Day 52 Land Ho!!!

July 31st 9am Coordinates: 21 15.57N, 158 04.07W

Land Ho!

We made it-51 days and 6,890 miles logged! We’re about an hour into landfall and were welcomed by the warm, still sunshine of the islands. The morning has been a bit hectic-we pulled into Ko’olina Harbor on the southwest side of Oahu with an hour and a half to spare before Christiana’s flight to the mainland. We are in the process of fueling up now and then we’ll motor our way 15 miles or so eastward to Kewalo Basin, where the Alguita will be slipped for the next several weeks as she is prepared for the 2nd leg of the voyage-the 10 year resample of our 1999 sample locations on a course from Oahu back to Long Beach.

The next few days will be spent decompressing and taking care of business. Drew will be heading back to the North Shore with his wife, Jaime, while the rest of us stick to the Honolulu area. We will be attending the Hawai’i Conservation Conference open house at ING Café on Saturday August 1st, hosting a potluck with the help of Surfrider aboard the Alguita on Sunday the 2nd (hopefully the boat will be sufficiently aired out from the 7 weeks of sea-funk-mold, mildew, and the wonderful aromas associated with 6 people in close quarters) and topping it off with a “open boat” on Monday the 3rd from 10am-12pm giving the public and press a chance to share in our research.

Update on the missile hot zone: Pheonix 1 wasn’t lying. Out on the back deck, eating cheesecake and watching our last sunset of the trip together, Christiana looked through a gap in the cloudy sky and said as a bit of an afterthought, “Wow, that looks a lot like a missile trail….” And sure enough it was. Off the port stern, there was a distinct missile trail heading to into the west. We were happy to be far enough from the launch to see the action and not feel it.

Thanks to everyone who has been following along on our journey! It’s been a unique and powerful experience for us all. Stayed tuned for a couple blog posts during the next week or so: there will be more pictures (they’ll be a lot cheaper to post and in much higher resolution now that we’re back on land) and personal accounts from the Captain and each of the crew members on our 7-week adventure.

Aloha from the Oahu,
Nicole