Iolea

We are an Australian couple (Paul Duncan & Kate Owen) who bought Iolea in Annapolis USA in 2010. Our cruising adventure started with a couple of years cruising the Caribbean. In 2013 we transited the Panama Canal and crossed the Pacific to NZ. For the past 3 years we have been cruising NZ (north and top of the south), Fiji and Vanuatu. We arrived in the Solomon Islands early April following 6 months sailing through Kiribati, The Marshall Islands and a short stop in Kosrae. This year we are heading back to Vanuatu and then on to New Caledonia before returning to NZ and preparing to head back across the Pacific in 2018.

Recent Updates

Posted: Fri, 30 Nov 2018 - 07:57

We had a good night's sailing. Although the wind has been a steady ENE-East rather than the predicted East-ESE. A bit before dawn it also picked up to 20 knots and has stayed at that strength. The

Posted: Thu, 29 Nov 2018 - 05:45

Our 4-5mth stay in French Polynesia has been sensational, but our time is up and today we set sail for Hawaii. One thing we won't miss is the 3500nms of close hauled sailing to the east that we've

Posted: Tue, 25 Sep 2018 - 05:48

Spent that last two weeks exploring the Tahanea Atoll in French Polynesia's Tuamotus. Thoroughly enjoyed all it has to offer, which to our pleasant suprise included swimming with manta rays, and the

Posted: Sun, 9 Sep 2018 - 10:03

We dropped the pick inside the Tahanae Atoll in the Tuamtuos this morning after a two day sail from Papeete. Can't believe how lucky we were to sail all the way on a 10-20 knot westerly given the

Posted: Mon, 20 Aug 2018 - 12:36

Been chilling in Papeete anchored off the northern corner of Marina Taine for the last week or so catching up on boat jobs. Plan is to finish of the jobs this week, reprovision, refuel and re-booze

Posted: Sat, 4 Aug 2018 - 11:48

Had a big day of brewing aboard Iolea today. Bottled our first home brew of the season, a Bulldog American Pale Ale with extra hops. Also put a Muntons Dockland Porter in the fermenter. Should be

Posted: Fri, 3 Aug 2018 - 14:15

We had a glorious sail from Raiatea across to Huahine yesterday. Spent that arvo reprovisioning in Fare then headed down to Baie D'Avea this morning. Will probably stay here for at least 5 days

Posted: Sat, 14 Jul 2018 - 06:09

Woo Hoo! we're safely on anchor in Raiatae. Its so good to be back up in French Polynesia and to have this passage behind us. All up we can't complain as most boats that do this passage tend to

Posted: Fri, 13 Jul 2018 - 06:33

We have 50nms to go. Wow what a night. We didn't expect to have such a rough night this close to Raiatae. We started off close hauled with a fairly steady easterly breeze in the high teens and <1m seas. In the early hours of the morning the wind snapped up to 30 knots in a couple of seconds and the swell tripled in size and shrunk in interval; it was game on! So not a pleasant night by any stretch of the imagination. After sailing close hauled for seven days we are also discovering all of our leaks.

Posted: Thu, 12 Jul 2018 - 07:27

We have 195nms to go. Another challenging night; as we were close hauled in 15-25kts from the bloody ENE with crap seas. Sure could've done with wind from the ESE instead. That said, last night's

Posted: Wed, 11 Jul 2018 - 09:39

We have 320nms to go, and our autopilot is still working, woo hoo! These are challenging conditions though; as the wind direction is varing +/- 30 degrees and the strength is ranging between 5 & 30

Posted: Tue, 10 Jul 2018 - 08:27

Just noticed we've been using the wrong date for the last few posts, oops. We have 450nms to go. Had a good night of close hauled sailing in robustish conditions again. All is well aboard.

Posted: Mon, 9 Jul 2018 - 10:12

We have 590nms to go. Had a great night of sailing in robustish conditions. We had SSE winds ranging from 15 to 30 knots, mostly in the 17-22 knot range, which we sailed at an apparent wind angle

Posted: Sun, 8 Jul 2018 - 08:36

We have 740nms to go. Had a mixed night of sailing, as a temporary wind shift to the east came in, it all went light and variable, with us needing to turn on the iron sail for 8hrs to ensure we

Posted: Sat, 7 Jul 2018 - 08:36

We have 862nms to go. Had another good night of sailing. If the forecast hold our challenge is to get as far east and a little further north as we can as in 3-4 days time the easterly trades will

Posted: Fri, 6 Jul 2018 - 07:39

We have 980nms to go. Had a good night of sailing until the wind died around 5am. As we've been sailing directly downwind we are wing-on-wing and do not have the benefit of both sails on the same

Posted: Thu, 5 Jul 2018 - 07:36

A boisterous night of sailing in 25-30 knots with a 2-3m swell; which is always preferable to motoring. Nothing of note to report, all is well aboard.

Posted: Wed, 4 Jul 2018 - 07:33

Had a mixed bag last night. The positive was how splendidly Iolea sailed in the 25-30 knots we got from the cold front that passed us last night. We had a double reefed main and our little staysail

Posted: Tue, 3 Jul 2018 - 09:03

What a difference a day makes. We managed to unjam our mainsail without having to go up the mast and our autopilot is still working; woo hoo! Also had some glorious sailing over the last 24 hrs with

Posted: Mon, 2 Jul 2018 - 10:57

There has never been a truer word spoken than "if its going to happen it will happen out there"; which is a line from the film "Captain Ron". We discovered that there may be a structural flaw

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Iolea

Iolea

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