First Day Sail
The America II
You can see the little step ladder we used to get onboard.
Boarding picture taken by the crew
We're ready to sail!
Captain Marty gives safety briefing.
Mike and another passenger help Brett haul up the sail. (Marty said,
when he once had to winch it up by himself, it took him 12 minutes!)
“Heave!” (Notice the Serenade way ahead.)
All done.
Brett finishes things.
Then, the jib goes up.
The Serenade and one of her launches as we sailed away.
Lahaina: the height needed to “catch” clouds is 4,000 feet.
Lahaina gets 300–400" of rain up at the mountain tops, only 12–14" on the shore.
Marty speaks with a ship up the shore where the trade-winds should have been blowing. They weren't.
The first day sail was calm and lovely; no big trade-winds.
It was a wonderful sail anyway.
Look up!
Marty untangles the fishing lines they trail when they go out.
They catch dinner a lot of the time.
Bathing beauty Ginnie
The Serenade
Ginnie and Carl listen to Brett talking about local marine wildlife.
Mike, with Lanai behind him.
Lanai isn’t 4,000' tall, so they planted Norfolk pines
up along the ridge edge to catch the clouds. (It works.)
A calm and level sail.
Ginnie and Carl
Brett lectures about Lahaina and Maui
Elenor
It was a lovely sail.
Light winds.
Mike talks with Marty; the Serenade in the background.
The America II is a lovely, very well-kept ship.
The Serenade
Back to Lahaina
Second Day Sail
Virginia and Loren as we prepare to set sail.
(Well, motor out to where we could set sail.)
Time to haul up the sails again.
Ready?
Pull!
Loren’s not sure this is fun! Jonathan handles the winch.
Mike with Lanai in the background.
Loren and Mike
All done.
We stored stuff in the waterproof holds.
Marv enjoyed the sail, Kathy didn’t come.
El and Mike
On our way out.
Mike was quite sunburned from the day before.
Almost to the point where the tradewinds slide off Maui onto the water.
The winds are arriving.
The sails fill.
Marty: “Anything you don’t want to get soaked needs to be in the waterproof hold NOW!”
The winds arrive.
Whee! Hang on!
The sail home
We come about and head home. Notice the Serenade on the horizon in the center.
The passengers were NOT in the waterproof holds!
The sail home was calmer, but still wonderful.
Drying off
The sail comes down near the end of our sail.
Final words
Mike and I cannot recommend this America’s Cup sailing excursion enough. No matter if the weather is calm and you have a lovely sail up and down the coast of Maui, or the tradewinds show up and you have a rollicking race along the waves, it’s a fantastic sail!
It’s not an excursion handled through Royal Caribbean (their kickback is too high), but it’s well worth making your own reservation ahead of time (as we did: we had tix to sail both days several months ahead of our cruise), or just walking down the slips to their booth and buying your tix there that morning.
Their website is mediocre: it provides the info you need, but that’s all. Google around and read reviews to get the real feel for how wonderful it is. This was the best thing we did in Hawai’i. (Our scheduled helicopter ride might have been better still, but since we got kicked off, we don’t know. {frown})