The Big Left Turn

Photo by Elizabeth Becker of Seaport Photography.

Sockdolager leaves Boat Haven in Port Townsend.  Photo by Joan Zimmerman.

If you look at a map of the furthest upper left-hand corner of the United States, you’ll see where we are:  Neah Bay, just inside Cape Flattery at the entrance to the Strait of Juan de Fuca.  We might even be able to claim that as I write this, Sockdolager is likely the furthest west anchored boat in the Lower 48! 

Instead of dawdling, we decided to take advantage of a break in the winds and scoot out here.  We left Port Townsend at 0415 on an ebb and motored in a straight line to Port Angeles, arriving to anchor before the afternoon westerlies made things unpleasant in the Strait. 

 Heading west at sunrise.

Bertram Levy and his family arrived within an hour, aboard their lovely wooden cutter, Able.  They’re enroute to Barkley Sound in Canada.  After enjoying a brief visit with them, we napped and then arose just after midnight to slog down the Strait into headwinds and seas, but on a fair tide of two knots.   Able sailed into Neah Bay a few hours later.

Able anchors in Neah Bay after a long day.

From Neah Bay we succeeded in sending a quick post to the blog via Ham radio; when you see our names as senders, as shown in the previous post, it’s coming from our radio.  It’s a complicated process, and transmissions tend to give Sockdolager a power surge that sets navigation lights to flashing and bilge alarms to squealing.  Jim installed a few ferrite chokes (Ham geek-speak) on wires and it helped, but there is still more ferrite choking needed.  

The Many Stages of Leaving:  

It’s hard to describe what it feels like to deliberately turn your life upside down and leave home on a small (some say too small) boat for a sea-voyage of unknown duration, to fabled tropical isles.  Not the usual thing on most been-there-done-that bucket lists.  The act of leaving can be uncharted territory.  There were so many feelings swirling on those last days in Port Townsend—excitement, exhaustion, happiness, twinges of sadness, love for dear friends, celebrations, a little worry, and a slowly dawning “We did it!” high-fived in the cockpit once underway.

There was the July 4th Mother of All Dock Parties—friends, nearly 40 of them throughout the day, surprised us by coming from as far away as Portland, Oregon and Alaska, as well as nearby.  At one point Sockdolager’s bow pointed saucily skyward as 14 people lounged and chatted in the cockpit, on the foredeck, and down below—a new record for this 24-footer.   

And we never ran out of beer, either! 

The dock party went from 2:00 to 8:00 PM.

Little Orion gets his photo taken.

Our friends Kristen (shown, in sling) and her husband Lou flew their own plane to PT from Spokane via Alaska, to say goodbye; Yvonne (at right) expressed a longing to go back to living aboard a boat.

The party was followed that evening by a fireworks and s’mores beach bonfire party at Anna and Peter’s.  (Note to self:  remember not to sit between well-stocked, competing fireworks factions.) 

There were good wishes, via dozens of emails, for a bon voyage.  There was our collective “Whew!” once both trucks were sold the next day and insurance policies cancelled.  There was this “What are we forgetting?” inability to stop being a couple of stressed-out walking lists.  And then there were gales—four days of hard worrisome wind that kept us at the dock longer than we’d anticipated.  That became a good thing, because we were far more tired than expected.  There were friends Klaus and Maria, two circumnavigators who’ve rounded Cape Horn (wow!) giving us the honor of casting off our docklines, tooting a fabulously loud horn as we left. 

Klaus and Maria aboard Ludus Amoris. Photo courtesy of Klaus & Maria.

There were Lon and Joan and a posse of camera-toting friends in three boats, who snapped away as we sailed merrily back and forth together in front of Port Townsend.  

Sockdolager and Selkie sail together.  Photo credit:  S/V Blackfin.

And there was Port Townsend herself, dressed in the finest blue sky with a lace cloud collar, beguiling us one last time in the alpenglow of a pink sunset that reflected off the Cascades.  What a sendoff! 

Always look back:  Somehow the advice “Never look back” has become part of the lexicon of leaving.  We do it anyway.  When you get underway at first light and the waterfront is still sleeping like a plein air watercolor, you’d be crazy not to look back. 

Goodbye, Puget Sound.

When sunrise over the Cascades bounces off the Olympics and colors your westbound wake a spectacular pewter-pink, you must look back, because it’s one last message:  Don’t forget where your home is!  We won’t forget, and we promise to keep in touch while we wander. 

  

Goodbye, Cascades.  

Arrivals, too:  There are, of course, a few arrivals with every departure.  The arrival of constant motion into our lives.  Unlimited horizons.  We welcome the sight of morning rafts of seabirds—rhinoceros auklets, puffins, common murres, and marbled murrelets—foraging for breakfast, giving little wing flips to dive and “fly” under water.  We rediscover how extraordinarily good simple food tastes at sea.    We welcome lungfuls of clean salt air, watch a wall of fog stay politely on the Canadian side of the Strait, hit the pillow tired in the evening, and cheerfully arise at midnight to catch a speedy ebb tide. 

Goodbye, Discovery Bay and the Olympics.

Now the final preparations for an offshore passage are being made at Neah Bay.  San Francisco is over 700 miles away, and it’ll be the longest passage we’ve done together.  This is the time for attention to details:  secure lifelines, lockers, hatches, anchors, check the engine, rigging, sails and safety gear, go over the navigation and sailing directions, put quick-to-make foods in easy reach, make up the sea-berths, and more.  When the weather window arrives, we’ll go.  From the looks of the weather, conditions may be right on Friday or Saturday.   It should be a 5 to 10 day passage (about 750 miles) and we’ll stop at Drake’s Bay, 26 miles north of San Francisco, to rest before attempting to enter the big city.  

We just had to include this little item: 

  

Alaskan friends take note:  We have located the Bridge to Nowhere.   It’s in the NW corner of Neah Bay, and seagulls are lovin’ it.

  

In Neah Bay

We have arrived in Neah Bay. More to come in a day or two.

Goodbye Port Townsend, Hello Pacific!

Photo by Sandee Bailey

We’re officially aboard Sockdolager now and can say, “Home is where the hull is.” Making this transformation has not been without stress, but it feels so good to be almost liberated from the land and free to wander the seas. Parting with friends is painful, but as the old Martin Mull line goes, “Don’t say goodbye; say hors d'oeuvres.”  (Note to self:  learn French.)

The ties that hold us now are the flexible and forgiving kind—friendships—that will stretch around the world if need be. Those are the most precious ties, and are the ones that will one day bring us back home.  Meanwhile, WOOOOOOO-HOOOOOOO!

Thoughts of our first major stop, San Francisco, are becoming more frequent.  Hopefully it'll be a good first offshore passage.  It's no exaggeration to say making such a transition as this is a test of one's sanity.

Jim (after viewing this video):  Hey!  San Francisco’s hosting the America’s Cup in 2013 and they're racing each other right now!

Karen:  Wow, cool!

Jim:  We could race them!

Karen:  (silence)

Jim:  I think we could take them.

Karen:  Yeah.  5 knots against their fifty.  That’s lessee, ten percent of their speed.

Jim:  There’s always a handicap…

Getting nostalgic about the lovely Puget Sound views. 

We'll miss sights like this but oh the views to come!

We spent a pleasant evening with sailing friends from sailing vessels Alastor and Juichi at Sirens Pub, and they offered the following advice for our upcoming voyage:

1. Once you leave, stop thinking about what's next. –Randall A.

2. Get a Kindle.   –Sarah W. (Done.)

3. Learn to pluck a chicken.  –Ron H. (Okay…)

4. Focus on the fun.   –Alison W.

Karen asked some more friends for advice, and here it is:

5. Remember that wherever you go, there you are.  --Jan H.

6. Rock the boat.   --Anna Q.

7. Shiver your timbers.    --Kathie M.

8. Keep an open mind and an open heart; listen more; judge less; forgive sooner.  –Bob T.

9. Try to stay in water deeper than your boat bottom.  --Leif K.

10. Don’t worry about what you forgot.  –Yvonne J.

11. Once you head out to sea, turn off all shoreside communications and feel the delight of truly being at sea, letting the sounds, smells and visitas take over your whole mind.  –Lin P.

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12. "The true peace of God begins at any spot a thousand miles from the nearest land."(Joseph Conrad) --Kerry H.

13. Have fun. Forget what it was like before; the Now is yours.  –Herb & Nancy P.

14. You only live once, but if you work it right, once is enough.   –Yvonne & Pete T.

15. Pluck the chicken before you get on the boat.  –Chuck Y.

Wow, guys! Thanks. The goodbyes have been amazing. Dancing the night away at the PT Brewery’s outdoor garden with so many friends; Val and Mike’s musicians’ Bon Voyage barbecue; neighbors and friends who feel like family; dinner with Leif & Joan (“Hey, we know you’re too busy to cook!”); an impromptu party with Hasse, Nicki, Ace and Jasper; a few small but very useful gifts; quick visits by friends and family; offers of help (Sandee:  “I love love love to pack!”); the worrisome little details that somehow all came together as if being directed by good karma; expressions of love and affection, and excitement for what we’re doing (and some angst.)  Oh, and working 'til midnight to make it happen on time.  I think we’ll need a few naps.

Enjoying a last classic sunset from our cottage on the hill.

We’re spending the weekend cleaning the house, organizing the boat, and getting a few provisions. On Monday don’t forget to come down to D dock between 2:00 and 6:00 PM. Then it’s off to the fireworks by car. On Tuesday, it’s the vehicle sales transactions, and then… and then… we’re off!

I know from a couple of recent conversations that this news still hasn’t sunk in with some of our less-than-tech-savvy friends, so:  Hey!  If you’re on our gmail list and expect us to email you every time we post something, we can’t anymore! This will be the last post for awhile in which we can notify you unless you automate it and click on the “Follow” or “Updates From Sea” gadgets on the left side of this page and follow directions. ‘Nuff said. 

See you somewhere down the ocean road.

Much love, many hugs,

Karen & Jim

The Week Before Departure

The house is all spiffed up, we’ve found some good renters, and the boat’s ready. Now now all we have to do is move our stuff into storage and clean, while taking care of all those pesky details of moving from a land-based existence to being a couple of sea-gypsies.

We thought that doing so much work well in advance would mean that we could relax just before departure, but HA! say the Gods of Millions of Ridiculous Details. You thought wrong.

It turns out that when you try that, you make up more stuff to do!

Date is set: We’ve decided that leaving on a holiday (July 4th) when there are still a couple of things to do that would be better done on a non-holiday is just plumb inconvenient. For example, we need to complete the transactions of selling both vehicles but would like to use them over the weekend. There are also goodbyes to be said. Why rush? So we’ll leave the dock on the afternoon of July 5th, to anchor for the night in front of our beloved Port Townsend, weather permitting.

Which leads us to those goodbyes. If you are in the Port Townsend area on July 4 between 2 and 6 pm, come on down to Boat Haven’s D dock, second dock extension on the left, and have a coldie, some munchies, a boat tour, and maybe a hug or two. We’ll head over to a friends’ house in the evening to watch the fireworks. The next day we’ll wrap up business and go.

Which leads us to keeping in touch. There are several hundred friends and family on our email list, and so far we’ve had the luxury of emailing you directly when we update the blog. That is rapidly coming to a close. There will be times when we can email you from shoreside internet cafes, but more often than not the blog might be updated at sea from our Ham radio. We can’t email you directly from sea, because it’s such a slow connection. So slow that a single text file can take 10 minutes to download. So, hint hint, the ones who figure out the “Follow” or “Updates From Sea” gadgets to the left of this text will be able to get updates from sea as they are posted. "Follow" instructions can be found here.

First leg of the voyage: We'll sail for Neah Bay at the far northwest corner of the country, and await good weather there. Then we’ll head out to sea, destination Drake’s Bay at Point Reyes just north of San Francisco, California. Enroute we’ll stay about 70 to 100 miles offshore to avoid the shipping traffic, headwinds and crab pots that are common nearer to shore. (Lin and Larry Pardey confirmed to us that that this is the best and often shortest route.) We’re planning to stop in Drake’s Bay because it’s an easy harbor to enter and anchor in normal weather conditions after a long passage. We’ll rest up there and negotiate the busy entrance to San Francisco a couple days later, during daylight hours.

Speaking of Lin and Larry Pardey, they featured Sockdolager's pull-out table on their blog! Click here to see their article. Karen has been following Lin and Larry's adventures via their many helpful and entertaining books since the 1970s, and has learned much from them. They coined the phrase "Go simple, go small, but go now." Basically, they've been two of Karen's sailing heroes for decades. So it's a delightful surprise to: a.) be able to get to know them, since they live in New Zealand; and b.) learn that Lin has written a sweet memoir about their years in a very unusual location building their beautiful Bristol Channel Cutter, Taliesin. It's quite a change for a writer to do a memoir, but Lin has written a fine, readable, often funny book called Bull Canyon, subtitled A Boatbuilder, a Writer, and Other Wildlife. It's gotten good reviews, including from Publisher's Weekly. She keeps a brand new writer's blog separate from their other web site. Click here to go to Lin's blog and learn more about her book.

Lin and Larry came for a visit at the March 2011 Spring Sailing Symposium in Port Townsend.

And if you're looking for some nail-biting reading about a voyage through pirate infested waters, check out Cap'n Fatty Goodlander's web site and book called Red Sea Run, about traversing the area in convoy with other cruising boats. He just published a new book that describes the situation in that area in detail, called, Somali Pirates and Cruising Sailors. And in case you were wondering, no, we don't plan to go there.

Must get back to work now. More later.

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.