A long overdue post of Claire's thoughts during the Seattle, WA to Newport, OR leg. - Adam
September 2, 2013
It's Claire again, what, you say, is she still doing on this boat?
It is a great question and the impetus for this post on a lesson learned from
sailing, patience. We have been stuck in Westport, WA going on four
days now. We theoretically plan to leave tomorrow, but only time will
tell. We arrived in Westport and thought the winds were going to shift the next
day, but Mother Nature had a different idea. She threw in a gale down
south where we need to go and so we have stayed. The interesting thing
about sailing the Pacific Coast is that there are not a lot of places to pull out.
There are marinas from here to Newport, but all the guidebooks say
entering them is treacherous on a good day and so once we leave we need to be able
to sail 20 or so plus hours to Newport because there is really nowhere to go if
the weather gets bad. And so we have waited for Mother Nature to give us the
right conditions. Of course we would all like to be sailing rather than
stuck at the marina. We thought we were going to be in Newport last
Sunday, but that just wasn't in the cards. So when sailing, one has to be
flexible and patient in order to be safe. We have spent the last few days
reading and doing boat projects. Adam just finished installing a new
chart light and re-gooped (technical I know) a whole bunch of things we thought
leaked in our first leg out a sea. The bright side of being stuck
in port is that you get to explore a town you might not ever had considered
visiting. Nathan and I walked to the lighthouse today and then to the
grocery store. On way back we found a local brewery and came back with a
growler (another plus to being stuck, we can go ahead and imbibe a bit).
And so we hope that our wait was worthwhile. Two boats left yesterday
which made us doubt our plans, but then we heard a few calls over the radio for
help and we decided we had made the right choice. Good things come to
those who wait, right?
Once out on the water you are at the mercy of the wind, waves, and
current and can only go as fast as these forces allow. Again one has to
be patient, you can calculate that the trip should only take 20 hours, but it
very well could take 30. There are so many charts and reports to read to help
you predict, but at the end of the day, these are all still predictions.
I think it is much easier to be patient and flexible when you are not
working. Nathan and I had planned to be on our way to Glacier at this point,
but it's just not going to work. There is nothing we can do about it, so
no need to be angry or mad, because it just is. Justin, on the other
hand, has a deadline, so has been concerned about our slow progress. He has,
however, thanks to the interwebs, been able to get some work in.
The second lesson I have learned is that it is possible for a girl
and three boys to live on a 36-foot boat. Things are tight, but we make
it work. Adam sleeps where we eat. Nathan and I have to move loads of
things in and out of the v- berth daily as it serves as our sleeping quarters
at night, but storage for lots of random things during the day. Things on
the boat serve multiple purposes. For example, I just used the stovetop toaster
to steam green beans tonight. We have a composting toilet that requires
quite a bit of attention when you have four people using it pretty consistently
and only one cook can be in the kitchen at a time without bumping butts. But it
works. All of Adam’s possessions are on this boat and we have stuffed our
few in the cracks. It turns out you don't need a whole lot. I mean we all
know this, right? But it is not until you live on a 36ft boat (or a cabin in
the woods as Nathan and I did our first year in Portland together) that you
actually really think about what you need. It makes me think about our trip
to Utah earlier this summer. When Nathan and I were in Arches National
Park, we saw an old house built by a civil war veteran and lived in for about a
decade with his son, daughter, son-in-law and two grandchildren. The
building was literally the size of our kitchen and I thought, how did they do
it? Now, I sort of understand it all. If that is what you have then you
make do. And so I guess I will try to keep this all in mind when I think about
what I "need" and what I "really need."
Claire
(crew from Seattle, WA to Newport, OR)
Claire and Nathan rewarded while patiently waiting for wind. (Photo courtesy of Moments #1 crew member, Justin Cherniak)
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