Autumn 2007
Thought of the month: "Cruising is NOT a holiday, it is a lifestyle"
After completing our circumnavigation of Vancouver Island, we moored GRACE in Port Townsend at the Eastern end of the Strait of Juan de Fuca. We kept Grace in PT while we attended to some of the refinements that our shakedown around Vancouver Island had shown us were important: a drip less stuffing box; lip seal on the rudder stock; new preventers; trysail halyard, etc. After saying goodbye to family in Connecticut and Massachusetts, we began the next leg of our voyage – heading offshore and down to California.
After completing our circumnavigation of Vancouver Island, we moored GRACE in Port Townsend at the Eastern end of the Strait of Juan de Fuca. We kept Grace in PT while we attended to some of the refinements that our shakedown around Vancouver Island had shown us were important: a drip less stuffing box; lip seal on the rudder stock; new preventers; trysail halyard, etc. After saying goodbye to family in Connecticut and Massachusetts, we began the next leg of our voyage – heading offshore and down to California.
Our first stop was Neah Bay – just at the NW corner of Washington, where the Strait of Juan de Fuca meets the Pacific Ocean. Waking up our first morning in Neah Bay was like waking up 
inside a jar of creamed herring. It was so murky and foggy we couldn’t see the bow of the boat. And it smelled of fish. Lots and lots of dead fish. There was probably a fish packing plant there. People were nice, but lousy weather.
Weather: Despite forecasts of a building high with northerly winds ranging from 15 to 30 kts over 5 days, instead we got winds starting at 15kts and hitting 30 the first night out and getting higher from there – with gusts of 54knts and following seas of 20 feet. Winds dropped during the day to a moderate gale (35knots) and then would build as night approached. By 10 or 11 at night it was blowing a strong gale with winds typically in the high 30’s and low 40’s and stronger gusts. We also got very confused seas with big breaking seas from the north and medium to large seas coming out of the west. This combination of wind and seas made it very hard for the self steering gear to work properly. The boat broached two or three times – always in the wee hours of the morning. We ended up taking a route well out to sea – about 165 nautical miles offshore. At times the waves were no more than 4 seconds apart – a very short period.
This combination of waves from two directions, short periods and high winds made steering Grace a challenge. It seemed to last for days. Actually, it was 5 days from when we left Neah Bay to when we were able to get to Bodega Bay, just north of San Francisco. No shower has ever felt as sweet as the one we took at the public dock in Bodega Bay. After a voyage like this one, you never, EVER take a full night’s sleep for granted again.
From there we headed offshore and westward way into the Pacific Ocean. Here are some thoughts along the way:
Getting seasick: At first you just feel a bit off. Not as cheerful as usual. Then you start to feel as if you are being strangled. Too hot. You try to take some clothes off, then you start to freeze. Neither of us have never actually thrown up at sea before. It took a long time before that started to happen. Feeling the bile rise and fall with each wave or gust of wind, or both. When conditions got really bad, you feel as if the contents of your stomach (even if it is empty), your bladder (which never seems to be empty) and your uterus (which you hope to hell is empty)
start to dance in opposing directions to the wind and waves and motion of the boat. You lie on the cabin sole of the sailboat rolling from side to side, grabbing on to whatever you can hold. You feel as if you are lying on a trampoline with a crowd of people jumping on it at different times and in different rhythms. Then you start to give up. You don’t care if you live or die. You don’t care the boat sinks or sails. Time stops too. Your brain is as empty as you know your stomach is. Then you forget to eat or drink anything. The thought of food is impossible, and you just forget about the water. Dehydration headaches compound your desire to roll on the floor or just die. This can last for days if you are trying to sail south in a 3-day gale with breaking seas of 15 – 20 feet. Nighttime is the worst. You can’t see ahead or behind the boat, other than the huge wave you just experienced, or the one that is right over your shoulder laughing at you because it knows it is about to break and soak you to the skin, despite your “offshore” raingear.
Lines. Ropes. Strings(Whatever you want to call them…): These are what drive a sailboat. For the fun of it, I just counted how many different “ropes” there were -- just in the cockpit of Grace. There were 15! How on earth Geoff keeps them all apart is beyond me. I seem to know them only by color: green is the spinnaker halyard, often used for other things (like hauling the
dinghy out of the water). Red is for the first reef of the mainsail, blue for the second reef. The white lines with large blue flecks and small red flecks are the jib sheets. The white line with small blue flecks is the furling line. The smaller white line with slightly larger red flecks and smaller blue flecks, is for the staysail.
The smaller white line with smaller flecks is to drive the self steering gear. Then there are all the lines used as preventers, or lash downs or tie downs. I haven’t even begun to count the number of ropes attached to or near the mast itself….
inside a jar of creamed herring. It was so murky and foggy we couldn’t see the bow of the boat. And it smelled of fish. Lots and lots of dead fish. There was probably a fish packing plant there. People were nice, but lousy weather.Weather: Despite forecasts of a building high with northerly winds ranging from 15 to 30 kts over 5 days, instead we got winds starting at 15kts and hitting 30 the first night out and getting higher from there – with gusts of 54knts and following seas of 20 feet. Winds dropped during the day to a moderate gale (35knots) and then would build as night approached. By 10 or 11 at night it was blowing a strong gale with winds typically in the high 30’s and low 40’s and stronger gusts. We also got very confused seas with big breaking seas from the north and medium to large seas coming out of the west. This combination of wind and seas made it very hard for the self steering gear to work properly. The boat broached two or three times – always in the wee hours of the morning. We ended up taking a route well out to sea – about 165 nautical miles offshore. At times the waves were no more than 4 seconds apart – a very short period.
This combination of waves from two directions, short periods and high winds made steering Grace a challenge. It seemed to last for days. Actually, it was 5 days from when we left Neah Bay to when we were able to get to Bodega Bay, just north of San Francisco. No shower has ever felt as sweet as the one we took at the public dock in Bodega Bay. After a voyage like this one, you never, EVER take a full night’s sleep for granted again.From there we headed offshore and westward way into the Pacific Ocean. Here are some thoughts along the way:
Getting seasick: At first you just feel a bit off. Not as cheerful as usual. Then you start to feel as if you are being strangled. Too hot. You try to take some clothes off, then you start to freeze. Neither of us have never actually thrown up at sea before. It took a long time before that started to happen. Feeling the bile rise and fall with each wave or gust of wind, or both. When conditions got really bad, you feel as if the contents of your stomach (even if it is empty), your bladder (which never seems to be empty) and your uterus (which you hope to hell is empty)
start to dance in opposing directions to the wind and waves and motion of the boat. You lie on the cabin sole of the sailboat rolling from side to side, grabbing on to whatever you can hold. You feel as if you are lying on a trampoline with a crowd of people jumping on it at different times and in different rhythms. Then you start to give up. You don’t care if you live or die. You don’t care the boat sinks or sails. Time stops too. Your brain is as empty as you know your stomach is. Then you forget to eat or drink anything. The thought of food is impossible, and you just forget about the water. Dehydration headaches compound your desire to roll on the floor or just die. This can last for days if you are trying to sail south in a 3-day gale with breaking seas of 15 – 20 feet. Nighttime is the worst. You can’t see ahead or behind the boat, other than the huge wave you just experienced, or the one that is right over your shoulder laughing at you because it knows it is about to break and soak you to the skin, despite your “offshore” raingear.Lines. Ropes. Strings(Whatever you want to call them…): These are what drive a sailboat. For the fun of it, I just counted how many different “ropes” there were -- just in the cockpit of Grace. There were 15! How on earth Geoff keeps them all apart is beyond me. I seem to know them only by color: green is the spinnaker halyard, often used for other things (like hauling the
dinghy out of the water). Red is for the first reef of the mainsail, blue for the second reef. The white lines with large blue flecks and small red flecks are the jib sheets. The white line with small blue flecks is the furling line. The smaller white line with slightly larger red flecks and smaller blue flecks, is for the staysail.
The smaller white line with smaller flecks is to drive the self steering gear. Then there are all the lines used as preventers, or lash downs or tie downs. I haven’t even begun to count the number of ropes attached to or near the mast itself….The Ocean: It goes on forever and forever. It sends up huge angry waves just for the fun of it. It likes to tease. It is not necessarily blue. It certainly was NOT Pacific! It was gray much of the trip down. Even out 165 miles from shore, it was never the “indigo” blue that we hear other blue water sailors talk about. The color only started to lighten as we neared Catalina Island in Southern California.
Email: The sense of being disconnected is overwhelming at sea. Not to hear from family/friends via email is literally heartbreaking. You start to feel completely isolated, as if no one would care if you ever even sailed back to land. When you feel “mal d
e mer”, you start to wonder if you even should bother.
The Scenery: The California Coastline is dry dry dry. Hard to imagine a more startling contrast from the wet wet wet Pacific Northwest. Probably both extremes have their benefits and
detriments.
Sleeping: Glorious when you finally get to do it. Confounding, when you need it dearly and it does not happen.
Bodega Bay: Wonderful harbor to come into. There are mud flats all around filled with pelicans and zillions of other sea birds. Atmospheric place. It felt like Northern California – with a large dose of hyper-annuated hippies thrown in. We enjoyed it immensely. Geoff got some kind of food poisoning from a fish taco – and had a horrific allergic type reaction. Good thing we had some Benadryl. We now carry some in our wallets as a prophylactic.
At a mooring in Catalina Island: We heard the usual boat noises, the strain of the line to anchor, the lapping of the water, and something new: the sound of popcorn popping right outside the hull of the boat. All around us. It is the sound of shrimp making crackling noises. We are told this is a common sound in Southern California. How fun. The sound is with us in San Diego too.
Santa Barbara Vagrants: More homeless people ambling about on the Santa Barbara waterfront than in any other city we have ever seen worldwide. Maybe it is the glorious weather? Or the surfeit of public bathrooms?
Morro Bay: Pelicans, sea lions, huge afternoon winds seemed to come out of nowhere in the early afternoon. Monster sized sea lions basking on the docks and barking ferociously at passers by.
Oxnard: Tied up at the public dock for a quick night’s sleep. Were treated to a ukulele serenade by two young men who were practicing in a public park right next to our boat.
San Diego: Found out that friends of friends had docked right behind us. Got together and have made new friends. By the second day, other cruisers we had met on the East Coast of Vancouver recognized our boat and came to say hello. We have
been invited out for social occasions more amongst other boaters than ever were on land. What a life! San Diego is a lovely place. The huge fires took place while we were there. It felt as if we were anchored in the midst of a giant Barbeque. Many locals were displaced, or worse. During the midst of it all, we found layers of ash on our boat every morning.
Work: On a boat work never ever ever ends. We realized last night that we have not really had a break or time to relax since January. People ask us what we do whilst on board, when we are not sailing. Well, we are repairing, cleaning, checking, planning and doing all the chores that take so little time on land, but forever on a boat: washing laundry by hand, ditto dishes, keeping ourselves clean, etc. Time ashore is usually spent tracking down a required fitting or bolt, or provisions to last the next voyage. (We did take a break so that we could go to the San Diego Zoo , and the "Suprise" (the Rose) which is a replica of an 18th Century English Frigate– both great fun).
Email: The sense of being disconnected is overwhelming at sea. Not to hear from family/friends via email is literally heartbreaking. You start to feel completely isolated, as if no one would care if you ever even sailed back to land. When you feel “mal d
e mer”, you start to wonder if you even should bother.The Scenery: The California Coastline is dry dry dry. Hard to imagine a more startling contrast from the wet wet wet Pacific Northwest. Probably both extremes have their benefits and
detriments.Sleeping: Glorious when you finally get to do it. Confounding, when you need it dearly and it does not happen.
Bodega Bay: Wonderful harbor to come into. There are mud flats all around filled with pelicans and zillions of other sea birds. Atmospheric place. It felt like Northern California – with a large dose of hyper-annuated hippies thrown in. We enjoyed it immensely. Geoff got some kind of food poisoning from a fish taco – and had a horrific allergic type reaction. Good thing we had some Benadryl. We now carry some in our wallets as a prophylactic.
At a mooring in Catalina Island: We heard the usual boat noises, the strain of the line to anchor, the lapping of the water, and something new: the sound of popcorn popping right outside the hull of the boat. All around us. It is the sound of shrimp making crackling noises. We are told this is a common sound in Southern California. How fun. The sound is with us in San Diego too.Santa Barbara Vagrants: More homeless people ambling about on the Santa Barbara waterfront than in any other city we have ever seen worldwide. Maybe it is the glorious weather? Or the surfeit of public bathrooms?
Morro Bay: Pelicans, sea lions, huge afternoon winds seemed to come out of nowhere in the early afternoon. Monster sized sea lions basking on the docks and barking ferociously at passers by.
Oxnard: Tied up at the public dock for a quick night’s sleep. Were treated to a ukulele serenade by two young men who were practicing in a public park right next to our boat.
San Diego: Found out that friends of friends had docked right behind us. Got together and have made new friends. By the second day, other cruisers we had met on the East Coast of Vancouver recognized our boat and came to say hello. We have
been invited out for social occasions more amongst other boaters than ever were on land. What a life! San Diego is a lovely place. The huge fires took place while we were there. It felt as if we were anchored in the midst of a giant Barbeque. Many locals were displaced, or worse. During the midst of it all, we found layers of ash on our boat every morning.Work: On a boat work never ever ever ends. We realized last night that we have not really had a break or time to relax since January. People ask us what we do whilst on board, when we are not sailing. Well, we are repairing, cleaning, checking, planning and doing all the chores that take so little time on land, but forever on a boat: washing laundry by hand, ditto dishes, keeping ourselves clean, etc. Time ashore is usually spent tracking down a required fitting or bolt, or provisions to last the next voyage. (We did take a break so that we could go to the San Diego Zoo , and the "Suprise" (the Rose) which is a replica of an 18th Century English Frigate– both great fun).
Phosphorescence: We know other people tell us that they see lots of phosphorescence from the dolphin trails in the water…. The only phosphorescence we saw along the way was that which was swirling around inside the head as we pumped it down in the wee hours of the night.We are soon to be on our way to Cabo San Lucas as part of the rally known as the "Baja-Haha".
We hope to arrive in Cabo by November 8th. What a change in latitudes we have made! Update to follow very soon. We wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving.
S & G
