You know you’ve been working too hard when...

1. You wake up at oh-dark-thirty in the middle of processing a long list of things to do, that in daylight seemed rather minor, but at three o'clock in the morning have morphed into MAJOR jobs with HORRENDOUS consequences if you forget a single one of them.

2. You can’t go back to sleep and you’re too lazy to get up and write it all down, so you juggle the list in your head, an endless loop of fear of forgetting whatever it was that seemed so... zzzzzzz. Yawn. Sound of robins chirping. OMIGOD! It’s eight AM and you’ve forgotten everything!

3. You throw a cup of coffee down your gullet, hoping nothing like that will ever happen again to disturb your precious sleep. Time to get to work.

4. Eight hours later you can cross ONE thing off the list... well, it’s not actually finished, so you can’t cross it off unless you want to cheat. Rats. What’d I get done today? Is the sun over the yardarm yet?

5. You pour a glass of wine, wondering how you got so tired without crossing anything off the list. The wine relaxes you. Suddenly you think of a brand-new thing that needs doing, and add it to the dadgum list.

6. The clock in your head says "Six weeks left! Tick-tock, tick-tock..."

7. You make a new rule: When the list of stuff to do gets to the bottom of the paper, throw the paper away and start a new list.

8. Ahhh, bed. Feels so good to lay down after a hard day’s work, gonna sleep goo... zzzzzzz. BOING! 3:00 AM. Wide awake. OMIGOD! Why haven't I done THAT yet? Don't forget, don't forget, don't... zzzzzzz.

Welcome to Ground Hog Day.

Headless Chicken Days: Okay, you’re probably looking forward to the last of these voyage prep posts as much as we are... no, wait, that would be impossible. The good news is the boat’s all but ready and so are we, but there are still a few... okay, make that LOADS of projects to finish on our 110 year-old house, including moving completely out so that we can rent it. In other words, it's Headless Chicken Days. You'd recognize the signs. Things like: You go to repair a wall in the laundry room that had to come partially out for some plumbing work awhile back, but you realize the flooring is too crappy for renters, so you tear out the whole danged thing, right down to the 110 year-old cement slab, which by the wavy looks of it was evidently poured during some great drunken cement party. Standing back, you look at each other through the settling dust and gasp, "What the hell have we done?" But a few trips to the hardware store, a few beers to fuel the planning, and you're back on track--just a few days behind where you were supposed to be, that's all.

Hoo boy, and don't forget to add "Check all the smoke detectors and change the batteries" to the list. Short cuts are tempting. (Just kidding, that's not our house.)

We had our first Ham contact via our new radio! It's exciting to press the transmit button and know your voice is going out over the airwaves to who knows where. Jim went first, trying to suavely sound like he'd done this a million times, all the while desperately trying to recall that string of senseless letters and numbers that make up his call sign.

Jim, pressing the transmit button, freezes: Ummm...

Karen: You just said Um over the radio. You're not supposed to do that.

Jim: I was trying to remember my call sign.

Karen writes it down: KF7OWV.

Jim tries again: Ah, um, this is Kilo Fixtrot, uh, Oxnard...

Karen: No wonder nobody's answering!

We write it out phonetically so we don't trip ourselves up and this time transmit successfully, but still nobody answers. Hmmm. Eventually we call a Ham friend on the telephone and ask him to answer our radio call. Being a Ham, he gets really excited, races to his ham shack, and warms up his radio. Over the crackle and wheeze of frequency noise, we enjoy our first Ham contact.

But in spite of such pleasant diversions, all that remains to be done makes talk about destinations such as gorgeous tropical isles start to sound like the sound track from a Bill Murray movie.

Jim: I dreamed about the Tuamotus last night. (note: The Tuamotus are gorgeous tropical isles.)

Karen: That’s good. What was it about, swimming and beachcombing?

Jim: I forget. Do the Tuamotus have ballet?

Karen: Huh? Ballet? I dunno, why?

Jim: Because then they’d have Tuamotu tutus.

Karen: I need another coffee.

Jim: Isn’t there a song about the Chatanooga Choo-choo?

Karen: Oh yeah!

Both: Pardon me there, is that a Tuamotu tutuuuuuu!

It's clear even to the most casual observer that this pair needed a break, so off we went in the boat, to busta wave and host the Spring rendezvous of the Northwest Pacific Seacraft Owners Association. It was cold. How cold? See previous post. A peaceful anchorage was the goal for the first night out, so we nosed Sockdolager between the rocks at the narrow entrance to Mats Mats Bay, dropped the hook in the lagoon, said "Ahhhhh, peace at last," and settled in for a nice... hail storm. We kid you not. It sounds like gravel hitting the water. We enjoyed the incongruous pleasure of throwing iceballs into the water and watching puzzled gulls dive on them, then Jim gathered up enough hail to make three snowballs and put them in the fridge for drinks later. "Want some hail in that gin and tonic?" is a fun phrase to drop on friends.

Jim throws an iceball.

Next day was perfect sailing except for the small detail of having the wind smack on the nose. While tacking to and fro, we tested our new wind vane self-steering gear, shown in the next two photos.

It's called a Cape Horn, and is made in Quebec by a very skilled, friendly and helpful sailor named Yves. It works by cocking the upper vane into the wind until it stays vertical; then you hook up the steering lines to the tiller. The lightweight vane moves the powerful servo-pendulum rudder, which in turn pulls the steering lines attached to the tiller. It's so well made that it worked even when we installed the upper vane backwards! This will be the silent workhorse that does most of the steering on long voyages. Jim built the cross-brace for strength, and Leif Knudsen, the shipwright, made it into a pin rail for attaching various lines.

The second photo, looking over the boat's transom, shows the powerful servo-pendulum at work, swaying side to side and pulling on the steering lines. Atop the stainless frame there was enough room for Leif to make us a teak platform on which to store small jerrycans of gas for the outboard.

The rendezvous in Kingston was a delight, and over way too fast. So good to see our friends again. In this photo, Ben Alexander of Puffin (Dana 24) Patty Kirby of Tonic (Dana 24) Karen, and John Hazen of Windward Pilgrim (Flicka) swap yarns aboard Tonic.

This is a 55-foot bridge, but when you're on a boat with a 34-foot mast, it sure doesn't look that tall. We realized that this bridge (in the Port Townsend Canal) may be the last one we go under until the Golden Gate in San Francisco!

For another fun break, Karen sang with her trio The Jazz Gals and a marvelous combo including piano, guitar, bass, drums and trombone, in a concert in mid-May. What a thrill to sing numbers like "Mack the Knife" in front of a wailin' band and a cheering audience, then calm it all down with "Stardust." Are there any jazz players out there who also happen to be cruising sailors? We hope so.

And finally, Jim loves to geek out with iPhone apps. This one's called "Pano" and he took this photo of Sockdolager's cabin with it. The cabin sports some of Leif's new fiddly bits that make it more enjoyable and add storage capacity, which we will show you more of later. The photo makes the cabin look palatial (click to enlarge), but still, a Dana 24 is a boat that thinks it's a lot bigger than it is.

Have Boat, Will Sail

Northwest Mantra--Repeat until July: The Sun is not a myth... the Sun is not a myth... Not even the coldest spring on record since the 1950s is going to keep us from getting ready on time, but it has made preparation a bit more challenging. Doing upside-down boat yoga in a cockpit locker, for instance, is more fun in sunshine than sleet. Trying to not poke a ladder through a garage window is much easier when it’s not blowing a gale. Click here for scientific proof that Spring in the Northwest has been “unstable.”

Don’t worry, we’re just practicing our spiffy new medical skills at an Offshore Emergency Medicine course. We highly recommend it (the course, not breaking both right arms.) Photo by Jill Dubler. More info below.

Something about juggling all those lists: We keep forgetting things. It couldn’t be age causing this, or even keeping track of unfinished work, so it must be the cold. Yep, that’s it. Karen, for example, completely forgot that Jim had made her a nicely shaped piece of wood to fill in a space between exterior wall shingles and the garage door frame, so she laboriously cut little mini-shinglets to fill it in and layered them carefully, then joined their edges to full-sized shingles. Nice corner, the renters will like it. Very fine work there, she thought, until Jim asked, “Geez, aren’t you going to use that piece of wood I made?” Cue sound of extra energy going THUD.

One of our favorite photos, taken last summer by Mae Jong-Bowles of Prince Rupert, Canada as we were entering Port Angeles Harbor from Sooke, BC.

But Jim takes the cake on forgetting, at least this time. He lost his wallet. Actually, he loses it rather creatively nearly every day, plus his car keys and glasses. Eons ago Karen offered him a basket for stashing them the minute he comes in the door, but nooooo... “Where’s the fun in that?” he retorted. Usually we (note the pronoun) find them all after a daily ritual resembling an Easter egg hunt. But one day his wallet seemed lost for good. The signs are always clear: Jim mutters while rifling through stuff and wandering distractedly. After ten minutes of this, Karen asks, “Which one are we looking for today?” Occasionally Jim will call out something like, “If you TRULY cared about me, you would know where I left my wallet/keys/iPhone.” This turned into the best setup he ever gave her. Meanwhile, there was no finding the wallet, and Karen silently began making plans to call credit card companies. She did notice a wallet-shaped bulge in Jim’s jeans pocket earlier, but thought, Nah, couldn’t be, he’s not THAT clueless. But he was. “I found my wallet!” came the triumphant call minutes later. Silence.

Karen: Where was it?

Jim: In my pocket.

Karen: No, seriously, where was it? (She walks over, begins searching his pockets slooooowly.)

Jim: What are you doing? I have to go to work!

Karen: I’m showing you how much I truly care.

Sockdolager under sail. Soon, soon...

Of course, Jim had a good excuse for such forgetfulness: all his brain cell were full, holding an encyclopedic amount of arcane facts needed to pass the test for a General Class Ham license. No room left in there for mundane things like wallets. His study marathon began right after we returned from taking the Offshore Emergency Medicine course. The man’s unstoppable. Karen is still trying to keep all the medical stuff from falling out of her beleaguered brain.

Time to go sailing. The day cannot come soon enough when we’re on the boat and don’t need to take tests or remember where we put keys because we won’t need the dadgum keys. Wallets and glasses will be easy to find because on this boat anything you don’t put away is in plain sight.

More on the Emergency Offshore Medicine course: First we read the 200+ page book to get ready. Then we took an online test and passed. Then we flew to Denver, where we had three nine-hour days of intensive classroom time, which included how to identify if something’s a medical emergency or not, what to do about it, and how to keep something minor from becoming major. We role-played, diagnosed using “big net” systems thinking, and even practiced emergency radio calls. Then there were the labs, hoo boy... we cleaned, irrigated and dressed a horrendous wound in a ham hock, practiced giving shots with real syringes and real drugs except that we shot up a bunch of raw chicken legs and not each other, administered a hematoma block in another unfortunate chicken leg, and smeared fake blood on ourselves before going out to lay in various pained poses in the hotel hallway, which impressed the hotel’s other guests to no end.

This course was taught with panache and humor by Jeff Isaacs and a partnership of MDs who get what it means to go offshore by sailboat. If you are going offshore and beyond the reach of medical assistance or timely medevac, then this is the course for you. It costs about the same as two month’s insurance premiums and buys peace of mind. We’ve connected the Docs with the Northwest Maritime Center in hopes they’ll bring it here, because Denver’s as far west as they’ve taught it so far. You can find out more about it here.


Ahhh, sunset. Sockdolager at anchor behind Dungeness Spit National Wildlife Refuge, just off the Strait of Juan de Fuca. Photo by Mae Jong-Bowles.

All that work will be worth it...

A favorite photo from the Northwest Maritime Center's Spring Symposium, taken on the dock in front of Sockdolager after a nice visit aboard with Lin and Larry Pardey, a couple of our sailing heroes... read on for more!

Three months to castoff! Though we’re making more progress toward our goal of departing Port Townsend on July 4^th for the open Pacific, it still feels at times like wading through molasses. The other day Jim said, “I should just put something on the list so I can cross it off, like ‘get out of bed.’

But we’re getting close, so close. We can smell the ocean, feel the boat’s swing and sway, sniff the warm breeze in our dreams. Well, not the warm breezes while we’re dreaming, we mean the warm breezes of our dreams… oh never mind. Angled into this mix is the need for a reasonable state of physical fitness, especially at our ages (budding geezerhood.) Jim’s boat yoga (contortions inside small lockers to build and repair stuff) has been keeping him somewhat limber if not bruised, and Karen has begun lifting weights and doing other exercises at the gym. Talk about wading through molasses. But the strenuous workouts are paying off. She attended a “Body Flow” class the other day and learned, while doing the combo Tai Chi-Yoga-Ballet exercises, about the effects of age on one’s general decreptitude. Later that evening, at home…

Karen: Hey guess what. The instructor says that balance isn’t the first thing to go when you get older. It’s the ability to twist.

Jim: Hmmm. Maybe we should download some Chubby Checker tunes to the iPod.

Winter cruise: Just to get outta Dodge, we went for a little cruise on December 30, to Mystery Bay, where we tied to a mooring overnight. Temps were in the 20s and we were the only boat out sailing. It was crisp and lovely, but holy mackerel, the idea of sailing without down vests, hats, gloves and lined boots is going to be an exotic new experience. Imagine flip-flops! Bathing suits! Yeah, baby! Diving in for a swim! Brrrr, never mind, it’s Puget Sound.

On the way out of Mystery Bay the next morning, we tested our new VHF radio with the amazing AIS (automatic identification system) that tells you where other ships are, their names, and which way they’re going. It was clear and sunny. Jim went below and turned it on while Karen steered. The proximity alarm went off immediately… BEEP BEEP BEEP! To small-boat sailors this sound means, “ATTENTION, INSIGNIFICANT OBJECT. A ship is heading your way and will be inside your Official Zone of Scary Events in 3… 2… 1…”

Jim: Do you see any ships?

Karen: No. Does it show a ship in the area?

Jim: Yeah, and it’s heading straight for us.

BEEEEP! BEEEEP! went the alarm.

Karen: I don’t see anything. What’s the name of the ship? We can call them.

Jim: It’s blanked out. No name, but the bearing’s coming straight at us.

BEEEEP! Jim: Ugh. I’m turning off the alarm.

Karen: Hmmm, were it not for that sand bar between us and Port Townsend Bay I might be worried, but there aren’t any ships in si…. OH. MY. GOD. Come up here!

A nuclear submarine’s jet black conning tower slipped into view just over the sandspit that separated us, and moved across it like a needle on a giant panic dial. It was huge, and we were, for once, grateful for sand bars. “Wow,” we said in unison. It figures the first ship contact with our new AIS would be a boomer.

Jim's full of big ideas. This is his idea for fishing in comfort.

Sailing back to Port Townsend, Jim informed Karen of an important discovery he’d made. “I did some extra calculations on the spinnaker pole as I was putting the new ends on,” he said. “There’s a lot of space inside that tube.” Jim had found the pole on Craigslist for a lot less than a new one would cost, and he’d bought new end fittings for it.

“You’re looking at the inside of a spinnaker pole for storage?” Karen asked.

“The pole is 3 inches in diameter,” said Jim. “A can of Pabst Blue Ribbon is two and five-eighths inches in diameter. We could fit 31 cans of PBR inside that pole.”

“Wow. Only you would spend the time to figure that out.”

“It might affect the pole’s performance, huh?”

“It might.”

We also discussed saving more storage space by eliminating all those icky tubes of engine grease and using peanut butter instead, for greasing the engine. This came about after Karen smelled the ubiquitous paste on Jim’s breath. “Too bad engines don’t run on that stuff. You could just butter up the diesel and lick it when you get hungry.” Jim thought this was an excellent idea, and, except for the fact that he prefers the problematic crunchy to the diesel-friendly smooth, he might have considered it.

Nerd News: We passed the test for our ham radio licenses. This means that we can talk long-distance to other hams on ham frequencies, and to ordinary mortals on the Single Sideband radio. Our friend Karen Helmeyer in Hawaii pointed out that we should excel at being hams because we are rather good at hamming it up. To which we respectfully riposte: We shall do a cartoon radio show on the other side of the Equator and call it South Pork. (Just kidding, Fellow Hams, we know that's not allowed.) In early April (whoa, that's now!) we’re off to Denver for an Offshore Emergency Medical course. Denver? Offshore? Hey, we don't make this stuff up, we just do it. And that about does it for school.

Lineup of boats on display at the Spring Symposium. Sockdolager's at the front. This & next 2 photos courtesy of Jan Davis.

Winter’s finally over, and around here that means the wind subsides to thirty, the rain falls at 45 degree angles instead of straight sideways, and everyone’s delirious about teensy little leaf buds and micro-patches of blue sky. It hasn’t been all work and no play, though. We took Sockdolager over to the Northwest maritime Center’s first annual Symposium, where we ‘re told she was one of the stars of the show. If the steady stream of delightful visitors was any indication, we believe it.

This was a gathering of serious sailors and powerboaters to learn and listen and interact in two days of intensive classes. It was great. One of the highlights for us was hosting Lin and Larry Pardey, two of our sailing heroes, aboard for a nice long visit where we talked about boats, cruising, and writing. Karen did her presentation on blogging your voyage, and we enjoyed long conversations with a bunch of interesting people.

Sockdolager at the Northwest Maritime Center.

Fiddly Bits: We’ve been having huge fun with our friend and semi-retired shipwright, Leif Knutsen. Leif, whose own boat is an astonishing assemblage of creative and beautiful boatwork, has been busy on myriad “fiddly bits” for Sockdolager. Wait’ll you see this stuff! Kinesthetically kewl doesn’t begin to describe the brilliant things that have created more space, secured heavy items, and found unique solutions for storage. In another installment we’ll take you on a tour of Leif’s innovative fiddly bits.

Preparations for the Life of Reilly

Several requests have come in asking what we’re doing these days to get ready to cast off for the Big Bodacious Voyage. “Geez,” they say when we start ticking off items on the To-Do list, “You’ve got lots of time!”

This causes the following immediate reaction: I freeze. Jim freezes. We look at each other. He dials up his iPhone’s “Number of Days Left Countdown” app. Cue the jangly music from the sand-running-out-of-the-hourglass scene in the Wizard of Oz where the Wicked Witch of the West cackles "Mwahh-Ha-Ha!" at wide-eyed Dorothy and her little dog, too. Jim announces how many days we have left. I can see the panic in his eyes. We both get that deer in the headlights look. This photo shows us practicing being cheerful castaways in our teensy but very well-constructed Winslow life raft. As part of the repack/inspection, we bought a couple hours of consultation time. One can never be too prepared--and time keeps on slipping, slipping, slipping...

Here’s a partial To-Do list. Most of these things have been done already, but enough of them remain to keep life these days anything but Reilly-like. Besides boat prep we’ve got a daunting list of house projects to get through to make it really nice for whoever rents it. Which reminds me, I need to go to the hardware store because I’ve run out of thinset for the tile backsplash…

To-Do List, or... What Some People Will Go Through Just to Act Like a Couple of Lazy Bums. Or... Who the heck was Reilly, Anyway?

Sails & Rigging

Standing and running rigging—replace all, including sheaves where worn; convert boat to cutter rig with removable forestay, new mast tangs and running backstays.

Make sure all sheet/halyard leads are fair; re-rig roller furling with new blocks.

Rig reefing gear and boom vangs for maximum strength and ease of use.

Internalize jib halyard, add 2 extra external halyards as spares.

Install strongtrack, storm trysail track, spinnaker pole track extension.

Rig boat for extensive downwind sailing and prevention of sail & line chafe.

Have sails (made in 2005) inspected/repaired as needed--mainsail, genoa, staysail, cruising spinnaker, storm trysail, storm staysail.) All made by Carol Hasse’s Port Townsend Sails. One more needed, a light air drifter.

Replace 23 year-old stainless chainplates with custom bronze ones.

Tune rig. Replace old uncomfortable bosun’s chair.

Safety

Life raft—have it inspected and repacked. Organize ditch bags.

Ground tackle—overhaul entire system. Get old fire hose for chafe gear.

Replace lifelines. Get new EPIRB.

Rebuild bilge pumps & buy spare parts.

Waterproof seals & positive locks for cockpit lockers.

Have at least three independent handheld GPS.

Have sextant, tables and know how to use them.

Install Cape Horn wind vane self-steering gear.

Replace old aluminum fuel tank.

Install lee cloths on bunks.

Secure boat for knockdowns; stove, bookshelves, floorboards, galley, etc.

Emergency water supplies: handheld watermaker and spare gallon jugs.

Electrical

Install 175-watt solar panel on stainless arch.

Install 110-volt inverter and electrical monitoring system.

Re-wire boat. Convert all lighting to LED.

Install new Single Sideband/Ham radio, get Ham licenses.

Buy and install AIS/VHF radio.

New stereo with iPod dock. Record all CDs onto iPod.

Get tillerpilot in good working order.

Engine survey & oil analysis.

Kindles, iPads and ship’s library: get ebooks.

Other

Replace rigid dinghy, which is too large to carry on deck, with inflatable dinghy & 2-hp outboard.

New spray dodger, mainsail cover.

New cockpit awning.

Storage pouches for cockpit.

New interior cushions.

New cookstove.

Build wooden drawers inside hanging locker; create chart stowage space on sides.

Raise the waterline (see photo.)

Give internal teak a coat of beeswax finish.

Get ship’s papers in order.

Passports, drivers licenses up to date.

Wilderness medical kit.

Learn French. Brush up on Spanish.

Get the house ready to rent (another huge list; cue groans.)

We're still figuring out how to make the comments section easier for readers to do, but just discovered that an automatically-generated album of all the blog photos exists on Picasa, here.

The Big Bodacious Voyage

On the Horizon

Happy holidays! Many tides have ebbed and flowed since last summer, and much preparation for the upcoming voyage has been completed. (Much remains, however.) The departure date is set: July 4, 2011, from Port Townsend, Washington to…well… the world!

Photo of Karen & Jim by Yasuo and Michiko Hayama, from Japan. Yasuo sailed his Dana 24 from California to Tokyo (http://www.cruisingyachtsinc.com/psc24dh.pdf)

Yes! We’re going for it! From PT we’ll sail to Neah Bay at the end of the Strait of Juan de Fuca, wait for a good forecast, and jump offshore for the passage to San Francisco, about 700 miles south. After a spell there (heads up, SF friends!) we’ll harbor-hop down the coast to southern California, where we’ll await the end of hurricane season. Then it’s down Baja Mexico to explore the Sea of Cortez and get the boat and ourselves ready for the big crossing in March of 2012: 2300 miles to the Marquesas, home of gorgeous mountainous islands, great people, and lots of history. We can hardly wait to ramble through French Polynesia and, before the South Pacific hurricane season starts, book it for New Zealand. (Heads up, EnZed friends!) Once in NZ we’ll take stock—you know, the how-are-we doing, is-this-still-fun stock. If it’s still fun, we’ll keep going. A friend named Kaci Cronkhite (who’s circumnavigated and is the longtime Executive Director of the Wooden Boat Festival) has been spinning yarns to us about the delights of the Indian Ocean. And we do have friends in South Africa…

We’ll keep you posted via this blog as we get internet connections along the way. There is also the new ability to update it from far out at sea anywhere in the world, via our new single sideband radio. Both of us are going to become Hams as well, so talking from just about anywhere in the world will be possible, as soon as we learn how to do that. We may even be able to send coordinates of where we are right to the blog via our solar-powered shortwave radio. HOLY MACKEREL, IS TECHNOLOGY GREAT OR WHAT.

Our boat, Sockdolager, (Sock-DOLL-a-jur) a Pacific Seacraft Dana 24, is, well, only 24 feet long. This would make things rather crowded with all of you aboard, so the best way we can think of to take you along is to blog about the voyage. Which brings up another thing…

We GUARANTEE you won’t get seasick.
While we’ll be able to update the blog at sea from our shortwave radio, we won’t be able to notify YOU with an email, due to the cost and complexity of radio waves compared to internet electrons. We also can’t promise to update anything with any regularity, such as the blog or our position. Which means: don’t worry if you don’t hear from us for weeks at a time. We put a “Follow” widget on this blog to enable followers to get automatic notifications when we post via radio from the briny. Although we know beyond a doubt that each and every one of you is a leader, we recommend that you also try becoming a “Follower.” More on this with how-to instructions at: http://www.google.com/support/blogger/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=104226

Talk back!
We’ve also figured out how to simplify the comments section at the end of each blog post—basically it’s open now to anyone for comment. We got rid of that byzantine registration thingy that previously prevented many of you from commenting. So fire at will, we want to keep in touch!

Good Old Boat and 48 North
Both magazines have published several humor articles by Karen this year. Our blog writings have become the ideas and raw materials for lots of these published pieces. Supposedly, writing for publication is like watching sausage being made. So if you love sausage, this may be your spot.

The man can do anything. And strong? Don't get me started...

Boat Bling

Sockdolager is getting ready for voyaging and is now solar-powered for all things electronic. Her rig, sails, and safety gear are either all new or inspected and good as new. She has a new Cape Horn self-steering vane gear, new dodger, cockpit awning, 175-watt solar panel on a stainless arch, special Odyssey batteries, water-cooled refrigeration, 110-volt inverter, Wi-fi antenna, a new Force 10 cook-stove, a new single sideband (long range) radio transmitter/receiver, GPS, and a new VHF (short range) radio with a cool gizmo that identifies ships by name and gives their coordinates (AIS.) Plus all new boat cushions and a new stereo system with an iPod dock. Karen, also known as the Navigatrix, has a refurbished Tamaya Jupiter sextant in case the electronics crap out.

Jim, also known as His Royal Geekness, has installed everything himself while contorting his body into odd, tiny spaces inside the boat. This practice will be familiar to some of you; it’s called “boat yoga.” Karen has watched him in slack-jawed amazement. There are now enough new antenna thingys on the boat to attract the interest of the CIA. Special note: if anyone ever tries to tell you that installing a single sideband radio (SSB) is easy, HAVE THEM IMMEDIATELY FLOGGED ROUND THE FLEET. Installing the SSB has been so much work that Jim now refers to it as the SOB. There are five good reasons for choosing SOB, er, SSB, over other options such as a satellite phone:

1. We can talk for unlimited amounts of time with any other vessels anywhere in the world, so long as they also have their own SOBs (and as long as our batteries last)
2. We can contact shore stations, including mobile nets, businesses, and emergency services;
3. We can send and receive e-mail from sea (but it’s expensive); and
4. We can receive weather charts by connecting our laptop to the SOB.
5. This radio has all the Ham frequencies, too.

Sunset from our house, which we'll be renting to someone who hopefully loves them.

We’ve thought a lot about this. Some people have become so reliant on their electronics as a crutch that their voyages have been negatively affected, even aborted, when they couldn’t stay in touch with shore. We prefer to view having these electronics aboard as a convenience rather than a necessity. Cutting the umbilical with shore is important if you are going to truly go voyaging; but the ability to be in touch when needed is awfully nice. If we let electronics impact the quality of our voyage, or the connections we should feel from navigating by sun and stars, or the self-reliance of a fully-found little boat on a big ocean, then shame on us.

Since the boat will be our cruising home for the foreseeable future, she should be as safe, comfortable and convenient as possible. We’re not camping out; this will be a matter of taking our little home with us, like a turtle takes its shell, so that we can be at home anywhere in the world. Different philosophy there, but it has served us well in justifying going broke!

Spring Sailing Symposium in Port Townsend March 18-20, 2011
Last Sunday morning Karen’s phone rang. We’d say it was early but it wasn’t; we were sleeping late. She leaped out of bed, mumbled hello. It was Lin and Larry Pardey, calling from New Zealand! Karen's eyelids went from half mast to Defcon 4. The sailing world’s most well-known couple, who are among the star attractions at the upcoming sailing symposium in the Northwest Maritime Center here in PT, were responding in person to questions Karen had asked them via email. The conversation lasted an enjoyable half hour. Want to know what we talked about? Sign up for the symposium, (http://nwmaritime.org/symposium/) because Karen's presenting, too! In addition, we’ll bring Sockdolager to the docks at Point Hudson, and she’ll be open to tours for registered participants. Karen also interviewed Janna Cawrse Esary, author of The Motion of the Ocean, Gary (Cap’n Fatty) Goodlander, author of Red Sea Run, aboard Wild Card (currently in Turkey,) and Andrew Revkin, former Science Editor of the New York Times, blogger at DotEarth and a sailor who’s crossed the Indian Ocean and Red Sea.

Karen’s presentation is called “Hello World! Ten Reasons to Blog Your Voyage (but not every day)”

Postscript: A Hole in the Heart
This one’s difficult. At our last writing, Jack, our beloved little sea-doglet, was still with us. He died in August, a few days after we returned from the mini-voyage to Canada’s west coast. Congestive heart failure finally claimed him in the back yard early one misty morning, as we cradled him and told him we loved him and would carry him forever in our hearts. We carried him down to the boat and sewed a little shroud for him, made of a bright red beach towel with an anchor jauntily embroidered on it. We weighted it with a round rock from our garden and sailed him out to the mouth of Admiralty Inlet, to a place that’s 650 feet deep, beyond the reach of fisherfolk. We drifted in the mist, read some poems, squeaked his favorite toys, cried, and slipped him into the waves as a pair of tiny harbor porpoises circled the boat. It’s hard to write any more about the little bugger except that we miss him.

We’ll post again as the time nears and there is news.

Life in the Slow Lane

Foggy
It’s 2:30 in the morning, we’re sound asleep after another full day of sailing in the foggy Strait of Juan de Fuca. Karen hears a fog horn from a ship—one of those very low, long deep fog horns that means a big ship. Uh-oh. You know how it is when you’re half awake but you don’t want to wake all the way up because you’re having such a good sleep? That’s how it was. Hoping that it’s no big deal because we’re anchored safely, (we are, right?) she dozes off again. But then, BOOOOOOOOOOOOOP! Good grief, that ship is close! Both Karen and Jim come wide awake. WHOA! Where are we? Home in bed, that’s where. With the windows wide open to let in the cool night breeze. The sound of fog horns from ships groping their way through the Strait of Juan de Fuca is drifting across the still night air, all the way up the hill

to our house. Whew. We laugh. Back in Port Townsend from the west coast of Vancouver Island after a terrific cruise, we’re happy to be home, and planning the next one. This is the entire route.

Jim sails us to anchor through the narrow entrance at Dodger Channel.

Everyday Life on a Boat
What’s it like to live on a small sailboat? Reading this blog may give you an idea, but there’s more than can be described. The motion, for example—how can the peace or the lovely rock-you-to-sleep motion of a good boat that’s well-anchored be adequately described? Or the underway motion of a lively following sea, when the boat surfs down the front of a wave, sails billowing, and makes you whoop with joy? Or the ominous wake of a large ship you can’t see in the fog that tosses you in warning? How about the endless pitch, yaw and roll of big seas that gets you queasily wishing they’d calm down? There’s an endless variety of motion. Also sounds, smells, different kinds of light and darkness. Perhaps that flick of motion seen from the corner of your eye is a bird, maybe even one you know the name and call of without having to look. When you sail, you are a pure creature of the moment, reacting to wind and wave, sensory input, always scanning the horizon for changes in the weather, which rules your life. And, like a good pilot, you are always looking, when sailing along the coast, for good alternate “landing places” in case you can’t reach your intended destination. Life on a sailboat is about motion.


There is fear, too, such as when a squall hits and the wind shifts and suddenly you’re on a lee shore and it’s chaos and noise, and then you methodically work to get the boat under control, get back on course, make rational decisions on how you’ll handle the challenge. This tests how well you’ve prepared. Life on a sailboat is about extensive preparation, practice, proper equipment, and back-up plans.

Pipestem Inlet view

It’s hard to describe how it feels to take your little home with you everywhere you go. You’re at home on the water, anywhere. The boat is stocked with everything needed for extended periods away, wherever you decide “away” might be. Life on a sailboat is about self-sufficiency.

Guiding the boat into another inlet.

Fishing in Pacific swells.

Life on a sailboat is also about stillness. When you chill out after a hard sail, you know you’ve earned it and there isn’t a single brain cell nagging that you shouldn’t relax.

Nothing beats a glass of wine with friends, toasting the sunset in a wilderness anchorage off the beaten path while the surf crashes outside your cove. Sailing is what you make it. The thing about cruising under sail is the wholeness of it. Everything you do seems to have a sense of full involvement with no holding back. It’s why sailors sleep so well.

The juxtaposition of these photos, of Karen cleaning the engine and Jim snoozing after a good afternoon of fishing, followed by the photo of Jack the seadog leaping into Karen’s spot the moment she gets up (he was evicted shortly afterwards) is purely unintentional. Really. Karen did plenty of snoozin’, Jim did plenty of work, and Jack did plenty of barking.

Livin’ LaVida Lingcod
Just in case anyone thinks living on a small sailboat is all can openers and flung spray and hardtack for dinner, let us disabuse you of that notion right now. In fact, if you’re the slightest bit hungry, stop reading and go eat something.

The finest visual all summer, from a civilized dining perspective, was Jim coming back in the dinghy grinning, after 3 or 4 hours of fishing, and hollering “I HOPE YOU’RE HUNGRY!” He’d hold up his fish and Karen would do a little jig in the cockpit. We’ve caught rockfish, snapper, lingcod, salmon,

oysters (they’re slow), Dungeness and rock crabs, and have been given prawns and halibut. We have fed ourselves for much of the summer on fresh wild seafood. We alternate cooking “duties” every other night, and have developed some rather high culinary standards due to the fact that we both enjoy making stuff up, especially when we’ve caught a big fish and it lasts for four meals. Jim rejoices when we’ve “eaten down” all the fillets in the fridge. The expression on his face then is all “OH BOY OH BOY! I GET TO FISH AGAIN!”

Jim's 26-inch salmon.

Our brand new Isotherm refrigerator is all or nothing—either you turn it way down and freeze everything, or you live with a deadline for eating the fish you catch. While cleaning one day’s catch, Jim wished for hermetically sealed fish fillets. Karen said, “You mean, like one of those seal-a-meal gizmos?”

“No,” Jim said, “I mean sealed by the Hermetites.”

“Huh? You mean hermits? Like, lonely guys with nothing better to do?” asked Karen.

“No,” Jim said, “I mean the Hermetites.”

“Ah, of course. And who were they?”

“They sealed,” replied Jim.

“Why?” asked Karen.

“Because they didn’t have refrigeration back then,” said Jim. But Karen knows what’s coming next. Better eat up the veggies because we’re turning the fridge down to arctic.

Following the timeless tradition taught to us by our Canadian friends Marty and Mae, Jim kisses his first salmon.


We’ve been shocked and slightly thrilled to see the price of seafood in markets and restaurants: Half a Dungeness crab with garlic butter, $26. A whole crab, $38. A whole salmon in the grocery store, $37. Six shucked oysters, $7. Well, shucks yourself, it was worth the purchase of all that equipment and the fishing license, never mind the stories we get to tell.

Here is a sampling of Le Menu Sockdolager:

Chinook salmon poached over a cassoulet of thinly sliced potatoes, onions, apples and green peppers smothered in Bernaise sauce. (Karen is not sure what a cassoulet is, but it sounded good.)

Blackened lingcod with a crust of spices.

Prawn Pad Thai.

Sauteed rockfish with almonds and wild sea-asparagus.

Salmon seared in a quarter-ton of garlic and New Zealand butter.

Fish & chips (lingcod) in beer batter.

Chesapeake Bay-style crab cakes.

Steamed Dungeness and rock crab, drawn butter, fresh green beans; and for a change from seafood, Jim’s Meat Loaf. It’s killer. We had a meatloaf cook-off last winter to see who made the best recipe. To Karen’s everlasting shock, Jim won.

Karen marvels at Jim's Tower of Tasty Tostada

Jack, who appears to be feeling better after his cardiac episode, found a three-dog echo in a tiny cove near Julia Passage. A three-dog echo is when one bark echoes three times, which can puff a little dog’s already big ego up. Enough to assume that any wolves in the area know there’s one baaaaad bunch down there on that little green boat.

Beachcombing

Enough Food, Let’s Talk About the Weather

In the last post we mentioned the winds have been “active.” Daily gale warnings (winds of 35 knots) have continued all month, and we can remember only one or two days without one. It seems no matter what the weather does, we have a gale. Cold front? We got gale. Weakening low? Gale. Ridge of high pressure? Gale. A dip in the Dow Jones Industrial Average? Gale. We suspect what’s really happened is the entire Environment Canada staff is on holiday at the beach in Tofino and they don’t want crowds bothering them, so each day the little recording is appended to the forecast NO MATTER WHAT THE WEATHER IS DOING, and you hear the cheerful robot say: “…as a result, strong to gale force winds will develop over the entire west coast of Vancouver Island…”

But the sunsets and moonrises have been spectacular.

Moonrise and a cozy cabin

Errant Assumption #1: Whenever you assume that the big bay you’re anchored in so peacefully will remain peaceful, remember this sight--a football field-sized lumber barge that anchored close to us at 5:30 one morning in Ucluelet Inlet. We were awakened by men shouting, as the barge began to swing toward us, “HEY! Are we gonna miss that little sailboat?” Followed by a guy running the length of the barge, peering at us and yelling, “Yeah… I THINK so.” We moved.

A Capital Ship for an Ocean Trip
Reluctantly departing Barkley Sound one morning, we headed out into lumpy Pacific swells and a southeast headwind. Headwind? Whaaa? The weather said west, a tailwind! With K disparaging the laughing Weather Gods as a bunch of sick losers, we motored for awhile, until a zephyr from the west filled in and said we could sail, which we did. Ahhhh. Sailing is best. The zephyr grew and grew, until by day’s end, when we were entering a big square open bay at the mouth of the Strait of Juan de Fuca called Port San Juan, it was blowing fog at 35 knots. You read that right. Blowing fog. 35 knots. Fog around here doesn’t sit still and behave nicely. It’s not your basic well-behaved East Coast summer fog. This is industrial strength airborne mashed potatoes that blows your hair flat. It comes in like a wall. You can see it coming in advance, so there’s plenty of time to build a right proper case of denial. Oh no, that’ll never get THIS far, you say, and when you look to windward again there it is, hovering like a persistent used car salesman, and you know you can’t avoid buying this turkey.

At the end of a long day, sailing fast and dead downwind in 35 knots into a foggy bay whose shores are obscured, except for the sight of a beach full of combers at the far end, is a good test of nerves. Options were to trust the cruising guide, which promised shelter, or head out again into gathering darkness for another 40 howling miles. We decided to check it out. Only if no safe anchorage could be found would we head back out. The aptly-named Thrasher Cove on the bay’s west side was filled with breaking waves, so we sailed across the bay to a tiny cleft in the rocks optimistically named Port Renfrew, and hoped it wasn’t too full of the fishing boats that were all passing us in their haste to get into harbor. It nearly was too full, but between a fishing/research boat and a net tender we managed to anchor in a sliver of smooth water, with waves breaking on the rocks less than three boat lengths to port and wind-lashed seas three foggy boat lengths to starboard. Oh well, who doesn’t need more practice in precision anchoring anyway.

This was the perfect time to try a new technique we’d read about in an excellent older book by Earl Heinz, called The Complete Book of Anchoring and Mooring. Non-sailors skip this part. The technique is called a “hammerlock.” Basically, all it involves is this: once your main anchor’s set and the boat’s in position for the heavy winds but you don’t have room to swing when they go light, you just drop another anchor, preferably heavy, on a short rode off the bow. When the wind dies down, the extra anchor will keep the boat from moving around, but if it does drag you can likely hear it rumbling. From a marginal anchorage like this you’re probably going to move anyway.

Sockdolager's GPS track in Barkley Sound


Weather Gods to Bureaucracy Gods… Over to You
I guess we gave the Weather Gods enough entertainment for awhile, because the next day was spectacular. A sweet little westerly breeze in the morning, some fog but still a couple miles of visibility, and warm sunshine. We tried out a downwind arrangement of sails—staysail boomed out on one side and genoa on the other. Although we didn’t try booming out the genoa using the end of the main boom, we figured out how it might be done. Sockdolager flew along all day, perfection in a 35-mile sleigh ride to Sooke. We realized some of the adjustments that’ll be needed in order to have a reliable trade-wind rig. Of course by day’s end the wind built to 25 or 30, and on a reefed genoa alone we were surfing down some surprisingly large breaking seas. This little 24-foot boat with its 21-foot waterline surfed steadily at 7-8 knots. Now for the really exciting part.

The VHF radio crackled into life. It was the US Coast Guard, cheerfully announcing live fire exercises by the Canadian Navy in a patch of water called “Whiskey Hotel.”

“Did they say live fire? As in real bombs?” Karen asked. Jim thought that’s what he heard, so we checked the chart. Although there is no Whiskey Hotel named on the chart, an ominously placed magenta line near our position said DANGER AREA.

“I think we may be in the live fire area,” said Jim.

“Great,” said Karen. “You check into the Whiskey Hotel and they shoot you.” Right about then a helicopter flew by. We heard a radio call for “Helo Stinger 32.” You’ve gotta love the names these people give their fighting machines. But seeing one from a distance greater than half a mile would have been better, from an appreciation standpoint.

Jim called the Coast Guard, who gave us the coordinates for Area Whiskey Hotel. For whatever reason, they wanted us to plot the coordinates and find out for ourselves rather than take our position over the air and tell us yeah, you’re in the zone, and you’re toast. With all the rolling and tossing of the boat, it took Jim awhile to plot those four coordinates while the Coast Guard cheerfully stood by. Sure enough, we were in it.

The options were to turn back, which in 30 knots of wind was not going to happen easily, or to go out to the shipping lanes to joust with tankers, or (our preference) to sneak along the shore and hope for the best. After consulting with the Coast Guard, who consulted with the Canadian Navy, who took awhile to get an answer back to the Coast Guard, which deeply impressed us into thinking that perhaps we were creating an international situation, the Coast Guard radioed back, “The Canadian Navy says you should leave the area.”

Jim asked if sneaking along close to shore was a possibility, but the radio chose that exact moment to begin crapping out, so who knows what the Coast Guard heard from us other than we wanted to sneak. After several tries, at which point we were deep into live fire territory, Jim was able to make his request understood. We angled north and did the shore sneak, with an eye on the sky for strafing runs. “They wouldn’t bomb a yacht, right?” we asked each other. But several other boats blundered right through the middle, including a mega-yacht towing a mini-yacht, which would have made a terrific target. They emerged oblivious and unscathed out the other side, so maybe we were just being extra cautious by calling the Coast Guard. It was fun, though, in a Dr. Strangelove kind of way, being given orders from the Canadian Navy via the US Coast Guard. Later the same day the Coast Guard announced demolitions exercises in Area Whiskey Quebec, which was, thankfully, forty miles ahead.

Karen’s cousins Bob and Carole Brelsford from Florida drove their motor home, which they call “The Kramden” because Bob loves old Jackie Gleason reruns, all the way to Port Townsend to visit us, and after learning we were still in Canada they came all the way to Sooke. Here we are after a jolly brunch at Mom’s Café.

Later on, we discovered Errant Assumption #2: You can’t get sunburned in the fog. Here’s Jim demonstrating the Canadian technique for sunbathing in fog while covering his left ear with a hat to keep it from being sunburned.

They followed us home, can we keep them?

You might remember a post last year (August 15, 2009) when we talked about meeting up with an energetic pair of Canadians aboard a 30’ sloop named, aptly, Wild Abandon. We were way up in the wilds of the “Outside Passage,” where almost nobody goes. Marty and Mae Bowles, who hail from Prince Rupert, became fast friends amidst some rather comic adventuring, which we’ve since augmented with video footage, so go back and see 4 new videos added to that August 2009 post, because it’s hard to believe we escaped with our lives. Anyway, we had a reunion this week in Port Angeles (Washington side) after crossing the Strait and its shipping lanes in fog. Once again, Seattle Vessel Traffic Service was invaluable in telling us where the ships were and they us. While entering busy Port Angeles harbor, we used our sense of smell to tell us when we were dead downwind of an anchored ship (it stinks like burning coal) and once in awhile a huge bow would loom out of the murk, and we’d go around it. Truly a Scylla and Chaybdis odyssey for the Northwest.

Sockdolager and Wild Abandon at the docks at Port Angeles

Mainlining Jello Shooters at the local pub with Marty & Mae. The table behind us thought we needed them after we admired theirs, and bought us a round.

Four fast friends

We wanted to keep going, so next

morning we 2 boats (sans radar) convoyed carefully through dense fog, to the amazement of some marina residents who politely called us “bold.”

A tanker in fog. Fortunately, this one was at anchor.

We followed the depth contour near shallows just off the shore, away from where ships could go. By afternoon we were sailing the length of New Dungeness Spit (and national wildlife refuge) in decent visibility, including a spinnaker run on Sockdolager. We filmed each other zooming back and forth.

Sockdolager with her green spinnaker. Photo by Mae Jong-Bowles

A windy night was spent anchored together behind the New Dungeness Spit (at 9 miles, the longest sand spit in the world.)

Sockdolager and Wild Abandon at anchor inside New Dungeness Spit. Photo by Mae Jong-Bowles

Here Karen and Jim encountered Errant Assumption #3. When you’re anchored in only 20 feet of water with a heavy plow anchor, 30 feet of chain and 150 feet of rode, you will never drag anchor. Not. As we watched in disbelief, Sockdolager dragged downwind for a couple hundred yards in the wide open bay. The only other time that’s happened to Karen was in New Zealand, when a big shell lodged itself on the point of the anchor, which prevented it from digging in. Figuring that’s what was happening now, we pulled it in and found no shell (it could have dropped off) but a massive tangle of kelp and soft oozy smelly mud. So, if your boat’s sideways to the wind and the scenery is going by, even though you have half a mile of ground tackle out there, you’re probably dragging.

We swapped crew! Mae went to Sockdolager and Jim went to Wild Abandon.

Mae steers Sockdolager like a pro.

Sailing into Port Townsend the next day was blissful. Just as last year, we were spotted by friends within minutes of entering harbor as we sailed through the anchorage. Marty and Mae joined us at the house to celebrate Marty’s birthday. We were so noisy that our neighbor called to find out if we were burglars.

Wild Abandon does a victory lap along the Port Townsend waterfront

Marty gets a double noogie on his birthday

Errant Assumption #5: That one must always let sleeping dogs lie. Well, one could, when the dog pretends to be out like a light while you’re trying to make up the bed in the V-berth. Jack pretended to be asleep even when we made up the berth on top of him. Good for a laugh, the little cutie. We’re glad to still have our little Jackalope with us.

Big Plans Next Year

This was a short cruise in comparison to last year, and especially in comparison to next year’s plans. But it was sweet, and a good shakedown for the improvements we’ve made to the boat. We’ll spend the rest of the summer in the Puget Sound environs, and in the fall will begin our list of projects to get ready for next year. Our 2011 plans are to rent out our PT cottage and sail to Mexico and then, hopefully, to the Marquesas, French Polynesia, Vanuatu and New Zealand. From there we will figure things out. But the philosophy will be to have fun and an adventure of a lifetime. Neither of us are spring chickens and we’ve worked all our lives for this. As our Canadian friends say, why not go for it, eh?

Sockdolager coming into harbor. Photo by Mae Jong-Bowles