Aloha,
time is flying aboard ZERO! its unbelievable that we have mid February already. I mean.. of course a lot happens since we postet some "text". Creating videos is a very time consuming job. and sailing ZERO is the same. And since we crashed our "fruit" phone everything went very slow..

But here i am sitting in the "rock & brews" bar in Pia, Maui and do nothing except writing, updating and socializing. OK .. honestly there is something else i am doing. I drink a beer! But that shouldn't effect the writing to much.?

ok here we go.. read what happened to ZERO & Crew the last weeks..

first of all.. were back on Maui.. you didn't know we left? my fault.
we've been to all the other Hawaiian islands except Kauai and Niihau.
In detail ..
we left Maui someday in September (..?) to sail along Lanai, Molokai and end up in Oahu. I know you know that but after we spend almost 2 Month on Oahu we set sails and sailed straight to Maui. First we anchored 2 nights in front of the Sheraton at Blackrock beach and enjoyed the very friendly people over there.. Its amazing when you enter the beach with your dinghy and survived the shorebreak and there are people who immediately stand up and help you pulling up the dinghy above the high tide mark. That happens on MAUI!! believe me!! Of course the questions about where & when and what next.. follow but we love to talk about our adventures and even when we have to explain all of that a couple times a day its amazing how the people react. Thanks for all your questions and of-course all your help!!
After these 2 days we sailed to Mala Boat ramp, a little anchorage north of Lahaina, and got the honor of using a real dinghy dock!! WOW its possible to come ashore without getting wet!
Rebecca and me had our 10 Year anniversary and celebrated it by having a meal in a restaurant!! and spend almost a fortune to see the new Star Wars movie. We had a funny night.

When we sailed back to Kihei we came around the west Maui mountains. The wind picked up from around 15kn to 35kn within a minute. We expected the wind to pick up but force and speed surprised us again.. anyway this wasn't the end of our ride.. the wind went up to over 45kn and ZERO sailed with a tiny bit of the genua and the reefed mizzen. It was ok (actually I liked it, but Rebecca would probably disagree..) but we had a lot of water in the boat and it was a big mess to clean up afterwards.. There is a lot more to do on ZERO even when we did a good job already and ZERO feels much more comfortable in the wind & waves than before.

Christmas came and we spend so much time with friends that we hadn't had a single day off between Christmas and days after new year.. We met so many people and received so much ALOHA that leaving Kihei on the 24th of January was a hard task for us. We felt very sad about the idea to see that place with all the beautiful people for the last time..
When we arrived in Kona on the Big Island we met Ben & Riah again and their ALOHA helped us to get over it.

We anchored at the same place we did last time and after only 2 days we got visited by 2 DLNR Officers giving us a ticket because we were anchored in coral. WHAT?? we didn't anchor in coral we anchored in a sandy patch with a couple rocks and our anchor chain was touching one of these rocks. I said " This is not coral, its a rock! The officer replied: Coral or rock is the same in Hawaii!" WHAT?? A coral is a living creature and a rock is damn dead! we couldn't convince them and they gave us a ticket which means we have to go to a court hearing in march.. because we left the Big Island already we hope we can do it in Oahu, we'll see what they say.
BUT!! the really bad thing about it is that we anchored in a bigger sandy patch before and the **** harbormaster came out and advised us very rude to leave that spot and anchor in a different area. That was exactly the area we got the ticket! He said we were blocking the entrance from the Harbor so the cruise ship tender cant go in to unload their guests.. BULLSHIT! first of all there is no harbor. Its just a pier for all the commercial tourist boats doing whale watches etc.., second.. there is NO channel!, I checked every chart, cruising guide or coastal information and there is no channel, and last but not least.. our GPS position was inside the mooring field.
We picked up Norbert and Anja, our friends from Germany, at the airport and had some very nice days on the Big Island. Ben borrowed us his pick up so we were able to cruise around the island without spending a fortune on a rental. One day before we planned to sail back to Maui we were invited to Bens sisters house. Ok its not a house its a shack in the woods. Absolutely remote and in the middle of the lush nature in the uphill countryside. We had a fire, a BBQ and a couple drinks. I was wearing my new Hiking boots to break them in and when we went back to the car I stepped into a hole on the ground and twisted my ankle. F**k! I knew something happened. My right foot was swollen within minutes and even when i didn't had any pain I was shivering on the whole body. Damn! We attached a frozen pack of bacon and went back to the boat.

After we got the ticket we anchored back in the big sandy patch and when the cruise-ship came we had tender boats all around us. There was plenty room, like at least 400 meter between ZERO and the coast with around 30 ft deep water but the tender boats had to pass us with less than 5 meter distance. I put the divers down flag up and hoped that these professional captains would respect it and keep at least 100ft distance. But nothing changed. So I called the captain of the "Pride of America" and asked him to advice his tender captains to keep more distance when passing us and reduce the wake by slowing down. Nothing changed. So I called him again and told him that we have swimmers in the water and he really should take more precautions etc.. He agreed and told them to do so. 30 minutes later i received a radio call from him and he told me that the harbor authority want me to move my boat. I asked for the reasons why he thinks i have to move. He said it wasn't him who wants it, its the Harbormaster and i should call him. WHAT?? - I'm on watch on channel 16, he can call me. - but he didn't have a Radio - But i don't have a phone, my crew is ashore! - OK they send a boat. - Ok I'm awaiting them, over.
I was excited what happens next and double checked the charts etc.. everything was good and I couldn't find a single reason to make me move.
2 hours later Rebecca, Anja and Norbert came back and we cleared up to leave to Maui. SO I called the captain again and told him that I waited more than 2 hours and no Harbormaster came out. He replied that they don't come out because they couldn't do anything about it! HAAAA damned f***ing cruiseship captain. How arrogant can a single person be.
Anyway we left to sail back to Maui and because of the big swell we skipped the northshore and sailed back to Kihei!!! YEAH!!

Now that we're here I finally got the time to work on some new videos and of course this "little" blogpost.
So you can expect some new adventures in HD soon..
Aloha