Feliz Navidad

A group shot over the bay in Yelapa during a short respite from the heavy rains

John, brave enough to enter the cold water at the end of our hike

The river on the beach at Yelapa

Becca, Adam and I displaying exactly how soaked we got on our hike!

Over the past week we played host to our first set of live-aboard visitors!  John and Becca, our good friends from Seattle came for Christmas and got here in the nick of time, arriving at 2AM on Christmas Day.  Although we have had some wonderful crew, we have not had visitors here on Moments since Adam and I were living here together.  These friends in particular were excellent guinea pigs as they themselves live on a boat and have cruised up into BC and Alaska not long ago.  They know what it is like to live on a boat and how difficult it is to pick both a location and a time of arrival.  Instead, they flew standby and traveled overland (quite an adventure and a story for another time) to meet up with us in La Cruz, a small town on Banderas Bay.   We spent a wonderful Christmas together making beignets, catching very large fish and lounging in the sun.  Unfortunately, Christmas was our last sunny day and since then we have been dealing with clouds and rain.   To Adam and I, the rain was at first a welcome change and a much needed bath for Moments.  But of course, to our friends from Seattle the rain was a little too close to home.  Still, we have managed to have quite an excellent visit getting to catch up with good friends.  Some of the highlights were: catching very big fish, getting to watch less-than-24-hour-old baby tigers nuzzle with their mother, lounging in the hot tub at the Puerto Vallarta Yacht Club, swimming in Banderas Bay, walking on the beach in Nuevo Vallarta and dancing salsa in the street outside of a Cuban restaurant in Puerto Vallarta.  Today we hiked to a large waterfall outside of Yelapa, the small town in cove where we are anchored.  Despite the rain we were determined to have fun and are very sad to see our friends go.  Soon we will be rounding Cabo Corrientes and heading south. Next big stop Barra de Navidad!

Land Ho!

This post is about our wheels, our lifeline: our dinghy.  We have a 10’ Apex , rigid bottom inflatable dinghy (small boat or lanchita here in Mexico).  The dinghy has a fiberglass bottom and detachable wheels on the back to make beach landings a little easier, because it is heavy.  Also, it is not much fun dragging anything through wet sand, especially a 10’ boat.   There are oars which Adam tries to use to save gas but this type of boat doesn’t row very well.  I say Adam because he gets frustrated when it is my turn to row and the boat only moves in circles. Most of the time we are quite a distance from our intended target and rev up our outboard engine, which gets us there both easier, faster and in more of a straight line. In the sailing world (as with anything else really, though here it seems more pronounced) everyone has strong opinions about everything.  You have to take advice, especially about gear, with a grain of salt, shall we say.  Adam and I did a ton of research about dinghies before we bought one because this is a crucial piece of equipment and no small purchase. We couldn’t get a straight answer from anyone.  Although our current dinghy has served us well so far, there are definite changes we would make could we do it all over again.  More on this later.

We use our dinghy to get to shore and carry everything we need back and forth when we are not in a marina.  We try not to stay in marinas and since arriving in Mexico on November 11, we have only spent two nights in one.   They are nice, the boat doesn’t move, you have electricity and water, you can easily get into town and load up with food and did I mention the boat doesn’t move?  However, they are expensive and most definitely a splurge for us. Instead, after we have set the anchor and have stayed on the boat a while to make sure it holds, we get the dinghy ready.  While we are sailing long distances the dinghy rests upside down and deflated on our foredeck (front part of the boat).  Getting it off involves one person lifting the bow with the spinnaker halyard (the line that lifts the sail) until the other person can crawl under the boat and pump up the pontoons enough to make it float.  Then as one person (typically me) lifts, the other person (Adam) guides the boat over the side and into the water wrestling it to stay upright and trying not to get hit in the head when it is lowered.  Sorry, Adam.  If there is any wind this is much more difficult.  After a final pump-up the motor is next.  The motor, which came with Moments, is a 4-stroke Yamaha.  This, of course, meant little to me until I was actually out here and learned how to use an outboard motor for the first time in my life.  This is a relatively small outboard motor but I can’t imagine us dealing with a bigger one because I don’t think I could lift anything heavier.  We get the motor onto the dinghy by attaching it to a block and tackle (pulley system) hooked to the end of the boom which, once the motor is hoisted we can then swing it out over the water and lower it down onto the dinghy.  Writing this, I realize that it sounds much easier than it actually is, you will just have to take my word on the matter.  Because the block and tackle is often frustrating, sometimes I stand on the boat and lift the motor over the side while Adam stands in the (floating and bouncing around) dinghy and takes it overhead to set it on the back of that boat.  And sometimes, here in Mexico, the fishermen will take you into shore if you pay them a few dollars.  Very appealing if I do say so, myself!

Once this is all said and done we then either lock the dinghy to the boat or lift it a few feet out of the water for the night to try and dissuade dinghy thieves which would definitely leave us stranded.  This is all done in reverse when we are preparing to head out sailing again.  Though occasionally on smaller passages we only take off the motor and drag the dinghy behind us.  This slows us down a bit but definitely saves time on either end.

As you have probably guessed, a dinghy is not just the boat. It includes an outboard motor, gasoline, safety equipment, oars, pump and all of the equipment you have on board to lift and stow the outboard and dinghy.  I do not want to say that we are not grateful our appreciative of our dinghy which as of yet has served us well, but there are definitely some improvements that could be made.  Here are my suggestions for other cruisers:

1)      Get the smallest, lightest boat you can possibly deal with.  I would suggest a 6-8’ inflatable with an aluminum bottom.  You will want to get it on and off the deck more if it is lighter and there is less chance that someone will be injured.  Also a lighter dinghy means a lighter sailboat so that you can travel faster an also use less gasoline when you are putting around with your outboard.  Most importantly this means you can use a smaller motor, and this brings me to my next point.

2)      Get the smallest motor that you think will plane your dinghy.  When the dinghy planes it lifts out of the water and travels much faster.  With our current combination of motor and dinghy we can barely get it to plane if only one of us is in it and the wind and waves are exactly right.  When it planes you also get less wet, and we have definitely had some butt-soaking dinghy rides.

There are also some other smaller points such as the necessity of UV resistant materials and oars that float but that information seems more consistent.  We bought our dinghy second hand and are currently in the process of trying to figure out how to patch it because we may need to do that very soon.  This is a useful skill for any cruising sailor because every boat out here has a dinghy, the vast majority of them inflatable and at one time or another in need of patching.

Lastly, we have yet to name our dinghy.  Any ideas, readers?

On a side note, thank you for all of the blog comments and emails.  It is very nice to hear from friends and family, especially at this time of year.  We are currently in Mantanchen Bay outside of San Blas a wonderful town with cobble-stone streets, ruined Spanish forts and a laid back way of doing things.  The view is wonderful but there is no place like home for the holidays. 

Photo Update

I finally have a reasonable web connection so I decided to update you all with some photos.  We have been having a wonderful time making friends and getting to love Mexico.  There is definitely some boat work in the mix, but many of the projects are now just regular maintenance.  We are currently in Mazatlan.  I have to admit that I was very skeptical before our trip given it's reputation as a vacation center.  I was envisioning a mainland Cabo San Lucas, a place we could not wait to get out of.  Instead we have found a bustling but laid back city with a truly "Mexican" vibe.  The old historic center of the town is very much alive with art and music and there is street food everywhere you look.  Last night we brought home some very delicious tamales after stocking up on provisions at the Mercado Municipal.  Instead of staying in one of the marinas, which are way north of town, we are anchored within minutes of the old city center and right under the view of the world tallest lighthouse, which has been operating since the mid 1800's.  A very interesting place indeed and much less expensive than everywhere else we have been.  Although you could get lost in this city for years, we are about ready for some R&R at a deserted beach so we will be leaving for Isla Isabela in the next few days.  Definitely no internet there!

The setup for Thanksgiving

1) Rachel has definitely been getting busy in the kitchen.  A few days confined to the boat due to bad weather in La Paz made her go a little crazy...much to Adam's delight.  (A big thanks to everyone who sent in recipes after the last post.  Keep them coming!)

Did someone say pie?

A loaf of bread made in the pressure cooker to save on propane.  I didn't even know it was possible!  This recipe even uses seawater and tastes relatively like sourdough.

2) Sunny days fishing off the boat leads to great catches, both big and small.

Rachel caught a little grouper!

Adam displays our lunch while voyaging...fresh caught tuna.

 3) Sometimes you don't even have to seek out the wildlife, they come to you!  While sailing across the Sea of Cortez/Gulf of California one night we saw flashes of light at the front of the boat.  Not sure what it was we tethered in and headed to the bow.  Beside the boat were dolphins, racing and jumping our bow, aglow with glittering phosphorescence.  Definitely a trip highlight!

Adam checking out the bird that is taking a mid-ocean rest on our bow.

4) Adam spent his spare time practicing with the sextant. It turned out to be a little bit more math than he wanted while on vacation but he is sticking with it.

5) We have been trying to get outside to explore the Mexican cities and countryside.  Here we are in Bahia de Los Muertos (our boat in the background) and at the top of the world's tallest lighthouse.

In the Galley

In life, some people are planners and others are not.  I am, to a point, a planner.  Plans can always change, I have no problem with that, but I like to see clearly at least one route forwards.  Adam and I would not be sitting in La Paz right now if it weren't for some pretty significant planning by both of us.  That said, I have come to learn that life on a boat gives new meaning to the word.

We make lists.  Oh so many lists.  We typically have a list of things we need to do on any given day, lists of priority projects and repairs, lists of dream projects and repairs and many, many lists for provisioning.  Some cruisers are even more organized and create their provisioning lists based on known levels of consumption and weeks of planned out meals.  This is definitely a winning strategy, but would drive me crazy.  Not only do I like to shop for food by meandering down the isles and grabbing things that strike my fancy, but I could never cook to a schedule.  Cooking on the boat has become my creative time, in a way my “alone” time, and also a welcome tie to my life before everything in my house moved.

This post is for all of those people who asked me, “what are you going to eat?” before we left.  First, I have to explain the situation.  Our galley is a three foot by five foot U-shaped space.  At the end of the U is the stove with the sink to the right and the fridge (if you could call it that) set into the counter top on the left.  The fridge is about the size of a large cooler and has a freezer compartment that, to my knowledge, has never frozen anything.  It is, however, excellent for chilling alcohol.  The fridge struggles to stay below 40-degrees when we are not plugged into shore.  Because it takes so much of our precious power to run the fridge we were originally not cooling it at all, but we found that our food was going bad too quickly and we wanted some fresh options every once in a while.  So now the fridge runs and it is always a mad dash to grab the necessary items before all of the cold air flies out.  In the corner between the sink and the stove the counter top opens up to a dry-locker.  This is our pantry, and is a completely ridiculous space.  I have to reach over the stove to get into it, and because my arms are not 5 feet long, I cannot reach things in the bottom of the locker without hoisting myself onto the counter and diving head first into the dried goods with headlamp.   With the necessary item in hand I swing my legs hard enough to leverage my body out of the hole and back onto my feet.  I call it cooking aerobics.   Maybe it will make up for all of the tortillas I have been eating…  But I digress, back to the galley.   We do have the luxury of water pressure so I typically don’t have to use the hand pump, but it is there as a back-up when we need it. To store snacks, utensils, pots and pans there is a sliding cupboard behind the stove, a cabinet above the sink and one, tiny, drawer.  The stove itself is a glorified propane camp stove with two burners and an oven.  It is gimbaled and has pot clamps for when the boat I less that still.

Now that you (maybe) understand the setting I can fill you in on what we have been eating over the past few months.  The best times are obviously while we are in port.  We went shopping in La Paz yesterday and just ate some delicious bacon tacos with fresh tomatoes, cabbage and cilantro on hand-made tortillas.  Think of it is as a Mexican BLT.  Lunch is typically the hardest meal to dream up because 1) we are busy and 2) lunch meats are expensive and need to be kept cold.  Honestly, if anyone has any ideas I would love to hear them.  Sometimes we have leftovers from dinner but mostly we slap something between two pieces of bread or wrap it up in a tortilla.  One kilo of the worlds most delicious hand made tortillas only cost us about $2.  Dinners are pretty much the same as they have always been.  Last week some of the highlights were spaghetti carbonara with mushrooms and artichoke hearts, fajitas, stir-fried ginger noodles, quesadillas, and pressure cooker paella.  It is always nice when we catch a fish.  We shared the large dorado and still had quite a few meals.  I even covered some pieces in cornbread and served them up with Cajun beans and rice.  Yum!  Breakfast is also pretty typical: fruit, yogurt, granola, eggs of every kind and the occasional banana chocolate chip pancake.  Oh and did I mention the ramen.  We eat a lot of that too, though typically not for breakfast.

As you can see we are not starving.  Food has definitely been more expensive that we budgeted, even when we shop at the government-subsidized market.  Also, there have been some days at sea where I think we ate granola bars, fruit and trail-mix for more than three meals in a row.  Yesterday we found some delicious roadside tamales for less than $2 but most of the restaurants cost about the same or more than we would pay in the US.  Hopefully this will change when we get to more rural areas.  Most of all I am adjusting to having to cook for someone other than myself, especially since he eats about five times what I do.  Next week’s experiment is baking bread in a pressure cooker. I hear it’s not that bad!

I know there are some wonderful cooks out there reading this, so if you have any easy recipes that you are willing to share, please pass them on.  Keep in mind that I am shopping at a Mexican market.

Cruzeros

After rounding the cabo and heading north we caught a rare south wind into the Gulf of California/Sea of Cortez which shot us north to two rolly anchorages before we finally caught some sleep in the Bahia de Los Muertos. Oddly enought this bay has recently tried to change its name to Bahia de Los Suenos in order to increase property values and trouism.  Whatever the name, we spent a wonderful, restful day there snorkeling, hiking and socializing with some of our new friends from the Baja Ha Ha.  One of the other boats actually had a woman just my age who was a recently graduated medical student from Sweeden.  She and I had a great time exchanging notes about everything, work and not.

Currently we are anchored in Bahia Falsa, spitting distance from La Paz. For one day we shared the bay with only one other boat, but last night some other boats rolled in and we had a sunset happy hour on the biggest boat in the bay.  It was a great time chatting with all of the other cruisers and learning that we all have the same problems and challenges.  When you are on your own little boat sometimes it feels like you are the only ones constantly doing repairs and dealing with disagreements, but getting together with other cruisers reminds me that we are actually doing very well.  One of the couples had been married for fourty years and said that they had never had as many horrible arguments or tears shed as they have had in the last few months.  We have definitely had our fair share but, despite a few revengeful dreams no one has gotten thrown overboard...yet.

Baja Ha Ha Ha Ha.....

We have made it to Mexico.  Go, go, go.  I feel like we have never stopped running since we left Santa Barbara.  For our trip down the Baja Peninsula we joined the Baja Ha Ha sailing rally, a group of 150+ sailboats that make the trip from San Diego to Cabo San Lucas every year.  The rally covers the 750-ish miles in one week, which is a lot of sailing, especially for our relatively slow boat and with only two hands aboard.  The schedule went like this:

San Diego – Turtle Bay, Mexico: 4 days/3 nights at sea

Two nights in Turtle Bay

Turtle Bay – Bahia Santa Maria: 2 days/2 nights at sea, arriving in the early morning hours

Two nights in Bahia Santa Maria

Bahia Santa Maria – Cabo San Lucas: 2 days/1 night at sea

Frankly, we are exhausted and Cabo is not exactly our kind of place to rest.  After spending our first day in town running between immigration and the Capitan del Puerto we are already sick of the cruise ship crowds, crazy night life and ridiculously expensive prices.  It is sad when you leave the US and the only place in town you can afford to buy groceries (and the place suggested by all of the locals) is Walmart. We wanted to run when we saw the large signs with a familiar slogan: siempre precios bajos.

The restaurants and grocery stores are full of employees with flawless English, but Adam and I have both enjoyed brushing off our Spanish skills at immigration, the cell phone store, plumbing shops and with mechanics.  As most of my vocabulary is medical and Adam seems to have spent a significant amount of time in high school coming up with naughty things to say in Spanish we occasionally have to pull out my dictionary, but together we can typically get our point across.  One of our major success stories was wandering around Turtle Bay attempting to find a welder to fix our Monitor Wind Vane.  This wonderful piece of equipment helps us to steer the boat, accounting for both changes in the wind and waves.  It is exhausting having to hand steer, constantly fighting the waves, especially when you are the only one on deck and you also have to run the lines and trim (adjust) the sails.  Someone (no blame here) broke the key piece of equipment which attaches the vane to the wheel while trying to dodge a wave the night before.  Our greatest impediment to finding a welder turned out not to be our language skills, but the fact that it was the day before the Day of the Dead and most people were on vacation!  Still, as the Ha-Ha fleet of 150+ sailboats is the biggest thing that happens in Turtle Bay all year, we were able to find a fuel man who handed us off to a little boy who led us to a closed mechanic’s shop where we wandered into the small tienda down the street where the shop girl got on her cell phone and instructed us to find a house with many small cacti where a man who could weld lived.  However he was not home and his wife called around town and then told us to find a street where he may be sitting and we walked until we heard the sound of saws and went around the back of the original mechanic’s shop where some men were tearing apart a rusty old wagon and were very proud that they could say “stainless steel” in English.  I am not sure if they every understood our broken explanations of what exactly the wheel drum and cog pin were for, but these wonderful men welded together our broken wind vane and then refused to accept our money.  We made sure to pay them in cookies and beer.

Hopefully when we leave Cabo we can get back to the glimpses of “real” Mexico that we saw as we rushed down the coast.  Oh yeah...and we caught some fish.

Sleepless Nights

Do you know what it feels like to be sea-sick in your sleep? Because I do.

Adam and I have finally departed Santa Barbara after being able to spend time with my Grandma and Great Uncle, who live there permanently, as well as two of my uncles, my Dad and his wife Jane.  Everyone traveled in for an extended birthday party and bon voyage.  We also accomplished quite a few of what Adam calls “capital improvement projects.”  He says that soon we will be moving from the “capital improvement phase” to the “preventative and reactive maintenance phase.” Joy of joys.  Still, I have to say that after three (make that 20+) years of brain-intensive work, the novelty of hard physical labor every day has not yet warn off.  We rise with the sun, work hard all day, go to bed with the sun and sleep soundly. 

Well, sometimes it is less soundly than we would like.  Tied up in a nice no-wake marina makes Moments a pretty cozy home, but at anchor we constantly fret about whether the anchor is dragging or not.  I am sure our nerves will continue to be more at ease as we gain experience anchoring Moments.  Or at least I hope this is true because our marina budget is almost maxed out after the trip down the coast!  Currently, we make sure the anchor is holding by leaving the chart plotter on most of the night so that we can see the arc of our swing on the rode (anchor chain).  This is not a great solution as it uses so much of the precious energy we have stored in our batteries.  Currently, I write to you while on my anchor watch shift here in beautiful East Fish Camp anchorage on the southern side of Anacapa Island.  Anchor watch is not a super sleep-friendly option but saves energy and calms Adam’s nerves enough that he can sleep and not walk around like a zombie (a very grumpy zombie) the next day.  Tonight, all is calm; there is a nice breeze blowing in, just enough for the turbine to give the batteries a little juice, and the rolling swell is barely noticeable.  Then there are nights like last night.

We are still not sure what happened, but from what we can put together it seems like the Santa Anna winds blew in across Santa Cruz Island last night at about 2-3AM.  The Santa Anna’s are notorious, warm, strong winds that blow in from the northeast with very little warning.  They are often responsible for the spreading of wildfires throughout southern California.  Yesterday we had a beautiful ride from Santa Barbara during which we saw (not exaggerating) hundreds of dolphins, some that even raced the bow of our boat!  We got to Santa Cruz Island at twilight and decided to stay for the evening rather than continue the passage to Anacapa.  Along with a few other boats, we dropped our hook at Yellow Banks Anchorage where the boat was not motionless by any account, but there was adequate protection from the northern swell.  We had plenty of room to move, even if the anchor began to drag, so we turned on an alarm on the chart plotter, checked the forecast and went to sleep.  I am not sure when it really started to roll, but I do remember waking up nauseous, hardly able to walk down the boat due to the roll and before long I was tossing my cookies overboard.  After significant teamwork and getting soaked by more than a few waves we made it to our sheltered little cove on Anacapa just in time for the winds to die down. We spent the rest of the afternoon at anchor napping and drying our clothes on the rigging.

We definitely learned some things from our experience this morning, and I became much more comfortable and confident at taking the helm during rough conditions.  Still, what I keep being reminded of every time we are sailing is how the ocean is truly amazing.  From the dolphins, turtles, seals and sea lions we have seen, to the fish I dream about catching, to the wind and waves of this morning and then finally the calm rocking this afternoon amongst 30-foot-tall kelp stalks in crystal clear water.  Too bad it is so cold or I would pull on my snorkel gear and go hang with the fishes.

My watch is up and it is my turn to sleep. On to Catalina tomorrow and Newport Beach the next day!  More to come.

BTW I have received many helpful messages letting me know that it is difficult to comment on the blog.  This problem should be fixed, but if you are willing give it a try so that I know you all are out there reading.

Bimini Cricket

What an amazing two weeks it has been!  Since my arrival in Santa Barbara, Adam and I have done a little traveling, some socializing and lots and lots of boat work. So goes the life of a boat owner. Actually, one of the more candid books I have read about the cruising life defined cruising as the art of doing boat repairs in exotic locations. Luckily the majority of our projects have been related to improvement rather than repair.  Still, we are currently stocking up on extra engine parts and reading (tantalizing, I assure you) instruction manuals for the many devices on the boat.  While Adam puts those rock climbing skills to work and shimmies his way up the mast for rigging and electrical work I have been rather domestic. Aside from freakishly organizing the entire boat into a series of labeled Ziploc bags, and becoming acquainted with our Fisher-Price-sized kitchen my big project of the past few weeks was to create a sun-shade, or bimini, for the cockpit of the boat.

Rachel sewing by headlamp

The trip down from Seattle was not particularly sunny, but for where we are headed a bimini may help us to avoid looking like lobsters.  Due to the 24/7 exposure to UV radiation, most boat canvas is made of a special material called Sunbrella.  This synthetic fabric with individually died threads has the advantage of not decomposing or fading in the sun but it also carries a hefty price tag. Hiring someone to do the canvas work for us was definitely out of the budget.  Frankly, hiring anyone to do anything for us is out of the budget.  Luckily, I have been stitching away since I was old enough to see over the machine while sitting on two phone books. However, as I learned in July while doing some sail repairs, my Mom's Singer is far tamer than the industrial beasts required for heavy duty work.  It is as if you had learned to ride on a Shetland pony and then you drew the baddest bronc at the rodeo.

Another obstacle was that I had never sewn something this large without a pattern.  Sure, the Bennie Baby sleeping bag (there may have been multiple) I constructed as a middle schooler was nothing short of a work of art, but for the bimini we are talking about a much larger scale.  We soon came up with the brilliant idea of stitching together two bed sheets to make a pattern of our own.  This was a much larger production than it sounds due to the fact that without a canvas cover holding them together, the bows of the bimini are free to move and fold as they will.  After expending an entire role of masking tape to stretch the sheets into place I drew the desired outline of our bimini.  A fool proof plan if I ever saw one! Pattern in hand, Adam and I zipped around downtown Santa Barbara on our folding bikes to order the canvas before we left the harbor to anchor for a few days off the beach.  More on this experience later.

When your home constantly moves, and has no flat surface larger than about three feet square, it is not exactly conducive to large sewing projects.  You have to get creative.  My creativity led me to the local carousel where there are large areas of semi-covered concrete on which I could spread out to cut the final pieces of precious Sunbrella. In the end, the pattern ended up looking more like an overgrown, oblong amoeba than any bimini I would want to sit under.  After many renditions of the fabric wrapping exercise discussed above we eventually got the correct shape, despite the fact that we were now anchored and the boat was actively rolling. (Not so good for sleeping either...)

Bobbin-eyed from too much sewing...

To make a long story short, with lots of help and patience from Adam, car rides and phone calls from my Grandmother, Rob at Bob's Canvas and a wonderful man named Grant House at Grant House Sewing Machines I was able to construct a bimini that we have now been enjoying for a week.

Moments has a new hat!

Today Adam told me we will have to cut some holes in the back in order to mount the solar panel.  Alas.....

San Francisco Arrival

Written September 3, 2013...posted a bit later...

All smiles on Moments as our team of four crossed under a socked in Golden Gate Bridge after an exciting run from the sunny Eureka, CA. This is the milestone I've (Adam finally blogs!) been waiting for since months back, signifying a trustworthy boat, a capable crew and, well - whether this year off sailing plan will actually work. Looks like it will!

A quick recap: Left Seattle Aug 11 for Port Townsend. Then to Port Angeles, Neah Bay, Westport, Newport, Eureka and San Francisco Aug 28. Justin Cherniak anchored the team through the full route, with Nathan Nelson and Claire Leake keeping watches f rom Seattle to Newport tagging out to Bryan Reeves and Kristin Saunders for the run to SF. Big thanks to the crew for making it a fun and safe trip through some gnarly waters, for your patience waiting for weather and hard work on various boat projects along the way! We did it!

Bye Claire and Nathan! (Justin - Moments is not through with you yet!) Newport, OR

Welcome to the party Kristin and Bryan!

So, how 'bout that exciting run from Eureka? First, man…it felt good to pull into Eureka. After another foggy battle dodging F/Vs (fishing vessels) crossing the coastal bar, the sun burnt through revealing a blue sky and that which we'd craved for days - warmth! We didn't mind doing a few laps in the harbor in search of the diesel dock as many layers of foulie begged to be shed to reveal what I can at least admit to is some serious NW Dweller ghost-pale epidermis (med student please assess appropriate usage). After a couple nights on the water swapping 3-4 hour shifts, some serious napping was due and achieved in the CA sun. However, with fair winds in the forecast, after some rest and check-ins with the usual stakeholders (Hi Mom! Hi Rachel!), we were back off to sea, racing an impressive Humboldt State University research vessel between the red and greens (that’s the buoys on the way out the harbor).

I mentioned fair winds, but alas, they did not blow our way until some hopeful sail trimming followed by concurrent grumbling by both our crew and diesel engine. Rounding Cape Mendocino, known for its propensity to blow, we caught comfortable North winds for a wing-on-wing downwind run for the record books highlighted by a respectable appearance by The Flasher (our scandalously named asymmetrical spinnaker - thanks for your mid-80s creativity, UK Sails) and an awe-inspiring dance through a pod of about 15 tail-wagging and puff-breathing (insert marine biology-speak here) whales. This experience was exactly what these cruising trips should be about.

Kristin and full sails looking good!

The pure bliss ended rapidly (as I'm learning things usually do out there) with a casual comment, "Do you think it looks like some fog is rolling in soon?”, followed by Mother Nature's confirmation and accompanying blow/reef/radar fixation (Meaning the fog rolled in, the wind picked up so much we had to reduce our boat’s sail area, and then our only eyes were through the lens of green, yellow, and in the worst case red blobs on our chartplotter's radar screen – video games!). These exciting moments get the adrenaline going, but luckily have so far ended in "Well, that wasn't so bad...". However, for the other sailboat off in the distance, it was a bit worse…

Foreground: California - Background: Oregon & Washington

Turtle Circus (boat name changed to protect anonymity) hailed us on the radio, a bit frantically, inquiring whether we had successfully handled the prior blow. While the mood was quite calm on Moments without too much of the usual chaos, this other vessel had apparently almost suffered a knock down (top of mast touches water!) and was quite alarmed. They must have had it worse than us or were pleasantly asleep down below when the wind unexpectedly piped up. After a bit of conversation with the other boat - a bit of a rare treat out there amongst many hours of empty waters - both vessels continued onward until nightfall.

Just as our team's night watch was about to come on deck, the United States Coast Guard Sector XYZ, United States Coast Guard Sector XYZ, United States Coast Guard Sector XYZ (they always repeat that jumble three times making them professional tongue twisters) came on the radio alerting mariners to "extraordinary endangered whale populations" sighted in the area - proceed with caution! Just as the message ended with "United States Coast Guard Sector XYZ - Out" one of said beasts exhaled full lungs within what was (perhaps exaggerated) 200 feet of the boat. Regardless of true range to the animal, we learned that the announcement was perhaps better left unsaid, as a whale collision occupied our tired minds throughout the course of that night. The unfortunate bit was, we later heard that a sailing vessel was disabled in the area that night due to a "collision with a submerged object" (we decided it had to have been a whale). Poor Turtle Circus…

Whale vs. Turtle Circus

So, after all that excitement, we had to get under the big bridge at some point. I can verify that the Pacific Ocean must be pretty darn big, because we waited and waited and waited as the miles racked up in the dark approaching the Golden Gate which seemed so increasingly close but not quite there. Bryan and I battled the sail trim for some time that night, until we finally pronounced the wind "dead". Once again we elected forward progress over the wave bobbing alternative, so Moments trusty, shiny, brand-spanking-new Yanmar stinkpot (what the cool sailing kids call an engine) grumbled to life, just in time for the San Francisco Vessel Transit System (where the shipping vessels prevail over whale sightings) to heat up. Then we got attacked by pirates...

Pirates?...sure...

Well, we never quite figured out what "it" was, but it was described by the crew as an Inhuman Drone Pirate (IDP) determined to prevent our entrance without folly into the thriving Northern California metropolis. Like all alarming middle-of-night other-boat encounters, the IDP appeared first not by a convenient electronically-named triangle with speed, heading, and destination information (Google "AIS" to learn about my favorite new toy I've installed on the boat), but as an intermittent green to yellow to red blob on our not-quite-military-grade radar display (combined with our not-quite-military-grade radar interpretation skills). These blobs could be boats or land or buoys (avoid hitting those!) or they could be patches of dense fog or rain (try desperately to avoid those and panic when it's impossible while praying to your maker as doom by massive tanker collision is clearly imminent...then just get wet[ter]) depending on your state of mind, lack of skill at radar tuning, and maybe what is actually out there. So, we tried to avoid as usual, going likely ridiculously far off our course as a 6-mile radar range seems much closer on a tiny screen than in reality. However, this time, our yet to be identified bogey seemed to be...following us! In fact, it truly was following us, which was clear by the time we'd changed course a few times in effort to lose them. Well, the impending doom feeling started to kick in again, so we flipped through the usual VHF channels announcing our intentions not be followed and run over. Without any reply, the battle continued, until through the fog the perpetrator first showed his “face”.

Typically, “faces” out there have a standardized pattern of navigation lights that identify what they are and where they're going. The ones coming at you (aka following you like an inhuman drone) show off Christmas lights (that's red and green side lights with a white angel on top of the tree - two angels?...you're that much closer to heaven or the opposite because that is a REALLY big boat coming at you!). However, the new friend we were making did not play by the rules, was less festive than St. Nick without any red or green side lights, and was persistent in his (most boats are "hers", but I seem to have fallen into "his", likely since I've never met a woman this fierce) use of two one-billion-candle-power, in-your-face spotlights. As the vessel approached rapidly, and our forearms grew increasingly tired from pumping up the rechargeable, delightfully eco-friendly, but utterly impractical West Marine Eco Air Horn (please don't ever buy one and invent something better – should I still link to Pay-Per-Click?), our final resort was to fight fire with retina-burning fire. So, we pulled out our one billion divided by close-to-equally large number candle power, Stoneway Hardware (shout-out!) special spotlight, and fired away the universally accepted "for the love of God please don't run us over" five short flashes. Over and over again…

Well, we lived to tell the tale, as you might imagine, so the way that wrapped up is that we flashed 'em four or five times like that and they eventually beared away, but they got pretty (expletive) close. A few more shout-outs based on the experience: GreenPeace - chill out about those whales. Clearly there were plenty that day and that is our mast, not a harpoon. I consider it unjust vessel profiling if you're coming at us just because another sailboat (Turtle Circus!) went out and keel-punched some blubber-back that day. That's only legal in Arizona. (Shout out to the recently engaged Ashley/Eric combo! Congrats!) Obama - sure, fine, test those new drones all you want, but please put nav lights on them so we at least have a fighting chance to outrun them at our blazing 6 knots. Poseidon - if you're going to take us, please send the Kraken (I mean Beast-that-shall-not-be-named) to devour us in our entirety and instantly from below as the whole chase scene scenario was really stressful there for a few minutes.

To cap off this post – we survived the Eureka Desert sun (scary for the Seattleites [and Riddick BTW – donations being accepted in order for me to see the new movie!]), whales and inhuman drone pirates so far and the only thing left was the…you guessed it…San Francisco Fog. Pshhh…fog…this crew sailed from Seattle 75% of the time in the fog – ain’t no thang. So, no worries, we were ready for that, but what gives – we barely got to see the Bridge, even from directly below it. Oh well, it was a bit eerie which was cool, but we made it, there was much rejoicing (un-enthusiastic “yaaaay” a la Monty Python and the Holy Grail). To Berkeley Marina!

Appropriate arrival.

Sea Bear, The IT Guy, Raccoon Eyes

The Architect and The Bridge

I’m tired – to be continued, along with news of where we are actually at now a month later (hint…sunnier!).

Adam

Berkeley Sun!