm together and send Josh off for some much-needed sleep, only to awake him an hour later…traffic jam in the middle of the Pacific! While we tried to maneuver to avoid a path cross, it was not enough and we had to come to an idle and turn 90 degrees to stop in the ocean and allow

him to cross our bow.

June 6^th, 2022-Storm day #2 -37.38.621N 143.48.039W

The overnight shifts would be greeted with rain squalls all night, chopped seas of 12 ft wind capped waves and as the sun breaks the white blanket of fog would require us to rely on our newly installed Furuno electronics and radar. According to the chart and calculations, we are approximately 1,000 nm from seeing landfall at Haida Gwaii in the British Columbia archipelago. (Unbeknownst to us, these storms would change our course and add additional miles and days to our expectation).

By 1:30pm local time, the sea state has increasingly grown with waves building 14-16ft and wind white caps building on each one. The winds now sustained at 20 kts and gusts up to 30 kts. Hold on crew – its about to get fun! In the madness of the sea, Josh spots a one yellow rubber duck floating by us in this massive sea…. We both saw the duckie and at the same time looked at one another with the same baffled and confused face “was that a …yes..it was a rubber duck!”. I remembered a story of a cargo ship that lost a container of millions of rubber ducks in 1993 from China to Seattle…well they are still out there floating around all these years later. (gotta love to hate plastic!) Dinner tonight is a “fend for yourself” and most of the crew enjoys either the typical go-to of of ramen noodles or just passing all together on dinner.

A crew meeting to discuss handling this storm and that we would partner crew; meaning 2 people would always be on shift for safety. Kim and Dwayne would take the first half of the night and Josh and Sophia would take the second half. By now it is 6:00pm local time and the sea state is a confused sea -waves coming at us from all directions tossing La Costa into a pitching motion to about 30 degrees with every toss. In a sea state like this, the stabilizers are working to try and hold us -but the angry sea is no match. It’s a sea state we haven’t yet experienced, but is just a prequel for what is awaiting for us ahead.

Needing rest and any sleep we can actually get, Josh and I head to the master stateroom to attempt sleep for a few hours before our shift. Immune to the tossing of the stern, Josh is able to quickly fall asleep -also probably due to the fact that as the Captain he has not slept more than 3 hours at a time the entire trip so far. I wont hide it…I was terrified! In this moment, I began to feel a sense of fear like I truly can only remember one other time in my life -when our Son convinced me to go on a ridiculously terrifying ride at the Arizona State Fair. Laying in bed constantly holding onto the wall next to me from being tossed off the bed with each wave that jolted La Costa side to side. I am known to make our bed with tight corners as if I were in basic-training and these waves were no match to my tight bed making skills…I needed a ratchet strap in addition to hold us in place and keep us from being thrown to the floor. Eventually emotions and exhaustion overcame my eyes and I was able to sleep for an hour before it was our turn to take the helm and navigate the storm. Throughout the night would be a constant sea state of confused seas and winds of 12-15 knots sustained.

June 7^th, 2022 -Another storm day (didn’t get coordinates in my journal)

Sunbreak -or what should be -would welcome grey skies, driving rain all morning and fog that would allow more visibility around 8am. We are still in a heavy sea state of 15-18 ft white capped waves, thankfully the sea state has shifted from a confused state to somewhat predictable for navigating through them. Our 10am email update from Bob at WeatherPros would advise that we need to change course to due East and South; rather than aiming at Ketchikan we now are directly aimed at Sacramento, California.

Along with the course change is more news of the growing storms and notice to prepare for reaching them in just 24 hours. While we are tracking due East to avoid heading right into the center of the beast, we are still going to be in the brunt of the storm and the right side of the storm which is often the “dirty side”. In just a few hours from this screenshot captured, the La Costa crew would be in the outside bands of the storm battling 35-40′ waves.

In preparation for severe weather, the crew is busy topping off the water, transferring fuel, checking to ensure everything is lashed down and prepare as best as we can. While we begin the process to top off our water supply and take showers, another breakdown at sea would give us another challenge. This time its is our water maker! Josh noticed the power line from the generator to the water maker had a burning smell and we had a problem! Thankfully we had plenty of extra 3-gauge wire and the tools necessary for Josh to rewire the water maker to the generator. Back up and running it was time to take showers, fill water bottles and top off the tanks and hunker down for another day of stormy weather. As the evening approached, thankfully Mother Nature was willing to give us a slight breather with the sea state, winds and weather. We would welcome a sunset with squalls in the distance and giving us a much needed break.

June 8^th, 2022 – The Big Storm is here! 38.55.385N 138.32.710W

Daybreak would welcome the signs of the next storm system with building seas of 18ft and winds sustained around 18kts and gusting to about 22kts. We are aimed directly at the Southern Oregon coast now and nowhere near the hopeful direction of Alaska and won’t be for another 36 hours from the recent weather report. So far we have now traveled 1567nm since leaving Hawaii and have been at sea for 12 days based on our 10am day count. We are all holding on to our spirits though getting anxious and tired of the storms – we are all thankful for our Captain Josh who has held strong and literally kept us going day after day by telling stories of “real bad weather” from his days winter fishing off of Kodiak, and Dutch Harbor, which made this storm seem like just another day. Today we mostly hunker down and attempt whatever sleep we can get when possible knowing that the big storm is in our sights and there is nowhere to hide. As the day progresses come noon, the weather disintegrates quickly, the seas build to 20-25ft waves with additional 3’ ft white wind caps, waves at 4-5 seconds and the winds ramp up to a constant whistle blowing 20-25 knots. Here we go again! We are in the path of the dreaded “Storm #3” that we had hoped would pass by or break apart before reaching, but unfortunately, we were right on its heels and we were in its path. (we did miss the worst of it by far however)

Being in the middle of the Pacific Ocean – there is no where to hide. Time to hunker down. We have a crew meeting over another ramen noodle dinner and ensure that everyone knows to stay hydrated, all emergency preparation is discussed in detail with tasks of who is in charge of what should we experience an emergency. It is another double staffed crew for safety and same schedule as the last storm as Kim and Dwayne take the first half of the night and Josh and Sophia will take the later half.  Not an hour later, Josh would get awoken to assist with a “true” traffic jam literally in the middle of the ocean! Not one, not two but three ships all on our AIS and all in our tracks! Gotta see it to believe it! Change course slightly to navigate this game of leap-frog and back to bed!

June 9^th, 2022 – 40.34.284N 136.16.170W -Sea state-Dangerous- 35-40ft waves with additional 1-2ft wind capped waves on top, 30kt sustained winds and gusts to 35kts.

The storm continues – The high seas would prove to be no challenge for our amazing little ship! La Costa was built for this type of sea! The Furuno auto-pilot and steering system handled every wave with power and consistency -we were in the heat of it now! As it always goes, the storm would hit us the worst in the middle of the night. Outside of the starboard windows the waves would appear in the darkness of the night only to be seen just before crashing into the side of La Costa tossing her 30 degrees to port just as another wave is awaiting! Thank-goodness for the storm windows as I would look out the port window and see nothing but underwater of the wave! Sitting at the back helm table as Josh used the spotlight to visually see what the sea state was doing, attempt to judge the wave directions through the driving rain and building fog; it was all you could do to hold on tight and hope you didn’t fall out of the seat onto the floor. The hourly engine checks became every 20-30 minutes to ensure the engine was performing well and all was good in the engine room. Now was certainly no time for any type of mechanical failure! During one of the engine room checks I would hear the sound of water crashing to the floor of the galley followed by an ear piercing alarm going off. Not a sound to hear in the dark night during the worst storm ever. Quickly grabbing the flashlight I am met with water intrusion through the galley porthole as well as the vent above the stove which allowed vented airflow from a previously removed propane system. The waves crashing into the vented area were no match and water intruded through the vent and splashed onto the counters with every crashing port side wave. Every towel within reach was now used to sop up the mess -thankfully something (we hoped) that would be manageable at least until the waves subsided and no longer crashed over the vent. Another task when checking the engine room was to monitor the water intrusion and wring out all of the towels and replace them. About this time, Kim would wake up and come to the helm and ensure that “everything is okay”. Not sure ourselves, we reassured her that everything is as under control as we can be and everything was “ok”. Not 5 minutes later Josh would use the searchlight to look at the stabilizers in the water as he felt a motion that was not one felt before. We were about to lose our starboard stabilizer! The secondary line attached prior to departure as a back up holding line had been worn down from excessive friction and was about to snap in minutes. Shortly after 1:30am and within minutes we would experience the sound of snapping chains as the chains linked to the stabilizer sheared off and jolted La Costa to the side as the stabilizer was tossed into the ocean -never to be recovered.  For 3 more hours, we would continue to ride out the storm and La Costa would manage it like the ship she was built to be.

June 9^th, 2022 -40.34.384N 136.16.170W

Day break would reveal the damage of the overnight storm and the crew takes notes of the damages done and ensure to monitor them. Also noticing that during the storm we lost the boom topping halyard that holds the mainsail in place.  Main had been reefed to its 3^rd point, and lashed thankfully so the traveler took the weight with the sail holding the boom. Out the starboard window is the reminiscence of the stabilizer that was lost in the storm, just as Josh jokes asking “I wonder if it’s reached the bottom of the ocean floor yet” as we were more than 20,000 ft in depth. It was the giggle and chuckle I am sure we both needed after a hellish night! As the morning attempted to give us a sunrise, the grey cloudy sky would hold on until mid-morning, our morning email from Bob at WeatherPros would be “the worst is over and one of the largest storms yet this season” and we were finally able to turn our course back to 20 Tango degrees and head North to Ketchikan. A sign of relief can be felt by all on board…especially our amazing Captain. But…the work isn’t over yet!

Around 3:00pm local time, the engine would make a hard rev up and the boat would shudder as though the prop is being restricted. Quickly we put the boat in neutral and locate Josh’s scuba gear and get him suited up to inspect the prop and rudder. Sure enough during the storm our trusty spurs that are built into the shaft to cut any lines that get tangled up in the rotating prop were on overtime! Unfortunately, though, we encountered a mass fishing net that completely tangled up the prop and required someone to cut it away. During his inspection, Josh said the spurs were shiny metal which indicated that they had been cutting lines for quite some time! By the grace of Mother Nature- the sea state had calmed to a mere 2-3 ft swell as Josh carefully went under La Costa to cut away the tangled mess!

The mess of lines and nets that had to be cut away from the prop from the storm

June 10^th, 2022 -42.18.750N 134.37.036W

Truly the calm after the storm! All of the crew -most importantly Captain Josh was able to get a decent night’s sleep. The crew took all of the night shifts in hopes that he would sleep all night…almost succeeded! At least he was able to sleep more than an hour and was not in his usual “flight or fight” mode from days of storms.  The morning sunrise was an incredibly welcoming sight by all and the sky golden hues of yellow. The storms have passed, Northbound we go!

Morning coffee chat was a welcoming one as Josh read off the updated weather report from Bob, “Weather in your path is clear, flat and sunny. Go as fast as you can/wish, head North and get there within 5 days as yet another large system is forming”. Thankfully we were within 4 days of land and we were heading full steam ahead! Our course adjusted from East to North, gave the engine a little nudge and off we go at 6.5 knots.

The afternoon sunshine would welcome a much needed relaxing Captain enjoying a cooler sunshine than that of Hawaii.

Fishing lines would go back in the water after being stowed for over a week in hopes of catching fresh dinner. The sky would eventually become cloudy in the late afternoon with rolling seas around 4-6 feet and nicely spaced at 9 seconds.

June 11^th, 2022 –(coordinates not recorded)

5:00am would bring us all to our feet in a simple sound – absolute silence. No engine running, no propeller moving, no sound. Quickly Josh sprang to his feet after just falling asleep just 20 minutes before in what later would be a hilarious story best told by Dwayne who witnessed it first hand (Josh tangled in a hoodie sweatshirt, further blinded by a sleep mask, deafened by earphones now tangled in the hoodie and sleep mask-we can laugh about it now!) -both Dwayne and Josh head straight to the engine room, take note of what would have caused the engine to die mid-ocean. No apparent signs of failure and a quick attempt to restart it proved a failure. Quickly Josh has me locate the spare 2 Raycor primary fuel filters and the Baldwin primary engine fuel filter – time for a fuel filter complete change in hopes of locating the problem. Upon starting to pump and manually reprime the engine before attempting to start (John Deere Diesel) Josh would noticed the fuel lift pump felt loose, and had a loose fitting once priming began, which is what we believe was the prime factor of the stalling of the engine.  Once complete – a turn of the key at the helm and vroom!! She started right up and sounded better than before. Another thankful shout out to Mother Nature for a calm sea state during this big failure mid-ocean and still in international waters 575 miles from land and being completely down for nearly 2 hours. Sending Josh off to get some much-needed sleep – thankfully the remaining part of the day would be uneventful and quiet. 3:30pm local time would be our 2,000 nautical mile marker! The overnight moon would give a spectacular view as it continued to peak through the clouds.

June 12^th, 2022 –46.43.317N 132.32.939W

Morning daybreak would welcome a beautiful sunrise and a sleepy Captain who chatted with me into the wee hours after his 12am-4am shift. During the conversation I would look over to see him fast asleep and couldn’t help but take a picture of the man who has literally kept us safe on this journey.

June 13^th, 2022 –(No coordinates recorded)

Queen Charlotte Sound is in our sites on the MFD! (Muti-Functional Display)If we can continue our speed and course, we are less than 24 hours away from seeing land again for the first time since leaving the shores of Oahu, Hawaii on Saturday May 28^th.  Today would be the day that both Dwayne and Sophia would realize that the beautiful magic of the scopolmine patches truly only last for 3 days as prescribed. As Dwayne came up for his early morning shift, he oddly didn’t meet Josh with the usual big smile and “mornin!” that has become so regular. Instead, quickly up the stairs to sit at the helm portside table, not much color in his face and the look of a sailor who was about to go green gilled and grace the ocean with a not so treasured gift. Within minutes…sure enough – out to the deck he ran to get fresh air in his face in hopes that sea sickness would not be the best of him. A new patch and a Zofran later – he was feeling relief and slightly better. Sophia would experience the same feeling just hours later but would be the second award winner of the green gills puking award as the starboard side exit for hopes of relief was instead met with fumes of exhaust only propelling the contents of my stomach quickly into the ocean. New patches for everyone and Zofran to help!

June 14^th, 2022 –(No Coordinates recorded)

Today is a special day for 2 of the La Costa crew members. Captain Josh and First Mate Sophia are celebrating their 6^th wedding anniversary and 12 years together! Pretty special to celebrate such an occasion on the ocean and living a dream planned some 9 years ago!!

That morning at 8:32am local time the crew of La Costa would also have yet another reason to bust out the champagne and toast to morning mimosas’ as the first sighting far in the distance….LAND! While the first view was one that could make you rub your eyes and hope that it was not an illusion…land surely was in our sights! The archipelago islands of Haida Gwaii would be reached within hours!

As the land masses grew before our eyes, the sight of puffins surely confirmed that we were getting closer to home! The sea state calm as glass as we watched puffins and porpoise swim nearby! Not quite sure if any of us were able to get a clear picture of the puffins as they would lift off and swim away..but their bright orange feet and toucan style beak sure are something to see!

Now finally inside protected waters of Haida Gwaii island, B.C. and mainland British Columbia, the calm waters would welcome a beautiful sunset followed by the brightest moon we had yet to see on the ocean crossing. No need for any navigation lights tonight as the moon lit up the entire sky, beaming off the calm water leading our path for landfall in Ketchikan just a mere 24 hours from now. Excitement can be felt by all of the crew-especially the Captain!

June 15^th, 2022

Sunrise would welcome us with a beautiful pink and purple sky and the sun peaking over the mountains! Yay to see mountains once again!

As the morning turned to daylight we would be surrounded by welcome greetings from pods of Porpoises playing swiftly in our bow along with large pods of humpback whales off in the distance. We would all watch in awe as we would see upwards of 5-7 different whale spouts as they would surface followed by a glimpse of their large tails surfacing for a brief moment.

Captain relaxes with a little snooze in the hammock swinging in the cool Alaskan air!    

8:30pm – June 15th – nearing Ketchikan!

Excited to see additional “forms of life” on the water and that confirmation that we in fact are ‘almost there’, we marvel at the passing Carnival Cruise ship off to our port side as we make our way into the Port of Ketchikan. This would be just the beginning of the MANY cruise ships that we would see along the way and our stay!                          

10:00pm -June 15^th -Racing the setting sun into Ketchikan   

                   

As we are dodging large logs and debris from the recent storms that we encountered at sea and made its way to land along with a King tide just days before at 17.4 ft- we also are running against the beautiful setting sun hoping to make it into Thomas Basin. Ketchikan before nightfall. Running La Costa at a full 10 knots (thanks in part to the tide in our favor)

Kim sporting Alaskan attire while being spoiled with beautiful weather!

The lights of Ketchikan are ones that will forever stay with all of us. City lights for the first time in 18 days since leaving the shores of Oahu, Hawaii.  As Josh kept close eyes on the course ahead for logs, dodging constantly under manual helm away from debris and deadheads that would barely be in sight floating just under the surface, the crew also would stand on deck and keep a watchful eye to ensure that we did not run into anything that would damage the prop or slow our eagerness to make landfall.

11:50pm – LANDFALL! Thomas Basin – Ketchikan, Alaska

“Coming in HOT!!” As we were not only fighting the sunset at nearly 11:30pm, we were also fighting against the changing tides and the nearby creek that would give Josh a bit of a sweat trying to dock at the last 20 feet of transient Dock 4 – which clearly is too small for La Costa’s 51 foot length. Thanks to our bow thruster and Josh’s amazing abilities to ‘prop-walk’ the stern to the dock, the crew quickly jumped around to ensure La Costa was snug and secured to the dock, though with about 30ft hanging over the end of the dock. We made it! 18 days and 10 hours. The crew was absolutely key to this crossing and La Costa kept us safe and did what she was designed to do!

Now what? Well…18 days dry on La Costa called for libations for all!! The Potlach Bar just up the ramp was certainly calling for us to pay a visit!

A quiet Wednesday night at the Potlach and bartender Ryan was in hopes for a quiet night…until we showed up. As we sat at the bar we all couldn’t hold back the perma-smile we all had on our faces! Stunned and probably still a bit in surprise – we had done what less than 1% of the world’s population had successfully completed – a Pacific Ocean passage -crossing with 2,800 miles under our keel.

Ryan our bartender and new friend would cheers us and celebrate this amazing accomplishment until the bar closed down at 2:00am. Not to mention that we had yet another reason to celebrate at the stroke of midnight, it was Kim’s birthday!

 A landfall Birthday celebration was certainly in order!  Happy Birthday to Kim! Slightly feeling last nights shenanigans at the Potlach, taking the birthday girl for a whirl around the dock.

In all, La Costa and her crew have traveled 2,780 nautical miles across the Pacific Ocean over the span of 18 days, 10 hours. Our fuel usage was approximately 1,100 gallons, made over 400 gallons of water and weathered 3 major storms. We have certainly made memories that will stay with us forever!

More stories to come from our 3 days reprovisioning visit in Ketchikan and La Costa’s journey to her new slip in her homeport of Meyers Chuck, Alaska where Captain Josh was born and raised and soon we will return to retire and enjoy all that beautiful SE Alaska has to offer with La Costa.

Below is our amazing La Costa crew and family holding the chart used during our voyage! La Costa tucked in nicely at the Meyers Chuck dock where she will now call home!

More stories to come of the 2 1/2 weeks that we will spend in Meyers Chuck, Alaska at our new home!