Author Archives: Melissa

3 AM Coffee

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Our first passage is finally behind us. We left Neah Bay on September 1 in fog, and we arrived at Pt. Reyes National Seashore just outside the Golden Gate on September 6, also in fog. How far south do we need to go to get out of the blasted fog? As we dropped anchor we were what’s known as ‘dog tired’, which means you’ll do anything to get some sleep. We anchored in Drake’s Bay behind Pt. Reyes, took hot showers, and hit the sack. The Proscecco in the fridge would have to wait.

Pt. Reyes. We will revisit this place on the way out. I still want to go ashore.

Mike fell instantly asleep. I did not. Now, understand that I had been sleeping like a baby on benedryl during my off watch hours during the passage. Mike and I did a three hour rotation starting in the evening when the sun went down, which, by the way, happens sooner and sooner the further south you go, in case you didn’t remember that. We sure didn’t. When Mike popped his head up the companionway to change shifts I wasted no time and very little effort getting undressed and into the midship cabin berth. I would be out in less than 2 minutes, sleeping like I would never get rest again, which is pretty much how it feels to do 3 hour rotations for several nights in a row.

So don’t ask me why I couldn’t fall asleep once we were anchored and I could stretch out in my own big berth. I was too keyed up; like a toddler with no bedtime. Thinking back to one of my earliest memories, I remember being put to ride behind the back seat of my parent’s Volkswagon Bug. It was carpeted with nubby fabric that I would rub with my fingers. I remember that sensation, the snug warmness of riding back there, the motion of the car and being able to see the stars through the back window. I was an infant, or at least small enough to lay back there without climbing out. It was a good time in my life, that snug little place. (See how my mind is still wandering? And this after a good 12 hours of sleep, plus an additional 3 hour nap.)

This is how the midship cabin berth began to feel to me after about 2 days on little sleep. It’s small and snug, you can hear the engine (if it’s on) droning. If the engine is off, you can hear the water rushing over the hull. It feels safe and dry and warm. While it doesn’t have a lee cloth, half of it is behind a wall so you can get wedged back there with pillows and you won’t roll around. It doesn’t need a lee cloth. It’s like being swaddled. I decided that I would go back to that cabin and try sleeping. Bingo. I was instantly asleep. I awoke sometime in the night and decided I could continue on in the aft cabin with more room and now I’m back in my big girl bed. Some of us don’t do transitions well.

Our midship cabin. Very comfortable and snug.

I’m still not sure how to talk about much of this passage. It’s hard to break things down. The north Pacific is a mercurial bit of water. So every few hours was something different. First it’s perfect sailing, like you’ve always dreamed of. You set the sails and then relax. Then it’s up with the wind and waves. Then the wind shifts a bit. Then it dies down altogether. Honestly at first it’s like some dark magician is just waving his wand willy nilly. After a few days, it all sort of starts to make sense on a visceral level.  A passage like this is like taking all of the daysails you’ve ever done and stringing them together with night time sailing, which is an animal all its own. I have mixed feelings about night time on passages. Sometimes it’s beautiful. But then there is the sleep deprivation. On the third night, I could feel my mind going a little from lack of sleep.  I kept notes. I publish them here for your amusement.

3 AM Coffee

  1. Sailing in the dark in big waves that come up from behind you and try to grab the stern sucks big time. Is this fun? I submit to you that ‘fun’ is not the correct word.
  2. The phosphorescent animals just under the water are oddly comforting. I don’t know why.
  3. When God invented coffee they knew what they were doing. Probably they figured some human would be crazy enough to be in a cockpit in the pitch black in the middle of the damn night and their life might depend on caffeine.
  4. The Pacific Ocean is big and does not give a shit about me or my tiny boat.
  5. About every third wave is a monster. It’s best not to think about it. In fact, the only way to stay sane is to just not think about it. Just keep sailing.
  6. The 3AM-6AM shift is the worst. But also it’s the best because at about 5:30 it starts getting light and the monsters go back in their closet. (At this point I had not realized that the time of sunrise changes as you go south. Life is filled with little disappointments.)
  7. Everything is wet with condensation. The cockpit drips.
  8. When the wind and waves suddenly calm down, I get suspicious. What will they do now?
  9. Some of these phosphorescent animals are long and rectangular. Some are round. Maybe they are really Extra Terrestrials in little submarines going to their under water cities.
  10. The damn flag (American Flag on the back of the boat) is worthless. No one cares that we are Americans out here. All it does is add to the caucophony with its incessant flapping! Damn that hideous flapping!  But I am not about to go to the aft deck and try to get it down. No way in hell. Maybe I’ll get lucky and it will get shredded. With what’s going on in our country, that would be poetic.
  11. I never thought I would appreciate a safety harness. I do. No one is getting me out of this cockpit without a fight.
  12. I like how it looks when I shine my headlamp on the foresail.
  13. Our boat interior looks like it’s been trashed by marauding raccoons.
  14. Did I eat dinner? Hard to know. Am I clean? Bloody unlikely.
  15. If we get to San Fransisco, I’m going to put flowers in my hair. After I wash it. Does this give away my age?
  16. Wait. Do these glowing animals signal each other? Because it seems like they blink like undersea fireflies. I’d like to do the Google. Alas.
  17. I cannot believe it is September in the North Pacific and it’s not cold. By all rights I should be freezing. Wait. If you get hypothermia, do you know it?
  18. Things must be settling down. It’s been 20 minutes and I haven’t had to hold on to keep from flying across the cockpit. Why don’t they put seatbelts in these things?
  19. Whoops. Spoke too soon.
  20. 6:00 and it’s almost dawn. Maybe the dark was better. Everyone says ‘fair winds and following seas’, but the sea is following a little too close for me. It’s just that close to breaking on the stern. Bad sea. Bad.

    A watery sunrise.

There would have been more to this, but fortunately Mike came up to relieve me and I hit the sack.

Someone is bound to ask why we didn’t take extra crew on board with us. The answer is twofold: first, we didn’t know anyone who had ocean sailing experience and was available to go. We are not going to put just anyone on our boat with us. This is true for a wide variety of reasons. The wrong crew could make or break a passage. But really, we wanted to do it ourselves; to rely on only us. We can’t count on having crew all the time in order to do a passage. We have to know how far we can push ourselves as a couple.

I almost hit my breaking point when we sighted land at Pt. Arena, sailed close to it, but then the wind forced us to either turn on the engine and bash into wind and waves, or tack back out to sea. We chose to tack. We were both so tired. I knew this would extend our time at sea by another day. But it was the right thing to do. Bashing into wind and waves isn’t good for boats, or for people. I will probably do another post on the emotional side of this kind of passage. It’s something people do not talk much about but it really is an important part of the experience that people should prepare for.

When this fog lifts we’ll go under that Golden Gate Bridge. I’m not going to waste my photo ops on a foggy day. Meanwhile, we are anchored at Bolinas Bay. We left Drake Bay behind due to fog and no cell reception. Here, there is sun and I’m writing this post. More later after more sleeping.

S/V Galapagos out, for now.

 

Notes from the Sailor’s Log: July 27, 2015

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We are back at Friday Harbor  after spending two days with my sister, Amy, and her family at Stuart Island. It was a wonderful interlude having the opportunity to meet them up here on their boat and have nephew Reid, of the holding tank finale fame, be the first to stay in the V berth/guest room. It was a last hurrah with some family before we actually do this thing and take off.

We hiked to the light house for some beautiful views.

Now we are seriously gearing up for our first multi-night passage. Today we pulled up to the fuel dock to fuel/water/propane up. Tomorrow we’ll do some provisioning of fresh foods and produce for the passage. It’s looking like we’ll leave Friday Harbor and turn right into the Strait of Juan de Fuca on Wednesday or Thursday. Our tentative plan, once we sail out of the strait, is to get offshore about 100 miles, or wherever the good wind is. We’d like to be well off the coast, with its weather systems. We’ll be using Predict Wind to do our weather routing. Our first planned stop on this leg will be the San Fransisco area.

If you want to track our progress, look for the link at the end of the post to our page on Farkwar.Com. That is a location page updated by satellite about once a day, or however often we turn on the Iridium Go.  My personal FB page will also stay updated with with posts from our Iridium Go. Unfortunately I cannot post to the Little Cunning Plan page, only to my personal FB page.

Stuart Island

Mike is furiously finalizing the tweaks to the Hydrovane installation, which is made more difficult on Galapagos due to the compound curve on our stern. He’s using the Portland Pudgy as a work platform to give him access to the underneath part of the swim step. We continue to be impressed by what that little boat can do. Meanwhile I am getting the boat interior ready to go offshore and preparing meals in advance so I don’t have to think about food much while we are underway.

Having a dinghy to work in makes this job less fraught with the peril of dropping stuff in the water.

As I was clearing out and securing the books, which would certainly go flying across the salon if left as they were, I came across my personal logbook from our Vancouver Island trip in 2015 and found the pages I wrote after my first night watch on that trip. I thought it was worth putting this on the blog because we learned so much on that overnight sail. It wasn’t our first overnight, but it was the one I remember best. I’m just publishing this verbatim. It was written at 7:00 am at the beginning of my morning watch. I remember being so glad the sun was up and wanting to get my impressions of the watch down on paper as fast as possible. Although we had a 3/4 moon, it was very dark out there. We were sailing from Vancouver Island into the Strait of Juan de Fuca. Don’t analyze the directions of wind and waves too much. I have no idea if my sleeping brain was accurate with those.

“Just on watch from passing out for 4 hours. Stood watch last night from 10-2AM, but couldn’t bring myself to wake Mike, so stayed until 3:00am. Was falling asleep in the cockpit in spite of the lumpy conditions by 3:00. Wind from one quarter, steep seas with short interval from another. Originally had jib and jigger arrangement, then during his watch  before me Mike turned motor on to try to smooth the ride. That was slightly helpful. On my watch as we passed the corner of Vanouver Island, I brought in the jib, which was not helping much no matter which direction I wanted to go. We had already gone south as far as we dared, but even that wouldn’t have helped. At least it was a lovely night with a 3/4 moon. I could occasionally see the water.

I could see a cruise ship in the distance lit up like Broadway. I wondered if he saw us as his AIS was turned off, on ‘sleep’ mode. Then I noticed I could not tell if our running lights were on. Mike had said they were when we changed shifts, but I couldn’t tell and got anxious about it. I crawled forward to check. Nope, not on. Great. Crawled back, flipped some of the poorly labeled switches in the cockpit, crawled forward again, all the while thinking how my kayak was in the way and how my knees couldn’t do this for long. But standing up was not an option because the conditions were lumpy and Mike is never going to come on watch and find me gone from being stupid. Still no lights. Think. Think. Some angel of deliverance whispered ‘check breaker panel below’ and voila! Let there be running lights, praise Jesus and all his friends.

Stuart Island

The ship passed without incident and I basked in the Christmas tree glow of having solved that problem with only disembodied help. This also allowed me to fine tune the radar since I could now identify the cruise ship on radar and see how it would show up. Our radar is old and there is a lot of background ‘noise’ on it. But it works. I could barely keep my eyes off it. Scan radar, scan GPS, scan water (ha!), scan horizon (double HAHA!) keep scanning over and over and over. Darkness is profound.

The mizzen sail needed to be dropped but I wasn’t going to attempt this with the boat wallowing like a pig in slop. I tightened the lines to keep it from flapping, crawling on hands and knees, again.

I needed to furl the headsail a bit. Getting it furled was interesting. I did not want to go on deck because I would need to stand up on the side deck to haul it in, and would need both hands, leaving no hands for holding onto the boat. The line barely made it to the big winch forward of the main winches. I was able to pull enough line to get 1 wrap on the winch, but these are old style winches with no self-tailers. I still needed three hands to turn the winch, tail the line, and slowly release tension on the sail. It’s not as if there was no wind, and this is the pity. There was plenty of wind coming from the NE. We needed to go east into the strait and the swells were coming from the south east. Ugly. I turned us up a bit and let off enough tension on the sail to put a few turns on the winch. Then let off a little more, and a few more turns. It’s a big sail. I was able to do this while straddling the cockpit combing, which kept me stable. If we had a self-tailer on that winch, or a longer line, it would be pretty easy to pull in the genoa from the cockpit.

So we motored into the current as the tide had turned against us and I adapted course so at least most of the swells rumbled underneath us. Funny how even I, with my poorly working ears, can tell when the rumbling changes, even when it’s dark. Soon I was able to work out that when a low growly rumble passed under the boat, shiver me timbers, we would shortly be knocked the hell about until that one passed. About every 7-8 swells was a growler. No way to avoid them.

So I set course for Port San Juan and I let Mike sleep through his 2:00am time. By 3:00am I was passing out in the cockpit so very glad to be relieved and lesson learned. I immediately fell into a deep sleep to the drone of the engine and the slap of waves against the hull and awoke exactly at 7:00am, when I was due on deck. Somehow. Now, after writing this, I feel a bit alive, a big cup of stout coffee under my belt. You know what they say. The best part of waking up is Folger’s in your cup. So true.

Mike got us through the worst of the current against us on his watch and now we are picking up speed again, but wind has not filled in. I can see Port San Juan, but I think we’ll just keep going. ”     End. 

The new sail is a joy.

Lots of things are different for this coming passage including:
1. Jacklines and tethers with offshore PFDs. While on night watches we will be tethered in the cockpit, and on deck with tethers that are short enough to keep us on board. Our firm rule is no one goes forward on deck while on watch alone. We have to wake the other person.
2. A new and longer line for furling the headsail, making furling easy using a good winch from the cockpit.
3. New labels on the cockpit switches
4. Mike and I agree we will just do that hard thing and wake the other person at their assigned watch time, no matter how much that hurts.
5. We’ll be sailing at night with reefed (sails made smaller) sails, no matter if we think we’ll need them or not. It’s better to go more slowly and not have anyone go out on deck to reduce sail in the dark.
6. Our new headsail is a 125% instead of a 135% (so that much smaller). We’re going to like that better and it is much easier to handle.

As always, it’s a learning in progress. We will be very conservative, given that it’s our first multi-night passage. As always, your thoughts, ideas, and sharing what has worked on your passages is welcome.

S/V Galapagos, out.

We found this wee beastie on Stuart Island close to the light house. Just a bitty baby garter snake, but so fierce!

Sail On, Sailor

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Mike and I haven’t felt much like sailors lately. But all that is about to change. Recall that on July 24, on our way to Port Ludlow from Seattle, our headsail got damaged. We can finally write about how we solved that problem.

Ouch.

We knew our headsail was old. It had been repaired once before, but we thought it was in better condition. Shows how much we know! Some of the stitching on the sacrificial sunbrella cover had eroded, probably due to UV damage over the years. If previous owners sailed this boat like we do, then the headsail is the most used sail on the boat. It will have had the most exposure. Anyhoo, that sunbrella caught just right on a shroud and that’s all it took to destroy that part of the sail.

When we got to Port Ludlow, we borrowed Stephanie and David Gardiner’s truck (Beautiful S/V Cambria is for sale!) and took the sail up to Hasse and Company in Port Townsend. After assessing the damage, the assessment was that the sail, while old, could be made viable for awhile and might make it to Mexico if we took good care.  Although there was UV damage to the sacrificial cover and to the sail cloth along the leech, the interior of the sail was still good. But at the end of the day, they recommended a new sail either now or in the near future. They gave us three quotes: small meal deal, medium meal deal and the full meal deal, which meant they would make us a new sail.

Looking over the sail cloth.

I know everyone wants numbers for these things so here you go. Unfortunately in our dilligence to keep mess to a minimum aboard, I’ve thrown out the actual bid sheet. So a couple of these are round numbers, but it gives you the general idea. Your mileage, as usual, will vary with your boat:

Small fix – this included supporting the sail cloth along the leech in the torn area with wide, sticky backed sail tape, restitching the sunbrella, and restitching the tabbing at the head and the clew. This would make the sail useable, but with care. Pricetag: $375 (that’s accurate)

Medium fix – This included everything above, plus replacing the tabbing and attachment points at the head and the clew, restitch the entire sunbrella cover, plus probably a couple of other things we can’t remember.  Pricetag $845 ish

Full Meal Deal, which I had to rename the Big Gulp – new 135% headsail of 8oz dacron – $8,500  ish, plus the costs of measuring the boat in person, which would have been fun. We would have then had our measurements on record and the ability to order new sails from anywhere in the world. Yes, that’s eight thousand five hundred ish. Um. Ouch.

After consultation with Allison at Hasse and Co, we went with the small repair to get us going and make us a reasonable back up sail. She agreed that this was the best choice. Put as little money as possible into what we have, then look for another sail in much better condition. She gave us a list of used sail purveyors.

Scene from a sailmaker

I’d like to point out that Hasse and Company is a great place. For some unaccountable reason, the minute we walked in we breathed a sigh of relief and felt good about being there. Maybe it’s something about how very feminine the energy is there, and I mean that in the archetypal way. It’s a nurturing, safe place. We were welcomed warmly, and they worked hard to establish our need and fill our need on an emergency basis. Their work is first quality and their service is superior. This is a business that is secure in its own success. At no time did we feel pushed to spend more than we had to spend. They would have not held it against us if we had just taken our sail away with a nod of thanks. Neither did they ‘not have time’ to serve a cruising boat that wasn’t going to spend yachtie amounts of money. We appreciate so much their attitude of kindness and genuine interest in meeting our need, however small. They fixed our sail in record time and said ‘fair winds to you’. We were kind of sorry to leave. Their sails are beautiful, hand made by local people, and guaranteed. I’m not quibbling even a little bit about how much they cost. We just couldn’t afford it, simple as that.  That was a mighty discouraging day.

We couldn’t find a good used sail that would have been right, so we turned to fellow cruisers and FaceBook/Blogging friends Jamie and Behan Gifford of Sailing Totem. Jamie is a sailmaker and runs Zoom Sails with friend Phil Auger, having cruising sails made for fellow cruisers. They have working relationships with a couple of factories in other countries; factories they know that do work they trust.  We had ordered our stack pack from them and had been pleased with the service and the quality. So we gave Jamie a chance to bid for a new sail, still feeling a bit discouraged, I might add. This sail snafu had just cost us our circumnavigation of Vancouver Island. I guess that’s the way the wind blows.

We were able to get a bid for the new sail within 48 hours, which is amazing considering that Phil was traveling between continents at the time. We ordered a new sail from Zoom Sails, opting for premium quality dacron with a 2-ply leech. The surface area for this sail is 47.5 square meters. The cost includes sunbrella cover sewn with Tenara thread, foam luff strips, radial patches, triple stitched seams, Dyneema leech and foot cords, three sets telltails, and a nice sail bag.   Total cost, with shipping: $3510. There was another fabric option which added more UV protection for the sail, but we don’t need 20 years from a sail. We need maybe 5 years. That option would have been about 700$  more. And, in more good news, we could get the sail in about 3 weeks, rather than the 5 it would generally take. Sold!

We were visited by an entire flock of these swallows while anchored at Cabbage Island.

If you’d like more information about Zoom Sails’ service, here’s a good video from the Follow The Boat people who had their entire set of sails made by Zoom. They were fortunate enough to have Phil come to the boat and take personal measurements. The video includes footage from one of the factories with which they work. If you liked that one, here’s another one where Phil measures their boat.

To order from Jamie and Phil, we needed to pay via wire transfer because credit cards cost money to businesses so they don’t take them. We had a small glitch in the payment that we’ll share in case you ever need to avoid this. When Mike ordered the wire transfer from the bank, he put ‘sail for Galapagos’ in the subject line. This was an unfortunate and unpredictable error. It triggered an investigation into whether the money was being sent to an organization on the government’s ‘do not send money to’ list. Apparently there is a shady organization with the word ‘Galapagos’ in its name. At first, we couldn’t figure out why the money had left our account, but Phil had not received it. Then Mike got a terse email from the bank’s investigations department commanding he answer a number of questions. Failure to respond would mean we would lose our money. We’re very glad we were in an area where Mike could check email regularly!

Not leaving anything to chance, Mike replied immediately, then followed up with a phone call. The investigator released the hold right away, but it still took several more days for Phil to receive it. Everyone breathes easier once these things go through, but sheesh! Small businesses need to be paid right away! Next time we order from these guys, we’ll have to say something like ‘new sail for our sailboat’ and not use any proper nouns.

Detail

Our new sail was delivered to Friday Harbor on Wednesday, and we picked it up Thursday, thanks to Steven K. Roberts and his handy truck!  (and by the way,Steve has a main sail in good condition for sale for a very reasonable price if you might be interested. Contact Steve for details. It’s from a 44 ft sailboat. ) The new sail is beautiful! We’re very pleased and seriously ready to put it to the test!

We’re still waiting for some mail to make it to Friday Harbor, but we’ll be going up to Reid Harbor on Stuart Island this weekend to get some time with my sister’s family on their boat. After that, it’s Neah Bay and the big left turn. Spinning and spitting three times in my usual deference to the sea gods on this plan.

S/V Galapagos, out.