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Moana at the start of the Ha-Ha

Moana, the name of our boat when we found her.  Moana, the Polynesia word for "Blue Sea" or "Ocean", became a very appropriate name for our boat.  When we purchased her, we never knew just how many blue ocean miles and how many countries she would take us.  We once had a dream of seeing the Pacific Islands.  We never knew how true this dream would become

We started "trying out this cruising thing" with six months in Mexico.  A year and a half later, after putting 10,000 miles under Moana's keel,  we found ourselves and Moana across the Pacific safely tucked into the Bay of Islands in New Zealand.  

Our first sight of New Zealand

On these pages you'll read about our journey there and beyond. Our hope is that you will be able to get a little taste of what it’s like to be out cruising across oceans on a sailboat.  We want to share a glimpse of our life.  So jump in, explore; get your feet wet.

-- Sam & Sally

Where in the World is Moana?

Moana's return path across the Pacific

Moana arrived in San Francisco after a 41 day passage covering over 5,000 nautical miles. To compare distance traveled - 5000nm is a greater distance than twice crossing the continental US at its widest point. It is close to 1/4 of the distance around the Earth at the equator. The passage was mostly non-eventful. We only encountered one gale, had no major breakdowns, and three days of no wind. Some of the highlights were a whale swimming alongside Moana for close to a half hour and numerous dolphin encounters. One of the dolphin encounters was on a night with tremendous phosphorescence and the dolphins created a trail of fireworks in their wakes as they swam. An interesting tidbit of this passage is that we saw more ships in that 41 days than our entire journey thus far. We also discovered a stowaway 16 days out, but we'll save that story for our next update.

Moana in San Francisco with the Golden Gate Bridge in the background