Almost there!
Written Wednesday evening, local Hawaiian time
Day: 78 Odometer: about 2,504M
Position: N21 34’ W156 43’
Distance from start: 2,037M
Nearest land: Puahaunui Point near east end of Molokai 23.3M due 187T
Waikiki Yacht Club by my course: 68M due WSW
ETA: mid day on Friday Sept 10
RECORDS as running totals
Solo career total in days at launch: 845 now 923
Overall career total in days at launch: 928 now 1,006
Solo career total in miles at launch: 27,595M now about 30,099M
Overall career total in miles at launch: 31,083M now about 33,587M
==> Ralph Tuijn (NL) leads the last one with 35,635M
Actual distance rowed in miles will append to my existing career totals at launch in solo and overall categories, respectively. To become official, the London based Ocean Rowing Society must adjudicate the supporting GPX files from my chart plotter and YB Tracker.
—-oOo—-
Cape Halawa at the east end of the island of Molokai is 24M directly due south of my evening position. I was gazing at the horizon since yesterday to pick any of the volcanic summits on Maui but they were obscured by the clouds. Mid day today the summit of one appeared briefly above the cloud layer. Last night in the dark, I did see a long line of glow on the horizon to my south which could only be from the north coast of Maui. Then this morning I could see the foothills of Maui’s volcanos 40M due S under the clouds. Molokai was a long dark strip with long gentle slopes at either end descending to the ocean along my SW horizon.
Amanda Bradford from NOAA and her husband Mills Dunlap have been prepared to meet me at sea ever since I expressed the possibility that I may pass north of Oahu. They keep their Boston Whaler in Haleiwa on the northwest shores of Oahu. They were on standby for resupply at sea this Saturday as our contingency plan.
Amanda’s colleague Jennifer McCullough also at NOAA has a blank external drive to swap for sound data that I collected for Dr Jay Barlow. She has been gathering the rest of my parts and supplies to place in the rendezvous vessel, unless I make proper landfall. She is even going to make a Costco food run tomorrow as part of our contingency plan that we may still resupply at sea. She didn’t have to do any of that. I owe her a dinner once I make landfall.
Michael Roth, the Staff Commodore of Waikiki Yacht Club has been a partner and a wonderful supporter. It all started with asking whether I could have a temporary slip there for my rowboat, then whether he could receive parts and supplies for me. Now he has offered to come out with a whaler to escort me into Ala Wai Harbor to capture footage and to show me to my proper slip. Failing to turn the corner at Koko Head on Friday, I can count on him to deliver the supplies on the south side.
A contingency plan is for the worst case scenario just like we had orderly evacuation plans in place when storms were threatening my safety earlier. This is risk management that we are doing on the fly. In all likelihood, I will row this beast under my own power into Ala Wai Boat Harbor and tie up at the Waikiki Yacht Club mid day on Friday then get to thank each and every one of them. That will be the first time that we will all have met in person.
These four names give you an idea about the gifts that my journey keeps providing. In all of my human powered journeys past, this has never failed. I can venture with confidence putting forth my best effort and intention to reach far shores, then those that I need will show up in my path. My sweat equity in this journey is obvious to anyone that pays attention, which seems to be the key; whereas I could be arriving in a million dollar yacht and not receive this level of goodwill. That I feel lucky and I am grateful is an understatement.
I now have my YB Tracker sending position data at the top of every hour. I will change that on Sep 10th to every 15 minutes before Koko Head then to every minute at the Diamond Head buoy. You may need to refresh your browser window to see the rowboat progress on my tracking page.
The closer that I get to Waikiki, the more accurate an ETA that I will offer. At this point it is still too far. Nancy receives my updates by email then posts them here, which typically takes a day. Twitter is a direct way for me to send time sensitive arrival information, follow: @erdeneruc
My suggestion is that when I dock my rowboat at the Waikiki Yacht Club, join me in raising a toast to what proved to be a more difficult row than I had anticipated and to the memories of Peter Bird, a pioneer of our sport, and of Angela Madsen, a Para Olympian whom we lost recently while she was also rowing from California to Waikiki. And as you do, may you say aloud in camaraderie the names of Louis Bird and Polly Wickham, Peter’s family, so that their ears shall ring…
See my July 1 and September 2 updates for more on Peter Bird, whose logo I have carried on my rowboat since 2007.
Erden.