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Hawaiian Visit

RELAXING & DEBRIEFING

June 23

Once we were in the taxi, we headed for a car rental agency & rented a car. The next item of business was a good breakfast. We found a good old Denny's. That was the best breakfast we had eaten in a long time. We hadn't had any fresh fruit for quite a long time so the first thing I wanted was fresh fruit. And being Hawaii I wanted pineapple.

Once breakfast was finished & copious amounts of coffee drank, we headed down the road to find a motel & showers & sleep. We found a nice motel on the beach. After putting our bags inside the room we headed for the showers & luxuriated in the endless supply of fresh water. It was heaven. In fact, it was so good to have a shower that I took about 4 the first day! The fresh water felt sooo wonderful!! We went to bed early the first night & just crashed. It seemed strange to not be moving any more.

June 24

We went to a travel agent to book some tickets to fly to Honolulu from here for a couple of days.

We did some laundry & got our hair cut.  We were still feeling exhausted.

We did much talking about our dream adventure turning into a misadventure & how that would affect our decision to pursue our own dream of sailing off shore in retirement.

We both agreed that if we could get through what we just got through we could get through anything.

We had endured a "worst case scenario" during this sailing trip. We were not deterred.

Still baffled about all of the unusual behaviors of the Captain we went on the Internet in search of information that might help to explain the bizarre events that had happened during this passage. We read in a couple of sources that if a person is possessed that they would become very agitated at the mention of demons or binding or exorcisms & that at the mention of any religious name, such as "Jesus" that they would become particularly agitated. This was exactly what happened to her.  Most everything that we read fit the description of the Captain's behavior.

We made some phone calls to our friends & family at home & collected emails.

One of the emails we received was from one of the doctors we had met in Suvarov which said the he thought that "Our Captain had a wee bit of psychosis on board."  

We did some study of psychosis on the internet, and now feel that we have to agree with him. Some of the psychotic symptoms are that the person often believes they are being watched or monitored, and that people are out to get them. The Captain accused me of watching & spying on her. This is another theory that could explain the behavior of the Captain.

But we still think there might be something to the possession thing, as psychosis just would not explain all of the strange things that happened. 

We got another email from this same fellow cruiser who was with us in Suvarov & witnessed our departure out of the lagoon.

He writes:

"By the time you download this you will either be laughing or crying , but just think of the tales you can tell for the next twenty years. I can still see Toto's eyes , as big as saucers when he arrived back at the dock, and even calm cool Papa John was still a little 'wired' for an hour or so. Just the details please- don't bother me with the facts,- those I already know."

The email sort of sums up from someone else's perspective just how serious this situation really was.

At one point Will told the Captain that he "would rather throw her overboard before he let her endanger our lives again & if it was necessary that we would take over the sailing of the boat." (We were to discover that it was this statement that the Captain referred to in her emails to her son telling him that her life was in danger. It is too bad she didn't tell him the rest of the details.) We should have been rescued away from her!

June 25

After breakfast we went back to a travel agent to book some tickets to fly from Honolulu to home in Vancouver.

We finished our laundry & went for a long walk & then relaxed on the beach.

June 26

It was great to have a car. We explored much of the Island of Maui including a drive up to the volcano.

The coast line is quite rugged in some places but spectacular.

 Along the way we came across an Amateur Radio Field Day. Being Ham Operators we went over to visit.

During one of the drives around the Island we drove by the marina where we came in when we first arrived in the boat. We wanted to take some pictures to add to our collection. We looked for the boat also.

At first we didn't see the boat, but then spotted it across the bay at the dock by the Harbour Master's office.

We wondered how long the Captain would be able to stay on it as she did not have her holding tank hooked up & it is not permitted to dump in the harbour.

And we also noticed that there did not appear to be any haul out facility here.

With the condition of the boat & broken engine we wondered how she was going to get the necessary repairs done before heading for Victoria, BC, Canada.

The state of the boat & the Captain's lack of sailing skills caused us great concern. We feared for the safety of anyone who would be going with this Captain back to Canada. And we were certain that she would be stubborn & not sell her boat in Maui but insist on sailing it back to Canada.

This concern prompted us to compose an email to her son & husband informing them of the real status of the boat. From previous conversations we knew the Captain did not tell her husband a lot of details about the boat & her adventures because he hadn't wanted her to do it in the first place. He was not interested in her problems - he didn't want anything to do with the boat.

They did not know all that had gone wrong with the boat as far as the systems not working, damage from being towed & general wear & tear from the 4000 plus miles just completed in this passage.

She told her son a few more of the details but obviously not much more based on the letters he sent to an online cruising magazine looking for help to rescue his mother at sea.

He also contacted the US Coast Guard & told them of her "alleged" situation & they advised that in order to get her help out in the middle of the Pacific that she would have to abandon her boat. Obviously she had second thoughts about her allegations of being in danger & her pocketbook seemed to prevail. There was no way that she was going to abort her mission & lose her boat!

June 27 

We were at the airport early & spent the time waiting for our flight to Honolulu by finishing the creation of a deficiency list for the boat as well as all the daily work done (mostly by Will) that happened during this passage.

Once we checked into our hotel in Honolulu we went to find some dinner & then to bed early.

June 28

We rented a car & took a tour of the Island of Oahu & ended the day going out to a nice dinner & then another early night.

June 29

After breakfast we did some shopping & sight seeing. We went to visit the USS Arizona Memorial & spent several hours reading all the history. It was good to just relax.

June 30 

This was our last day here & then a flight back to Vancouver, BC, Canada & reality. Our flight out of Honolulu was at 3:15 pm & we landed in Vancouver about midnight.

We thought once we left the Captain & her boat that our story with this sailing adventure would be over. Well, we were wrong with that theory!!

While we were on the airplane heading to Vancouver there was a man sitting in front of us. We started chatting & found out that he was on his way home to Vancouver after having completed a sailing trip from Victoria to Maui.

Once we realized he was a sailor we started to swap stories. He told us a story that astonished us.

He told us that he had "heard a story of a Canadian woman arriving in Maui in a sailboat & being arrested by the police for not reporting in properly & that her crew hit the docks running as soon as they reached landfall."

So, that was a very interesting tidbit. We wondered if the story was about us. It was still very early in the cruising season & not many cruisers stopped in Maui because there are not a lot of facilities for cruisers. And how many female Canadian Captain's are there?

The next thing to happen was when we arrived at the Vancouver airport & were waiting for our luggage at the carousal.

There were three men waiting also & we found out through chatting that they had also just finished sailing from Victoria to Hawaii on two separate boats. We told them we had just finished our South Pacific sailing trip & bit of the fiasco that we went through.

Now, don't they tell us a story of their own. They told us that they "heard of a Canadian Captain who sailed into Maui, was in trouble with the police & that her crew hit the docks running."

How coincidental is that story? Could it really be us? The sailing community is not that big so stories get around really quickly. 

We don't know if there are more details to the Captain's stay in Maui or not.

The same story was told to us by 4 men from 3 different boats who had been in Maui & Ohau. Where would the story come from?

It seemed like too much of a coincidence that this many different people who didn't know one another were telling the same story. Stories get around very quickly so I guess it could be us that they were talking about. We may never find out for sure.

July 31, 2004 

I discovered an article that was written by the Captain's son to an online sailing magazine. Her son had written to the magazine looking for help in rescuing his mother from the South Pacific.

After we were home we discovered that the reason she was on the computer one particular night towards the end of our journey was because she was frantic to get an email from her son with details of what he had told the Coast Guard about her stories about being in danger on the boat with us.

You see, after Will told her during a discussion that "...he would rather throw her overboard than have her endanger our lives again...", the Captain wrote an email to her son, who in turn contacted the US Coast Guard & told them what she had said. So, of course she was quite anxious to find out what the Coast Guard had said & if they were going to be coming to her rescue or not. 

We also discovered that the Captain started to write emails to her son in Polish rather than English. Since we used her computer to send & receive our emails we could read the subject line of all the emails received.

She had told me earlier that she did not correspond with her son in Polish anymore & that he preferred to respond to her in English. Well, when we noticed the change in language we started to think she must be up to something & that was why she wrote in Polish so that we could not understand what she was saying. We thought something was odd about the emails from her son in Polish but dismissed it.

This article I had discovered was a bit disconcerting, leading the reader to think that the Captain had been in danger. I emailed the magazine back to inform them that the details were not exactly accurate & that they should get the facts correct before publishing.

I got a reply back from the magazine within a day wanting more information ASAP. I emailed him back right away with a bit more information & he replied back that our "other side of the story" was what he expected, that he has heard similar stories time & again.

I also discovered another article that appears to have been written by the Captain telling about the "demons."  She sure seems to have her information mixed up!! And it seems like her memory has left her as well. Sounds pretty bizarre & we were there!!

It seems like the Captain didn't like us writing a letter to her son & husband. She tried to get even with us by writing a letter to our daughter, in which she says that we had a listening device in the cockpit to record our conversations, and that Will was using a high tech device to steal information off her computer.

This allegation must have been why the Coast Guard wanted our computer. At one point while we were waiting to be cleared at the docks, they asked if they could take our computer inside & look at it.

The "listening device" was my digital voice recorder which I was using to document the trip. It was in a plastic zip lock bag, along with a reading light & spare batteries & my Palm Pilot. Amazingly on one of the Captain's watches my recorder disappeared out of the sealed bag although the bag was found zipped up in the morning minus the recorder.

The high tech device that Will was using on her computer, was a jump drive. He was saving our emails that had been received on her computer onto the jump drive.

We were using the Captain's digital camera after ours got broke. We loaded all the pictures that were taken onto our computer. The Captain had requested copies of all of the pictures so Will used the jump drive to transfer the pictures onto her computer.

August 31, 2004

Did a check on the internet to see if by chance the Captain was bringing her boat back.

Lo & behold - she appeared to be on her way back to Canada. There were a number of position reports indicating her progress.

About half way between Hawaii & Victoria the reporting stopped! Humm...I wonder - did her electronics happen to malfunction again?

October 20, 2004

Found another article in the online sailing magazine from some cruisers who had run across our Captain on her first leg of her journey. Their opinion of her was that she was "mentally scattered." Read what they wrote in the article  "SINGLEHANDERS CAN'T BE DEPENDENT ON CREW". 

Some cruisers that we met in Whangarei told us that they had heard various stories about the Captain. One of them was about some crew that she had lined up to sail with her to New Zealand that changed their mind. Apparently the Captain got so upset that she collapsed on the docks. Ummm...me thinks it is precisely what this article is referring to.

February 3, 2005

I received an email from the West Coast Marine RCMP wanting to talk to me about charges that the Captain was wanting to lay against me. I talked to him by phone & told him my side of the story. He thought that it wouldn't go anywhere based on what I had told him. He would be in touch with me.

February 12, 2005

I was contacted once again by the RCMP about the assault issue & was informed that the officer needed to get a recorded statement from me about the incident so I agreed to meet with him at some point during the Vancouver Boat Show. It happened that we would both be there at the same time.

I gave my statement to him then, but he still did not think that it would go any further. He thought there was no basis for charges.

Apparently the Captain had originally wanted to charge us with piracy or mutiny!! I guess this was her lawyer side coming out once again. I believe she was advised that there was absolutely no basis for these types of charges so decided that assault was the next best thing.

Imagine that! All that I did was try to avert a disaster at sea by getting her away from the helm in order to regain control to avoid a knockdown & being thrown overboard! In other words - to save our lives as well as hers!!

Apparently she had admitted that the boat had been in a dangerous situation but still refused to move away from the helm. Would that be considered stubborn or stupid?

While at the boat show I had the opportunity to also talk to some other boaters & cruisers that knew our Captain. I discovered that her reputation is already known widely in the cruising communities of Vancouver & area.

I learned that two men from a local cruising organization that the Captain is involved with agreed to fly to Fiji to help her sail the boat from there to New Zealand. They only had about two weeks to accomplish this.

Well, wouldn't you know it!! Apparently they arrived in Fiji to be presented with a boat in the same neglected condition, much the same as what we had encountered. It turned out that they spent the entire two weeks repairing & cleaning the Captain's boat & ended up flying back home instead of sailing the South Pacific. They spent all their time working on the boat. How disappointed they must have been!

I found some articles that the Captain wrote to the local CS West Newsletters.

The first one is on page 2 where the Captain explains about her "engine problems, crew that became hostile & irrational & rude" she encountered on the first leg of her journey.

The second article is a revision of the first leg of her journey , only she has added her Kandavu Island experience.

The third article is her return journey from New Zealand to Hawaii with us & then onward to Victoria.

Conspicuous by absence is her lack of detail or information about all of the things we encountered with her & her boat. I would be very interested to talk to some of her previous crew & compare notes! I am afraid that all of our stories would be similar. Ours would be the most action packed because we were with the Captain for three months.

We have learned that the boat appears to be up for sale - CS-36T, 1988, 6’ – 4” draft.

I hope who ever buys it does a complete & thorough search to make sure it is seaworthy.

Needless to say, we could answer any questions that any perspective buyers may have as to the recent history of the voyages of this boat.