The End

Current Location
Lat: 57-46.6776N
Long: 152-24.6745W

This now concludes the "Guide on What Not to Do When Sailing from Tahiti to Alaska". Some of the highlights this guide offered our readers were:

- Everything on your boat is broken, you just don't know it yet.
- The curse of the NE wind when trying to sail to the NE.
- Birds are free loaders who try to catch a free ride or terrify you if given the opportunity.
- Kelp likes rudders.
- And of course the favourite by our readers, how to strangle yourself with your own life jacket.

Yes, it is finally true. We have arrived in Kodiak, AK. Some fun facts by numbers of our passages since departing Tahiti on May 18:

- Days spent at sea: 52 (FP to HI = 27 days; HI to AK = 25 days)
- Miles sailed: 5,100 (FP to HI = 2350; HI to AK = 2750) To be honest, we really didn't track our mileage so this is a very rough guess at best.
- Days spent fishing: Zero
- Teeth lost: 3, and a fourth hanging by a thread. Yes, we will soon need to puree all of Iris's food!
- Screen time hours for the girls: x = hours awake * days at sea
- Broken/Repaired Stuff: 20 Although, I am probably forgetting something and I did not double count those things that needed multiple repairs.

For those interested in this kind of stuff, here are the details of what broke and/or repaired since leaving Tahiti in no particular order:
- replaced tiller arms x 2 after one broke 500nm SW of Hawaii;
- creating various renditions of a block to stop the rudder from bashing itself against the hull after the tiller arm broke. It felt like hours D spent contorted, upside down in the engine room trying in vain at times to secure the rudder while precariously kneeling on the back transom step being swamped continuously by waves.;
- welder fixed emergency tiller, which was damaged when it was used as our first attempt for securing the flapping rudder;
- torn spinnaker not yet repaired;
- replaced chaffed spinnaker halyard;
- replaced chaffed furling line;
- attended to the unhappy BMS x 3;
- replaced alternator;
- changed fuel filters after troubleshooting why the starboard engine lost power;
- water tank sprung a leak just days into our first passage losing us 400L of water, this will not be repaired;
- life jackets x 2 which need either a new cartridge or replaced altogether;
- patched main sail tear;
- sewed up shredded sail bag which is on its last legs;
- reset inverter when it wouldn't turn on the very first morning after leaving Tahiti. Mind you if that had not been fixed, it would have saved the girls from the incalculable mind-numbing screen time, although it also would have meant we would have not been able to use our computer for staying connected with everyone. You can determine whether this fix was a win or not.;
- re-bedded a leaking thru-hull;
- re-bedded a leaking deck fitting;
- replaced shorted out solar panel wiring;
- shortened main sheet due to chaff x 2;
- re-secured ceiling panels that were falling on the girls' heads in their cabins x 2;
- troubleshoot and fixed a faulty temperature warning light on the port engine.

Acknowledgements:
I would like to take this opportunity to express my profound gratitude for my ever resourceful, persistent, resilient, rarely complaining husband!!! Your ability to troubleshoot and fix problems never ceases to amaze me. Plus became a baker extraordinaire with our warm-up-the-boat breakfasts.

We are thrilled to finally reach our destination after so much planning and anticipation. Feels like the start of a whole new adventure for the Maple crew, which involves more clothing. Thank you so much for following along and putting up with my whining throughout. Many of you provided some perfectly timed words of encouragement, so thank you!!

A special thank you to Shaun who tolerated my random emails of "The weather sucks...give me some good news.". Shaun was invaluable throughout from buying us the parts needed before our arrival in Hawaii and being our weather guru, thank you so much!! No doubt you are equally relieved about our arrival; I am sure you did not anticipate what you were taking on when you agreed to be our go-to guy.

Now let the fun part finally begin...exploring the natural beauty of what I have heard Alaska offers in spades!! The fact that we have already motored past the cutest sea otter just floating on its back in that adorable way that they do, I feel confident we made the right decision to make the effort to sail to Alaska.