It’s midnight plus one minute on July 30 and I, Melissa, am on watch on this crisp clear night as we pass Cape Flattery off the starboard side. Hugging the coast of Vancouver Island, we decided to do an overnight passage into the Strait of Juan de Fuca in order to stay ahead of winds that would be against us on Friday. I am surprised when I look out over a glistening silky sea, bright with the light of a half moon, and see lights in the distance. I realize I am seeing Washington State for the first time from my boat in over 3 years.

The lights are faintly glowing far off on the other side of the mouth of the strait and I want to stare intently at them, make them bigger and brighter and more real. There is our waypoint on the chart, a gem shaped mark chosen to represent the completion of passages from Mexico and Hawaii. Did we really, in fact, sail all that way? The coastline of Vancouver Island is so familiar, so usual a pattern in my experience that it could be possible to believe, sitting out here in the cold night air, that the past three years were somehow a dream, maybe even someone else’s life entirely. I want to freeze frame this moment in time and sit with it for longer, this feeling of accomplishment mixed with both anticipation of being with family again and getting back to some new kind of life for a bit and with sadness that our full time adventure must pause for awhile. I want to take a photo to hold for the rest of my days. I want my kids and potential grandkids to be told the story: they
did a long journey by boat. And it completely changed them in all the best ways.

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Ah, the fine sensation of a quiet boat and flat water. The boat has not felt this peaceful in maybe years. We have landed! Huzzah! But due to the intervention of Mother Nature and her twin winds North and West which came in today with the joint force of a gale, we have been diverted from our rhumbline to Cape Flattery. Instead we find ourselves, with the gracious permission of Canada’s Coast Guard, here in a little cove called Klaninnick on the west coast of Vancouver Island. Instead of high tailing it home, we now find we are in a position to coastal cruise down Vancouver Island, a lovely transition from our feral lifestyle on board.

It came to me yesterday as I was taking photos of sea otters cracking mussels on their chests, that this was a bigger issue than I gave it credit for, this return to what we as a country have decided is civilization. I was sitting up on the boom with a great view of otters and seals periscoping their heads up to spy on us when the realization dawned on me: I wasn’t wearing any pants. What am I now, an animal? We are accustomed to being alone out here, or with other long distance cruisers who are also probably not wearing pants, that our ways have become less than what would make our mothers proud. We live as one with nature’s creatures, I guess.

With a sigh most heavy I slid down the dodger and put on my sweatpants. My heart was burdened. I know yours must bleed for me.

Today dawned beautifully blue and cloudless. Somewhere outside this cove the winds are raging and the seas have built angrily, but we are not out there. I am giddy with relief about that. Good work, Team Galapagos, on seeing a bad situation brewing and making a good decision early on to deal with it. I could have gone on like this in my mind, going over the decision two days ago to change course, getting a little puffed up with gratitude , but my thoughts were interrupted by a terrible smell. What the hell was that? Was a whale in residence? Did a sea lion come to join us on the aft deck? Sniffing the air, pirouetting on the aft deck, the source escaped me. Yet, there it was.

Was it me? I sniffed my shirt. Hmmm. I couldn’t tell if it was the shirt, which overall still smelled slightly of Mexico’s version of ‘clean smelling’. For the uninformed, Mexico’s laundry detergent, which every laundress uses unless you bring your own, has a distinctive smell you cannot miss. It’s subtly clinical with a heavy overlay of grandma’s floral bath powder. It may be an acquired taste in scents but, by God and his minions, your clothes will have never been cleaner. No dirt can stand up to that detergent. I love that smell. It means my laundry is clean, folded, and crisp and I didn’t have to do it myself. I already miss it. The shadow of that scent lingered in the fabric of my shirt. But there was something more, something earthier, more organic.

This smell that interrupted my train of thought was not that smell. I had showered long and luxuriously last night, so it couldn’t be me, could it? I licked my arm. Not salty, so that’s good. Then I tasted my shirt. Salty. Actually disgusting. When I removed the offending garment the smell wafted over me and that’s when I realized that my standards had sunk to an all time low. Raising my arm I gave myself a good sniff and reached for the deodorant. Apparently one shower was not enough to manage the stress hormones of the last few days of the passage.

The shirt was too disgusting to go into the laundry basket so today became laundry day. I gathered underwear from the basket and then scanned the boat for shirts and towels to be washed. Again, each item got the lick test. Salty? Not salty? No, I did not and do not lick underwear. Come on! Even animals have standards. No. Just stop.

I have to wonder just how long it will take before I stop licking skin and clothing to see if it’s clean. Our sailing-in-our-underwear days may be over for now, but I worry it’s going to take more than having to put on clothes to drive the feral self back underground. The feral self is pretty happy out here overall. It’s going to be a shock to put her away. So landing here on Vancouver Island and giving ourselves a little transition time works just fine for me. Sea otters and seals? Yes, please.

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Things have gone wonky out here and I know exactly when it happened. It began when someone, I can’t remember who, asked me our estimated time of arrival at Cape Flattery and I forgot to hedge my bets and gave a firm answer. I said we would be there Monday, July 27. I didn’t even put a qualifier in there like ‘god willing’ or ‘if the weather holds’ or ‘if all goes well`. Just a definite date. Man, you would think I knew better by now.

Neptune got on the horn with the north and west wind gods and took a meeting about this hubric opening I had just handed them. They have thrown some higher-than-we-like winds between us and Cape Flattery. And the worst day for the wind and seas will be, yes, that’s right, Monday. Really, it’s like they have thrown down a gauntlet and said Take That, Galapagos! They have chosen gusty winds up to 36 knots and seas to match. Um. That’s not how we roll if we can avoid it. To stay our rhumbline course to the cape at this point would take us right through the widest part of the low. Hmmm. No.

So we have changed course to the Brooks Peninsula area of Vancouver Island to take cover. Our final destination there is still up for grabs because we want to wait to see what conditions are before deciding. It’s 150 miles and we should make that by tomorrow morning, if it pleases the gods, God willing, if all goes well, and all the other qualifiers I can think of. I may need to make some kind of sacrifice to the gods of sea and wind. I better make it count. A coil of hair from my hairbrush will not cut this mustard. Maybe a token gift of some of our last good rum from Mexico. That might do.

We haven’t decided if we will anchor or not. We are in disagreement about that. So we will see. But I have alerted Canada Coast Guard that we may seek safe harbor from wind and I have a direct number to call if we do decide to land. The issue is that we don’t want to check into Canada because even though that would probably be easy, then we would have to go check back in to the US and our own country makes it harder. We don’t know if we would be required to quarantine. We can check in by phone but we would just like to not have to deal with that if possible because they can then require us to meet them somewhere to interview us in person, especially as our trip originated in Mexico and it’s just a pain in the ass.

Meanwhile we played ‘Dodge that ship’ for awhile in the foggy morning mist. I had blocked the memory of how much I dislike that game. Especially in fog. Oh didn’t you know? Our radar, never a great unit in the first place, gave up its slender hold on life somewhere in Mexico. So we don’t have radar, which I HATE. Really, that is not too strong a word to describe my feelings about sailing without radar off the coast of Vancouver Island. My hope and dream is that we get to the protection of the island and then anchor every night to avoid traveling in the dark among fishing vessels we cannot see. Two shots of rum will go overboard with a fervent prayer. Guess what is on our list of things to spend money on? We did get on the radio with a ship named Galapagos because we had to change course to avoid it. That was neato.

In other news I have been reflecting on all the reasons why I like ocean sailing and have determined that it’s because it’s the closest thing to an athlete I will ever be. I was the bane of the existence of all of physical education teachers throughout childhood. Really, kids know when they are wasting your time. In high school I ran track. Yeah, well the word ‘running’ here generally meant a bold sprint, followed by walking the rest of the way with my asthma inhaler in my hand. I was that kid. But by the gods I finished that season. I was no quitter. Well, In. Your. Face! PE teachers! Sailing is an Olympic sport. Ok, maybe not the kind of sailing we do where you have time to write blog posts, but the general public doesn’t know that! I can say I am a sailor and they will look at me with wide eyed wonder, never knowing that I spent the better part of yesterday on the settee stress eating Maui Onion Potato chips right out of the bag because I was worried about heavy weathe r and
didn’t have a plan yet. I also get the added benefit of being permitted to completely ignore the general fashion uniforms of other women my age. I do not have to do nails, hair, makeup, or wear expensive jewelry. It’s great! I don’t have to be on a big team, or suffer coaches’ drama and yelling, or get up for practices or wear ill-fitting uniforms like the gold striped onesies we had to wear in 8th grade gym. And it’s the perfect sport for the mildly social phobic like me. Yes, I have decided that sailing on oceans is my Mount Everest, even with fickle weather gods. Today we have a good plan and the chips are back in the cabinet.

Now where is that rum? I have a sacrifice to make.

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