Sailing North: First Leg

Posted on by under News, photos, sailing

Sharon's Bird

What do you get when you take a sailing couple with their classic schooner, the ship’s cat, and a tag-along bird watcher out into the North Pacific Ocean to sail from San Francisco, CA to undefined “points North” in March?

First–lots of advice not to do it. Then…underway…

Wind. Lots of it.
Gales. Three.
Rainbows. At least one a day.
Birds. Whales. Porpoise. Fishing nets. Big waves.

We motored off the Sugar Dock in Richmond, CA Monday morning March 24, put up the sails and motorsailed until we passed Cape Mendocino. Then we shut down the engine and sailed. And sailed. And sailed. Some more. North. 700 miles and 5.3 days later, on Saturday afternoon of March 29th, we pulled into Neah Bay, Washington.

We know, you weren’t supposed to be able to DO that, right? Sail north? as in “use the sails, not the engine” North? really? Well common wisdom isn’t what it’s cracked up to be. You really CAN sail up the coast (at least to the Pacific Northwest) from San Francisco. In March.

While we’re here in Neah Bay for a couple days, I’ll try to post some of “the story.” In the meanwhile, here’s a teaser photo taken by Sharon, our birdwatcher friend who joined us this week. We just bid her farewell and are now feeling a little “empty” aboard the schooner Mahdee.

Ready, Set to Go?

Posted on by under interior, living aboard, photos, Projects

A big cyclonic wind system in the NE Pacific is making for a tiny period of S or SW winds before they turn to westerlies. We may have a few good travel days next week for the beginning of our trip to the North.

So, we’re checking things off the list and making ready to leave. Just in case. Sunday. What does that entail?

Friday, Beryl gets her shots and her health certificate. We dig out her harness and lifevest so she can practice wearing them again.

1

Brenda goes over the sails and rigging to make sure everything is in good order. Sewing, OK, one of the HiMod fittings has unexpected corrosion pitting upon inspection–not OK.

2

3

David installs new equipment–in this case, it’s a new radar mount and a B&G 4G radar on the mainmast.

4

We also get to install all the stuff that we’ve been procrastinating or that is is just finally showing up here–two custom Garhauer blocks for the running backstays; the amsteel lifelines that I’ve been avoiding the final install of; several misc. electrical bits and pieces–for example we’ll have a 12V light in the stateroom for the first time. Up until now it’s been flashlights, hocky-puck battery lights, or a 120VAC shorepower light.

We buy dozens of things we don’t need but “just in case” we can’t get them. The list? Well, we hit Trader Joe’s today and it was: dark chocolate; granola bars; Basmati rice; curry; goat cheeses (cheddar, brie, Gouda); wine; our favorite coffee; three dozen eggs; blondie mix; our favorite pasta; two six packs of Hansen’s sodas; and a dry salami. The trip to Costco happened last week and the “fresh veggie” trip will happen late the day before we go.

We finish up a variety of projects that really need to be put away before sailing. Today that means putting all the parts back onto the main saloon table that David made and I’ve been varnishing; it also means that FINALLY David will be forced to put away all of his toys ahem, tools that have been covering every horizontal surface of the boat (inside and out) for the last two weeks.

Beryl is helping me layout corbels to support the drop leaf main saloon table
5

How big of a board is too big?
6

This place is truly a mess when David is in the middle of a project like the saloon table.
7

Tomorrow, the highlight of the day will be to cut the latex foam (in half) on two queen size mattress toppers and make them into mattresses for the twin-size pilot berths that sit outboard and above the main saloon seats. Once David’s tools are out of the way, I will be able to get out my sewing machine, put it on that new main saloon table and make a lee cloth for the starboard pilot berth. That’s needed since it looks like we will have a guest aboard for the first portion of our northward trip. It would be bad if she fell out of the berth and sustained an injury due to the lack of a lee cloth.

After the toys tools are stashed away by David, I can begin the “stash and lash” process in earnest.

Other last minute stuff? Find a local gas station of the “Rotten Robbies” chain to buy kerosene for the stove and gasoline for the Honda EU2000; determine if we’re going to jerry-jug another 80 or so gallons of diesel onto the boat from a gas station (usually cheaper than fuel dock prices) or if we can easily and inexpensively fill up at a local fuel dock near here. Let’s see, what else? Empty the compost from the composting head, clean under the engine and replace the diesel “diaper” in the engine tray (so we can see if there are any leaks or spills); check all the navigation lights and engine fluids. Oh, and keep our fingers crossed that the new C-Map chart chips we ordered show up before we leave.

Blinding Dancing Shoes

Posted on by under misc, Musings

1

I just read a FB entry by a friend. It was a photo of a little girl dancing with abandon in the rain with this Vivian Green quote embedded in a artistic script: “Life isn’t about waiting for the storm to pass, its about learning to dance in the rain.”

This happens to echo several favorite quotes of mine with the theme of “just get on with things!” and don’t wait for the perfect opportunity because that opportunity may never come. I’ve written about this before here in this post. I do believe we must seize the day and every opportunity to progress towards our goals and purpose. No more waiting for the dance party and no more hanging out under a shelter waiting for the sunshine to enjoy–if we want to dance, just like a little girl who always has her dancing shoes on, we should dance NOW rather than sit around and say “someday, I’ll dance.”

Is there fallout from the act of seizing the day? Especially those stormy, messy days when we dance with abandon in the rain? At first it is not so obvious. We live and learn and grow and are rewarded for taking the risks. For David and I, sometimes things are all sunshine and light–and sometimes events are like slogging through the unexpected rains–the process of rebuilding, sailing, and continuing to restore Mahdee bit-by-bit often feels just like that carefree little girl dancing in the rain. Fresh, clean, happy and invigorating. It’s all good, right? Sometimes.

Along the way, I’ve begun to notice the muddy dance in the rain just doesn’t sparkle with the same magic that spinning wildly in the sunshine and collapsing on a clean grassy lawn does. My analog is breaking down, but I am beginning to wonder “what now?” No one told me that dancing in the rain requires so much more forethought than I’ve given it.

Rather than having my fun stomping in the rain in knee-high galoshes and a slicker, I seem to have chosen to wear my patent slippers and satin sheath, ruining them for the dance floor. Returning to Mahdee, the practical matters of getting on with things mean that right now we’re often being creative with the raw materials right at hand for a particular project or doing something with the boat a bit differently than we might otherwise do. Today, this literally means David is making and installing a wood cleat for the gaff vang and wood blocks to mount the running backstay winches on rather than me finding the “just perfect” period-appropriate cleat and just-so-perfect winch-mounts for Mahdee. Yes, wood is always period-appropriate and the proper bronze mounting brackets would have been hard, if not impossible, to come by. Maybe I would have never found just the right things and determined just the right placement for them. You see, I haven’t found them yet–and time is ticking away. Each little choice–from Sunbrella instead of canvas, fleece instead of mohair, or paint instead of varnish–takes us down a path that I wonder “Is this compromising choice OK for classsic schooner Mahdee?” And now choosing to take advantage of an opportunity and sail north in just a few days–taking us into rain, fog, and cold rather than sunny warm tropics, I wonder, “Is this choice OK for me?”

That’s because, unlike the little girl I once was with boundless energy and a lifetime of resources to gather and use, I’m finally beginning to think my world is actually finite. With that, I begin to wonder if I should buy some galoshes to wear and stomp my feet and splash in full acknowledgement of the storm and with a totally different kind of abandon rather than pirouette and pretend to be totally oblivious to the rain.

Google Analytics Alternative