It was in the middle of the night (again) and I was trying my best to sleep in my cabin. So far I had been unsuccessful and gone up on deck several times to help out with the sails. The wind has been picking up more than expected and we had to put a reef […]
Vaka Hop’e
Crossing the equator
It is a big day in every sailor’s life when they cross the equator for the first time. Then they go from being a pollywog to being a shellback. Traditionally there’s a whole ceremony around it where they have to ask King Neptune to cross and offer rites as thanks. We skipped all that as […]
How we got new rudders
Both our rudders broke on our crossing from Sulawesi to Halamahera and we had to navigate in through a reef on a remote island in the middle of the Moluccan Sea. If you haven’t read that crazy story, you should. Check it out here: We lost both rudders. My plan was to build some emergency […]
We lost both rudders
It was in the middle of the night. We were on our way from Bitung to Tifure Island, crossing the Moluccan Sea, around 70 nautical miles. Darkness pressed in around us, with thunderclouds in the horizon, but above us we could see the stars clearly. So far we had great conditions for our crossing. A […]
Why we are doing this
For those who have recently joined me on this voyage, you may wonder: Why on earth are you doing this? Sailing a sailboat from the Philippines to the Solomon Islands? Who owns the boat? Why is it bought in the Philippines instead of just buying one locally? And who is the crew and why are […]
We are doing it!
It takes some guts to say that you are going to sail from the Philippines to the Solomon Islands in a Polynesian sailing canoe, but actually doing it requires something completely different.. It requires faith! Faith and confirmation often goes hand in hand if you are walking in the right direction, and I have seen […]
The dreaded check in
Out of everything in our whole voyage, the check-in process to Indonesia was the part I dreaded most. I had read early on that Indonesian bureaucracy was something that should be respected (if not feared). Sailors had told many tales of bad clashes with immigration and customs. In that process I learnt two vital things: […]
Sailing to Indonesia
It all happened so fast! Suddenly we are ready to set sail towards Indonesia. The engine is working and we have done our provisions. We have prepared for this moment, but at the same time, it is a bit unreal to be setting off. Are we ready? Will we make it? As a crew, we […]
Klare for avreise!
Det har vært travelt siden vi ankom Filippinene og nå er vi endelig klare til avreise mot Indonesia og Salomonøyene. Vi seiler snart heim! Å komme til dette punktet har ikkje vore lett. Vi har hatt plenty av utfordringer underveis og det har vore tider der eg har tvilt på om vi kommer oss avgårde […]
Moving in faith
We are stuck without a working engine for the Vaka Hop’e. We just launched our boat, and found that the engine we believed was fixed is now completely dead. I believed I had discovered the culprit to our problems in a broken CDI unit, but our mechanic doubted that. Either we wait for the mechanic […]