Author Archives: Melissa

Breaking the Seal

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Yesterday Michael and I got off the boat for the first time since July 2.  You would think that after that long, with our legs atrophied to those not unlike stick figures, we’d be chomping at the bit.  You’d think we be practically swimming for shore, defying the death that would surely be ours should our bodies submerge for even a moment into this frigid, sepulchral water. And you would be wrong.

Flat calm. Cold.

For reasons even we have yet to define, we have not been anxious to get off the boat. Sure, we know we have to. Eventually. Both of us eye the land with something akin to, while not exactly loathing, a feeling of mixed hostility and fear overlaid with resignation. We have lived in our little bubble aboard Galapagos for too long, I think. Even in Hawaii, we stayed aboard most of the time, and the virus was only one of the reasons why. In fact, it was mostly this other, unnamed feeling of resistance to being on land that kept us hunkered down in our small, contained world. Mentally, I wondered what was to become of us when thrown into the cold world of literally everything except our boat and other cruisers.

Yachtie.

One of the books I read in preparation for cruising was Windy Hinman’s Tightwads On the Loose, her story about their 7 year Pacific cruise.  Of course I enjoyed the entire book, but the chapter that I remember made the biggest impression on me is her chapter on how hard it was to come back. Maybe it was more than one chapter.  I haven’t revisited the book, since I gave my copy to another hopeful cruiser long ago, but I remember her saying she was struck with how depressed she felt, how hard the re-entry to average American life was for her. For some reason, that chapter has stuck with me for these years and now I keep coming back to it in my mind and wish I had her book in front of me to reference. I think I’ll get the Kindle version and re-read it.

So today we will up anchor when the tide current slows coming into this protected Sequim Bay, with its hurry of boats coming and going,  and go to Port Townsend. Our Andrew and Jill are coming to say hey tomorrow, and my mom will come on Tuesday, so we will be in Port Townsend for a few days.  Maybe seeing our family in the flesh will balance the scales a little bit for us.

I know that as we transition into a new kind of life here, probably a mixture of boat and land life, we will get accustomed to being here again. Maybe that’s something we worry about, this ‘getting accustomed’ thingy. We have both been joking about how this coastal cruising we are now doing where anchorages are plenty and the water if flat,  is bound to make us ‘soft’.  We will pull up to a dock and get fuel pumped directly into our tank, no filtering required, rather than walk to the Pemex station with a cart full of garrafones to hurk back to the dinghy, then the boat, then laboriously filter into our tank. We will fill up with water from the tap when we get fuel, because we know that so far, the water is good here, so we really won’t need the water maker as much. We will eventually have our car back. Even the anchorages are easy. We haven’t had a rolly anchorage since Hawaii. This kind of living can over time erode the self-sufficient toughness we have grown to live with and that has made life interesting. Groceries will probably always be within reach.  Our biggest challenge will be staying warm and keeping our fingers and toes out of the water. We still forget that we can’t just jump in and swim to the shore.

Hurry up and take the photo, I can’t hold this fish much longer! One of several lovely Albacore tunas we caught. Wow we will miss that.

We have so much to say about our passages and putting all of that down in a coherent and organized way is a challenge. I’m thinking a good way is to simply choose some entries from my passage journal, which I kept religiously, almost compulsively. Here is my note from July 6, 2020.

“Day 4 of passage home. 120 miles made good yesterday. Position 27 46N 158 55W

Having been given the choice by Rick Shema, The Weather Guy, we have opted to keep a course a bit to the west in order to sail up and around the Pacific High. This will add 24 hours or 100 miles to the trip but will avoid motoring for 2 days.  Seems like a fair trade. I would like to be able to sail the entire trip. We feel the weather transitioning with the number of squalls we are seeing. Mostly they disturb the wind for a bit, dump a little rain, and then we pick up where we left off.  Last night I awoke to sails flapping over a glassy swell, something new on this trip.  It didn’t last long, but these episodes do decrease our miles traveled for the day.  The clouds are big and fluffy and sometimes dark.

Yesterday we fished all day but no luck with the tuna plug.  Today Mike says he will drag the squid lure.  Mixed feelings about fishing as the boat motion is challenging.

Everything feels so damp below from salt. I just want to throw the settee cushions away and start over.  They never feel dry.  My bunk feels dry, thank goodness.  But there is salt everywhere. It will take a week to clean this boat.

Today I had 2 naps, in spite of getting rest last night.  The wind is steady and more cloud cover. Air is cooler at night, especially.  We could use a day of softer winds but we appreciate making the miles for now. ”

 

S/V Galapagos out, somewhere in the Puget Sound area.

 

 

Gone Feral

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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.

Sent from Iridium Mail & Web.

Beach Ninjas and Bliss

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We should probably hang up our snorkel gear and rest on our laurels, leaving Hawaii on a high note. Either that or we need to plan a trip to the South Pacific next. Last Sunday can be described by one word: Blissful. But before we go there, here’s a video of this Na Pali coastline. [embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ycuieIz9ing[/embedyt]

Needing adventure, we sailed out to anchor off the Forbidden Island of Ni’ ihau, about 30 or so miles from Hanalei, staging ourselves to get to the little volcanic island next door, Lehua, just after sunrise the following day. Lehua is one of those destinations that the tour boats generally populate, ensuring you share the experience with 100 of your closest friends. But with Covid 19 the tours are not operating. We hoped to pick up one of the underwater moorings that they use and spend the one calm and sunny day this week snorkeling water that was said to be the highest visability around. In fact, our friends told us not to worry about having trouble finding the underwater mooring. Just jump in the water and look around, they said. You will see it no matter how far away you are. Whoa.

Arial view of Lehua, thanks to Wikipedia.

We actually had a great sail over to the small islands. The water was rough, but our standards are low. Once across the channel we set out to explore the coast of Lehua and see if we could locate the underwater moorings for the following day. We had gps positions that were given to us by locals. The island wasn’t ready for us, however, as the winds and waves were too stout for comfortable exploring so close to the rocks and in water relatively shallow. Instead we motored up to see the north side, thinking we would go see the crater of the volcano. But were quickly put in our place by taking green water well over the bow. Oopsy. A few very tall waves and an open forward hatch (darn it!) had us deciding to turn tail and run down to Ni’ihau and get anchored for the evening, which we did with all speed.

Settled in the rolly anchorage for the night I grabbed the binoculars and searched the deserted sandy beach. Now, this island is owned by a private family and is inhabited only by a small town of native Hawaiians. No one is allowed to land on the island without permission and, in spite of the fact that no one is legally supposed to ‘own’ land that is covered at any time by water (such as in the tidal zone of a beach), the people of the island are said to consider all parts of the island to be theirs and to be generally disinterested in hearing about legal definitions of beach ownership. The stories and myths surrounding this place are thick and varied. We had not planned to go ashore. But…

I spied with my binoculars many round things that had been washed ashore. They were round, as in spherical, like a ball. There are references to people finding Japanese fishing floats on just the beach we were anchored near. One person wrote that they found upwards of 60 floats at one time. Were those the famed Japanese fishing floats I was seeing with my spy glasses? Were they the glass ones that are highly collectible and would look great with little twinkly lights in them? What a souvenir that would be of our time in Hawaii!

I took a photo with my long lens and put it on my computer so we could see them better. They were definitely balls of something, definitely the right size, definitely strewn all over the tidal zone of the beach. It might be worth risking a reconnoiter considering we were on the unpopulated side of the island with no one in sight for miles. Even if we were seen, we would be gone quickly and, after all, there were no stories of people getting murdered over putting a foot on the Forbidden Island. Mosty just stories of people being yelled at. We would wait until sunrise, when all beach ninjas strike. And then, we would go, stealthily, in our small and unassuming dinghy with the 2.5 horse engine. No one would notice us at all.

After a night of utterly zero sleep due to insane rolling around in the swell, we arose as the sun was just barely over the horizon, lighting the sky just enough for us to see. Hopefully all the villagers were still asleep in their beds on the far side of the island. I grabbed one of our drybags in case we needed to carry a lot of pirated booty, and we set off for the shore. We were greeted by surf that was just, well, in a word: No. No way could we risk landing the dinghy in crashing surf like that, far away from people who would welcome us should we become swamped trying to land, or, worse, injured. Sometimes it sucks to be old enough to be careful.

Still, undefeated, we tossed around the idea of one of us swimming ashore and checking things out. I was going to go over the side in an instant and body surf in. No problema. But in the end for some reason Mike decided he would go. I think he had visions of some watery demon grabbing me and pulling me under or something. (Watery demons would never, ever touch him, you know.) But whatever, over the side he went with his drybag partially inflated and bobbing in his wake. It was only about 10 feet deep, but the waves were considerable and crashing.

Why are we disobedient children? I mean, we do wear a mask. Maybe it’s because that protects others. This little pushing of the boundaries was worth it.

I dinghied back and forth along the waves watching his head in the surf and seeing him stand up, his feet on forbidden territory. I felt glad for him. I mean, he had so wanted to land on San Benedicto, where it is also forbidden to land. But we didn’t. Because we do want to live to tell these tales and that island would have taken as human sacrifice anyone who dared try to approach its beach.

Soon he was scurrying up to the balls and picking them up. Alas, he also was putting them down. He was on shore for all of 5 minutes. I met him with the dinghy past the break and he was over the side in an instant. The balls were floats of some kind, perhaps Japanese, but they were plastic. Just so much detritous on the shore. I can’t say I was surprised. Plastic is everywhere and forever. It was too bad, but it was a fun way to start the day. Maybe the villagers will use them for something.

We quickly anchored up and tootled over to Lehua, easily finding our mooring about 6 feet under the water. That was a first for us; having Michael dive down to grab the mooring and run a line through it, then swim over to hand the line up to me to cleat off. The rumors about this place were right: the water is remarkably clear with visability we have never seen before. Certainly Mexico never had water like this. Our mooring was in about 20 feet of water but it seemed like only 5. It took us no time to get our gear on and get to snorkeling around.[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=keSwiM3Htso[/embedyt]

The snorkel grounds at that part of the island are basically over a big, flat shelf covered with rocks and coral. The shelf ends abruptly, like the edge of a table, and when you swim off the edge, you are looking into a brilliant blue abyss. It’s beautiful, and unsettling at first. Ok, I admit we had hoped we would spot some larger fish, even a shark or two, from our safe position at the edge of the ledge, but we never saw anything but blue water and hundreds of sparkly fish.[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oAqJ7Z8gch8[/embedyt]

Some of our more colorful friends.

We had all the usual colorful and curious little reef fish, along with a couple of white tipped reef sharks that cruised passed. But the real winners were the Monk Seals. We were literally the only people there and I cannot help but think that made them friendlier and more curious. One seal swam with us for quite a long time, swimming next to us to get back to our boat, even, and then hanging out by the boat. Another one came up in front of me and I almost bumped into it as it was catching a breath on the surface. I think they look a bit like Manatees in the water and they make the sweetest low grunting sound.[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=58JOZkqKsXY[/embedyt]

Famous Keyhole arch on one of the arms of Lehua. Incredible. You’ll see photos on line of a Catamaran inside this arch.

We snorkeled three areas that day. For sheer breathtaking underwater structure, the keyhole arch near the northern shore of the island is the ultimate. We had dinghied into the arch, hoping to anchor the dinghy inside and swim around. It looked to be about 20 feet in the middle, with rocky walls, but it looked like there were ledges where an anchor could be deployed. I cast the dinghy anchor over the side to see if it would touch bottom. Nope, no slack in the line. We tried another spot. Nope, no slack. Then another with the same result. We couldn’t figure out a good place to anchor so I masked up and went over the side. I would have started laughing had I not been so overwhelmed by the sight of the sea floor about 100 feet below me, sheer rock walls on either side. The idea that our little anchor would ever work here… pretty funny. We found a place to tie the line onto the lava rock wall and Mike came in after me. It was so hard to leave, the place was like an underwater cathedral, complete with baby moray eels tucked into the lava rock and a resident Monk Seal because that completes the whole cathedral metaphor.

Tiny baby moray eels, all fierce and protective of their space.

A white tipped reef shark, swimming while asleep.

Yesterday morning we did a farewell snorkel, but the wind was already filling in from the southeast and the current was too strong to be relaxing. Wind, waves, and current conspire to ruin a good snorkel. We left on a high note, convinced we would never have that great a day: the whole island to ourselves, the clearest water we have ever seen, and friendly and curious Monk Seals. Utter bliss.

Now we are, pretty sadly I can tell you, gearing up for the passage home. We aren’t really psychologically ready this time. We feel like Hawaii has just now started to be good to us, like we have finally gotten our groove here. However, leave we must if we want to make it to the Pacific Northwest before August, better known as ‘Foggust’ up there. I remember fog. And not fondly, either. So the next few days will be getting the boat in order, finding a way to finish provisioning for the next round, and then saying farewell to Hawaii.

It may be that we will need to sail this way again.

We were moored next to a mixed colony of Red Footed Boobies (another checked box on the Boobie Bingo Card!), egrets, and tropic birds. The boobies and egrets had chicks. These are boobies. Their feet are so red!

 

So a couple more things: first apologies for the bad quality of the photos. I ruined my good underwater camera so I’m using a cheap one for now, but also have poor internet so the photos have to be EXTRA poor quality to get them onto the blog. Ugh. Tech issues.

Also we had a screaming good day swimming with turtles. Here’s some video. All this video is why I am almost out of high speed internet. Enjoy.

[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YFcwPqZ9H8[/embedyt]

For more videos of the highest professional quality you can go visit my channel on Youtube and poke around a bit. Some of them are pretty rolly due to swell and other natural things, like shaky hands due to excitement. So be prepared to be amazed. Here’s the link.