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: Wed, 29 May 2019 - 09:54

We find a common observation with most passages, generally a mix of good and not so good. The good over the last 24 hrs is the winds have steadily abated to 15 knots, the seas have settled somewhat

Posted: Tue, 28 May 2019 - 12:39

The forecast winds finally kicked in last night a little after midnight. We've been having a boisterous ride in rough seas with 20kts from the WSW gusting to 25-30kts at times. Given the emergence

Posted: Mon, 27 May 2019 - 12:00

"What a difference a day makes ..", as the song goes. At dawn this morning the skies were clearing, the wind was shifting to the west, we were able to pull our genoa back out, albeit still motor

Posted: Sun, 26 May 2019 - 12:27

We knew there was a front that we had to go through, and upon exiting that front we would experience northerly winds for a day or two. That is pretty much how it played out over the last 24hrs. As

Posted: Sat, 25 May 2019 - 12:27

Another day of okay sailing conditions, particularly after we jibed this morning as the prior tack had the swell hitting us on the aft quarter which caused an uncomfortable motion and the genoa to

Posted: Fri, 24 May 2019 - 12:15

We're back into passaging mode. Last night bang on queue there was the mandatory sail changes between midnight and 3am during a cloudless squall, no point complaining though as its all part of the

Posted: Thu, 23 May 2019 - 12:36

Woo Hoo! We are well and truly under way. Threw our lines off a little after 4pm then had to motor sail for the first 8hrs in order to make any meaningful progress north. Around midnight last night

Posted: Tue, 21 May 2019 - 11:45

We're almost ready to depart for Alaska. We're currently tied to a slip in the Niwiliwili Small Boat Harbor on Kauai in Hawaii. If the current weather forecast holds we may depart tomorrow or the day

Posted: Sat, 4 May 2019 - 11:48

Yeah we know, its been a long time between posts; which means yes we are testing systems as we get ready for our passage to Alaska. We're currently anchored off Kaneohe Yacht Club in what is the

Posted: Thu, 13 Dec 2018 - 17:21

We made it, woo hoo! Whilst we budgeted 14 days, we nailed it in 13 days. Dropped the pick off Reeds Bay last night around 10pm local time. We didn't go into Radio Bay straight away, as it was

Posted: Wed, 12 Dec 2018 - 09:15

Whilst it was another night of robust sailing, the seas and winds eased as we got to the same latitude as the bottom of the Big Island. We're steering a course of 300T doing 6.5kts in an ENE15-10kt

Posted: Tue, 11 Dec 2018 - 09:33

Last 24hrs has been robust sailing in 25-35kts from the ENE with 3-4m ENE seas. We have 235nms to go, given we're averaging 7kts over ground this should get us into Hilo around 9-10pm tomorrow night

Posted: Sun, 9 Dec 2018 - 10:42

Last 24hrs has been lovely sailing again, we have 545nms to go which still means at best we may arrive late Tuesday at worst on Wednesday morning

Posted: Sat, 8 Dec 2018 - 10:36

Last 24hrs has been glorious sailing, albeit in a somewhat robust

Posted: Fri, 7 Dec 2018 - 10:54

We had a memorable last 24hrs, not in a good sense. There are times when you need to be careful what you wish for, as we wanted some rain to wash the boat down. We also made the mistake of doing a

Posted: Wed, 5 Dec 2018 - 12:18

Well we're still sailing rather than motoring; which is great. Gotta admit though that this is a weird passage. The typical winds you see on this passage are say 15 knots, the direction being

Posted: Tue, 4 Dec 2018 - 11:19

Another 24hrs of nice sailing conditions. We're currently steering a course of 005T doing 6kts.

Posted: Mon, 3 Dec 2018 - 07:36

We had a glorious night of sailing, steering a course 000T doing 7kts in 15kts from the ESE with 2m short interval confused seas. Crossed the equator around 8pm offering Neptune a stiff shot of

Posted: Sun, 2 Dec 2018 - 09:30

We continue to make good progress maintaining speeds in the high 6s and low 7s. The wind has finally started to clock to the east, which is great, although we have entered the easterly counter

Posted: Sat, 1 Dec 2018 - 09:03

We had another good night's sailing, although more robust than preferred. We keep seeing forecast winds of E-ESE but keep getting ENE-E instead making for a tight reach almost close hauled sailing

Yachts In Transit

Iolea

Iolea

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