S/V L'ORIENT

Liquid Wind (our fuel bladders)  L'ORIENTals everywhere are celebrating our departure (Monday Mar 22) from Ko Olina. Our weather router (the venerable and highly esteemed "Bruce") has given us the green light and so tomorrow about 10:00 AM we will cast off on our 21 day (or so) odyssey from Oahu to Tahiti. Sounds exotic...........even a bit relaxing, right? Visions of pink drinks with umbrellas? Dolphins engaged in a Broadway-quality synchronized jumping routine ? The sail is actually quite challenging, complete with too much wind, not enough wind, wind from every direction, squalls, lightning, and of course multiple large wave trains........the initial problem being the Hawaiian Islands themselves reflecting and magnifying the trade winds. The first 3 days are bound to be rough- hopefully we haven't "gone soft" in our 48 weeks in Hawaii. Oh, and our departure corresponds with the whale migration season (they're going north), so we will be watching for s

Honolulu- (we actually live around the corner) It's been a while, L'ORIENTals, but we've got some big news. On or about the end of this month (fingers crossed and God willing) we are hitting the road...........the dreaded Honolulu to Tahiti 3 week sail from hell. For those of you keeping score at home, this will be our 3rd time crossing the equator in 14 months. Move over, Magellan. The blizzard of French paperwork required to bust this move? Done. Boat work, provisioning, and systems testing? Under control.   Nevertheless, we're looking at this sail with eyes wide open. Three different boats we know have left Honolulu for French Polynesia and all have been beaten up quite a bit. One boat was hit in the cockpit with a wave so large, it inflated someone's life vest and activated her man overboard beacon. Gulp. This crew has taken to sticking their head outside the cockpit during squalls to rinse the salt off of their heads. Not our style, but we're getting ready