Author Archives: Melissa

Vacation 2013: Successful Slothing with Plenty of Archetypes

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After 3 weeks on the boat with no one else present to intervene, the verdict is in: Mike and I did not kill each other in our sleep. This is no small thing because it means we could cruise successfully and our relationship would survive. To put this in perspective consider this: we’ve been married 31 years, we’re both seriously “oldest children”, and are pretty much accustomed to doing our own things. We both need our space and our privacy. We are both at the proverbial ‘top’ of our fields and when at work, we are the ‘go to’ people. Not to mention that I’ve worked for myself for the last 13 years. (Translation: Boss me around at your peril.)  So the fact that we can live on a boat for even 3 weeks without killing each other quietly and surreptitiously is significant and encouraging.

Why, yes, those are Tate’s famous Margaritas in those jelly jars. Mike was hoping if he medicated me before the game he might win.

Plus, we had a ton of fun and played Scrabble at least once. I read a total of 10 books, including Love, With a Chance of Drowning by Torre DeRoche. Great book! Mike read Moby Dick, which is a tome so huge it took him the entire vacation. Our days developed their own rhythm: Mike gets up and makes coffee. Melissa gets up and joins him. One of them makes breakfast.  Then there is reading and napping, then lunch. Then more reading and possibly a paddle or row to leisurely explore a beach. Then more reading and napping. Dinner in the cockpit or in the cabin while watching a DVD. Beautiful sunsets. Bed at sundown, 5 minutes of reading, then deep sleeping.

Now I have to go back on my diet. Damn and damn, again. It was totally worth it.

Visibility about 1/4 mile, give or take. Winds on the nose at 25 knots, but higher winds ahead of us. This might be exciting, but it’s not relaxing. We turned around and were happy to do it. Photos just don’t do the sea state justice.

My last post announced that our plans took a rapid change when Mother Nature intervened in our attempt to go to Barkley Sound. It seemed the better part of wisdom to abandon that plan rather than to go willingly and knowingly into gale force winds and fog. Moonrise would surely take the beating well, but that wasn’t our idea of a restful vacation. So we turned around and went back to the Gulf Islands. Since we had more time than usual, we got to go further north than we have before and explore places new to us. What a great thing to find a new anchorage, spend a couple of days, and then move on at our leisure! Being on a boat is so easy when the weather is fine. We really needed this time of deep sloth behavior.

This wooden boat is in the boat yard at Port Townsend. Notice the instructive sign.

Now that we are back, the push is on to continue paring down our ‘stuff’ and prepare the house for either sale or rent. While away, I was sorely tempted to just sell the place and be done with it. If we can get Moonrise sold to a new owner and find a boat we can live on, then we will feel like we’ve really moved forward with our plan and the decision about the house will be easier. Being away for three weeks helped us clarify that our goals remain constant. This is a good thing, because being in the house we can get so involved with the day to day maintenance of the place that our world becomes quite small and dense, like a black hole from which there is no escape.  Being on the boat allows us a vision of a simpler way of living that would be less chronically stressful, even though it comes with its own kinds of problems.

Last year I posted about some of the Pacific Northwest Archetypes we experienced on one of our weekend trips. This trip there are extensive lists of archetypes, which makes a handy way of organizing all the data we have. We both look forward to catching up on the blogging, one part of our everyday life is always a pleasure. We have stories, and we will be telling them.

Archetype of Water and Stone, Kuper Island, B.C.

 

 

I Think We All Know Who’s In Charge Here. And It’s Not Us.

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I awoke as my body slammed back down onto the v berth mattress. Funny. I don’t remember levitating in my dream. Wham! There it went again. I was airborne without ever learning how to fly. Something appeared to be amiss. Looking through the port I could see only white. Sigh. This was not a good sign. I had gone below to have a rest after a morning of heading upwind, bound for Port San Juan.  We hoped to make it there and anchor for the night before the final stretch to Barkley Sound. There is no safe anchorage between Port San Juan and Barkely, so you have to be able to do that in one stretch. The last trip we made to this area, that worked great. This time, we knew we would have exactly one chance to make it because gale force winds were expected off the coast and we wanted to get into the sheltered area before they hit. It was sunny and mild with reasonable winds when I went below. But that was then. And this is now.

Rightfully alarmed at the booming sounds coming from the forward part of the boat, I poked my head out of the cabin and looked out. I saw only white. White sky, and white water. Everywhere. The booming was the sound of our hull crashing down onto the sea about every third wave. We were getting nowhere fast.

I look at Mike, who is steering, grim faced. It’s a look I’ve learned to know and it doesn’t bode well. He is at the wheel, having put Stella on standby for this part of the trip.  ‘What gives?’, I ask, as though I didn’t know. “We’re 14 miles from Port San Juan. It’s 2:00 pm. The wind is picking up and is expected to get stronger and we are against the tide. We are making about 2.8 knots. Sooke Harbor is 18 miles behind us, back toward Victoria. We have a choice to make.”

I look at the foaming, angry sea, the white fog,  the gps.  Really? Seems pretty clear to me. “Really?”, I reply very calmly. “Seems pretty clear to me. Turn this boat around. We have to go back. This is f***ing ridculous.”

And that’s how we ended up turning around and running from weather two days in a row. From 2.8 knots over ground to 8.5 knots over ground in less that 30 seconds. Call us crazy, but we are not interested in deliberately going into gale force winds in a Cal 34. It’s not that she wouldn’t take it, it’s just that we don’t have to. This is another one of those times that just irk me beyond the pale. If we didn’t have to worry about how long it took us to get there, we could have stayed securely in Victoria for a week and waited out the gales, then made for Barkley Sound. But that would have taken a third of our vacation.

So we pulled the plug on that plan and are sitting pretty back in the Gulf Islands and are happy to be here. We’re nothing if not flexible when it comes to having fun. This brief post is from Sidney Harbor, where we stopped for much needed showers and to quickly check for messages from our kids. Then we’re going exploring to places we’ve not seen before. We dream of spending summers on our boat in this incredible cruising area.

So just a brief post to say plans have changed. That Mother Nature. She’s such a control freak.

 

Sorry for no photos on this post, but cafe wifi takes pretty long for downloading.

All….Most….There….

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Ah, what a weekend! Today was sunny and very warm for us, 82 degrees.  It was one of those days that came together just like clockwork. After Mike’s hard work all week, he really needed a break and this was our only opportunity to get one before we leave for the long vacation. How is it that we need a break from preparing for our vacation? That just sounds weird, and yet it’s true.

Thursday I met Mike down at Moonrise to help him install the final piece of the autopilot. He drilled holes, I passed wires and retrieved tools, and before we knew it, he had completed the job. Next was the commissioning and sea trial of the unit.

Mich

Mike, puddling around. Isn’t she cute?

At the same time that Mike was working on the autopilot, I had been thinking about the dinghy situation. Several years ago Mike built our dinghy, Puddler, and she has been a great little boat. She has ridden the waves behind Moonrise on every trip. We like her. But she is, in a word, heavy. She was Mike’s first pass at building a plywood boat and he used,    um, plenty of fiberglass. You know how they say those fiberglass boats of the ’70s were ‘overbuilt’. Enough said.

Mike really wanted a tender that could be easily brought up on deck during rough passages and Puddler does not fit that bill. In addition, she needs some minor repairs that may turn into major repairs if we take her through rough water. And we just don’t have time to get to those right now.  Barkley Sound isn’t exactly the end of the earth, but it’s wild enough that one wants a dinghy that is easy to maneuver and stow.

No, it was time to try something else so I turned to Craigslist. I had been looking every day this week and had found a few possibilities, but they were not anywhere close to home and I really wanted to find one that could be outfitted with a sail. So when I pulled up Craigslist last night and saw that the very first dinghy listed was an 8 foot Walker Bay with a set of really nice, adjustable oars with good looking stainless steel oarlocks, my heart started beating faster. The price was about 1/3 what that set would cost new, and it was in good condition. There is a place for a mast, a centerboard, and a rudder. The clincher was that it was sitting on the dock by the guy’s boat in Gig Harbor, right across the water from us. I emailed him. Could we sail across this morning and take a look? We could!

Hey, Moonrise! What's that up on deck? The dinghy can actually lay flat when we pull it forward a bit.

Hey, Moonrise! What’s that up on deck? The dinghy can actually lay flat when we pull it forward a bit.

So we got off the dock around 9:00 this morning and sailed over to Gig Harbor, bought the dinghy and oars, and then tied up at the dock at The Tides tavern for lunch, right behind a really cool Coast Guard boat. The Tides has great dockside service this time of year and is a very popular spot for local boaters. It’s so popular that you might not be able to leave when you want to if people raft up to you, but the show is free and the weather is fine, so who cares? I love those kind of days.

These Coast Guard boats are pretty cool, when their engines start. Unfortunately, this one didn't.

These Coast Guard boats are pretty cool, when their engines start. Unfortunately, this one didn’t. We were sorry for the Coasties. 

After lunch we spent time commissioning our newest crew member, Stella. She is going to be an awesome addition to the boat. We don’t know how we lived this long without her! For her first test, she took us directly to our favorite anchorage off Vashon Island where we dropped the hook for a few hours.  With this heat, and all the activity, we were both in need of a nap.

Mike with our new crew member, Stella. We love her already.

Mike with our new crew member, Stella. We love her already. 

The boat is pretty much ready to go now except for fuel and water. I still have some grocery shopping to do and we need to pack clothing and take my kayak down to the marina. But the end of preparations is in sight.  Four days and counting!