Hi there everyone!
I’m sure you are all wondering how things with us are, how our journey north went, whether the kids are enjoying themselves or not, and if boating life everything we thought that it would be? Or if we are we kicking ourselves in the tail about the fact that we just traded in our home for a fiberglass container that someone assured us would float? :) Hmmmm.
Well we had a very interesting and exciting journey up the coast. I met up with the boys in Astoria at around 4pm and we left promptly as to catch a good tide out the bar. Although lacking my fake mustache to assure that I would fit in, I was still super excited to be on this journey. Thanks to our amazing community who pulled together at the last minute to see this happen. Thank you all again.
We safely crossed the bar at around 7pm to both our mothers’ relief. And as we were keeping watch with our binoculars we started to see the most massive flock of birds about half a mile out. They were both on the water and swarming around in the sky in a clockwise fashion. As we approached them we were almost left breathless with the magnitude of the flock we were about to sail through. And if that wasn’t enough of a sight to behold, we were joined by a pod of hungry dolphins eager to be a part in the feeding frenzy. I don’t know who was more excited, me or Lloyd, but between the two of us jumping back and forth from side to side trying to see everything we had the others spinning in circles. With as many nature documentaries we have seen there is really nothing that can prepare you to actually experience nature in the first hand. It was truly a great way for me to start off the trip.
We sailed all that night through heavy wind and waves taking 6 hour shifts. We were in opposition to both the wind and the current causing a rather rough ride through the night. It is amazing to think of the pounding that this little boat is capable of taking. There were definitely a few moments that made me wonder what our boat was really made of, and who declared it water worthy. We are harnessing two of the most powerful natural forces on earth and asking them to work for us. It’s pretty mind blowing.
The next day at around 3pm we decided to turn the engine on for a while and make up some of the ground we had lost. Due to the head wind and strong current we had fallen a little behind on our schedule. We set the auto pilot and sat back. For the next three hours we all just kicked it, checking occasionally for other ships and such and having a few laughs while trying to stay dry from the random sneaker waves that were determined to drench me. Shockingly I started to smell what seemed to be smoke, like from an engine… Our engine!!! That’s not what you want to smell while motoring 20miles off the coast being 100 miles south of your departure from the ocean. All I could do was yell “Engine! Engine! Our engine! Its smoking!” by the time Cuba ran downstairs to see what was happening there was a thick billow of smoke coming from the inside of our boat. As I turned the engine off I realized that we had to pull sails immediately. We had lost all our steering ability with the engine and were beginning to be sideswiped by 5ft swells that weren’t up for reasoning.
Diagnosis: a burst coolant hose and antifreeze everywhere!!! Hmmm….. There was no way to go get a new one. So we tried to get creative with some gasket maker, gasket material, a roll of duct tape and about 6 hose clamps, but all we managed to do was give ourselves an additional 60sec. worth of engine. Total bummer. The only thing to do was to continue sailing. So we continued on all night. We had good wind but because it was coming from the wrong direction we were forced to sail far to the west and come back. After sailing all night and most of the morning we were still on the ocean. Now two days behind schedule.
3pm on Saturday. We lost so much wind that we were struggling to keep the sail from luffing no matter which way we were turned. We were drifting in the current with the tip of the peninsula only 5miles to the northeast of us. I must say that drifting along the Oregon coast with no wind and no engine is not the most reassuring place to be, especially with cove names like Destruction Island, and Deception Pass… There were way too many huge rocks within view of our naked eyes making us feel uncomfortable, but it wasn’t till we drifted close enough to clearly see the white crest of waves crashing onto them that we became concerned.
8pm on Saturday. We made a Pan Pan call to the coast guard. This was new to us and new to Chris who told us about it. It’s a non emergency call to inform the coast guard of our situation and ask their recommendation. We informed them of our situation and told them that we were not requesting assistance at the time, but wanted them to know our location and situation… They were on it. Within 15min. they had a vessel deployed and en route to get us.
9:15pm. The US coast guard arrived with a ship FULL of young trainees in uniform!!! Hmmm, now I see why Lloyd disabled our engine. It was everything we could do to keep him from rushing to the bow of the boat in his underwear so he could impress them while washing the deck (alright I guess that’s not really fair. The other boys were just as excited to see them as he was).
By 10:45pm we were safely docked in Neah Bay for the night. Being extremely relived to be out of the ocean and completely bushed we went straight to bed (it was like a bear den nothing but heavy sleepers and loud snoring stuffed into a 40ft cave). In the morning Cuba and I went to find a spare hose that his dad had picked up in Forks and drove all the way out to hide at the dock for us to find (I really don’t know what we would have done without his parents. They were amazingly supportive and helpful). They found us on the way to the hose. They were driving up with our kids. We were originally supposed to meet them in Bainbridge Island and swap crew for kids, but due to the unforeseen events that transpired on the coast we were going to have to do it in Neah Bay instead. While Cuba and his dad were replacing the 20year old burst hose in our engine the rest of us decided that it was as good a time as any to send Lloyd up the mast to rerun a line (the topping lift for our boom) that somehow got loose.
All set and ready to go (at least so he had been convinced for the moment). He still whined plenty while we were hoisting him up, but I shouldn’t say anything because I got out of it by convincing him that he really wanted to do it. Thanks Lloyd! :) I’ll stop teasing you now. Once he was at the top he started feeding it down the mast. I was sitting on top of the boom peeking into a hole no bigger than a quarter waiting for it to come into sight. We realized quickly that there wasn’t a set track for it to come out of so I was going to have to fish it out. Well, the only thing we could think of that we had on hand that might work in a pinch was the underwire from my bra. So I dissected my bra and fished the underwire out and with uneven boobs sat on top of the boom for 45min. retrieving the topping lift. All the while there was a huge sea lion devouring a fish right next to our boat.
Finally!!!! We got it out and brought Lloyd down.
Bob and Cuba finished installing the hose that burst just to notice that all of our hoses looked original and in not too good of condition. Only there wasn’t any place in Neah Bay to get replacements. In fact there wasn’t anything in Neah Bay. Ahhh Neah Bay, there is only really one thing to say about Neah Bay and that is Grizzle!!! I was a minority being one of the only women on the docks and non-native in town. And the locals don’t smile much, if at all. We couldn’t get out of there fast enough.
Monday morning we went limping off out of Neah Bay with an engine that had one hose with a slight leak and another one that looked so swollen it was ready to burst, but we had to get to Port Angeles where there would be the ability to get replacements. We had said goodbye to Chad, Lloyd and Chris the day before and were sad to be without them. They were a great crew. Happily enduring being cold, sleep deprived and off and on with sea sickness (poor Lloyd got it the worst. I tried to tell him that pooping of the stern of the boat would make him feel sick, but he didn’t believe me). They helped us with the ocean and didn’t get to take part in the strait, which is much more fun and they would have really liked. We were really glad to have our kids back though. We had missed them a lot, but were a little nervous how they were going to do with a whole day of sail. Our goal was to break them in slow. And we had a long day ahead of us.
We checked our weather window carefully and set off at around 7:30am running our engine just long enough to get out of the marina and into the strait. The wind was very light but predicted to pick up by mid morning and then more in the afternoon. Just as we were getting into the channel we spotted two Orca whales. The kids were crazy with excitement. They could hardly sit still. It was really cool.
Our wind was pretty light for the morning and we had to do a wing on wing configuration with our sails to make any ground, but once we did we actually did really well. This leg of the journey was much more fun. We got to just hang out, play games and sight see. The sun even came out and it wasn’t too cold. We really enjoyed the trip.
At around 3pm. The wind picked up quite a lot and we decided to take down our mainsail to have better control of the boat. Boy was I glad we did because along with the wind was a nice assortment of 3-5 foot swells. They were pulling the boat everywhere. Once we figured out how to steer them we did pretty well. Cuba is so my hero. He steered through them for hours because with the kids on board I didn’t want to take the learning curve. I did eventually get behind the wheel and have him walk me through them. After the initial nervous feeling subsided it was really quite fun.
I was most amazed at how the kids did. This was a long day and they had never been on water like that and we were really hoping that it wouldn’t scare them or make them sick. They loved every minute of it. They kept wanting bigger waves and then cheered when they came. We were super happy because this could have been the breaking trip if they had hated it. Asher had a moment of feeling a little sick but after he took some Dramamine and had a nap he was as perky as ever.
Getting into Port Angeles was its own adventure. We knew that we only had about 20-30min. worth of engine left and really didn’t want to have any issues with the kids on board. As we rounded the corner to come into the harbor there was a huge ship that was coming towards us. We had to get out of the channel and make room for it, but the wind was ridiculously strong and not in our favor. We ended up heaving-to so that they could get by, but then they just pulled ahead and anchored right in the middle of the harbor. Conserving our engine and sailing past wasn’t looking like much of an option. So we pulled the sails in and turned on the engine.
It was up to our trusty little broken engine now. Watching depth and engine temp like crazy we managed to find the transient moorage as our engine was hissing all the antifreeze out of the not-yet-replaced coolant hose. We were so concerned about just getting there that when it came time to dock I hadn’t untied all of our dock lines yet so that was another minor fiasco. Oops.
Let’s just say that we are happily and safely in Port Angeles, more in love than ever and feel like we have learned a bunch. We had to special order the parts that we need, but our salvation just arrived in a box in the form of new engine parts (salvation sure is pricey around here). But the people have been nothing shy of awesome, super friendly and eager to help. The kids and I have had a great time. We ate the biggest cinnamon roll ever and roamed around to the marine center where we looked in microscopes for a long time. Asher and I hunted for all the phytoplankton in the petri dish, while liberty (miss social) found an instant friend to play with.
The kids are adjusting to boat life better than we thought, and they love having their own rooms. It was really adorable to watch their first exchange realizing that they have to ask permission to enter each others’ rooms and asking if the other wants to play. We gave them their own tiny digital camera that they have been filling up daily and they are writing in their journals. They want me to write a blog for them from their journals so I will be doing that next.
More to come later that’s enough for now thanks for your support and love we couldn’t have done it without you all.
For a full week now, we've been voluntarily stuck in our San Juan home-away-from-home, Friday Harbor. Never before have we seen such fascinating sea life within a marina and we gaze at it until we almost fall into the clear water chock full of jellyfish, shrimp, anemones, leafy seaweed, crabs and lord-knows-what-those-things-are. The marina even has a resident seal named Popeye who's been here since she was a pup, taking expensive fish from marks like us who happily buy it for her from the seafood stand.
Before long, our kids became fast friends with his son George (Jr.?) and they invited us out on a whale watching tour for which they'd hired a captain. I'm sure they wouldn't have died, but it was fortunate for all involved that we accepted. The first hours were uneventful and while we didn't spot any whales, we saw lots of beer. About half-way through the trip we pulled into Roche Harbor for appetizers and while hunting for dock space, Skipper Ryan discovered that the controls weren't responding quite right so he scrubbed the attempt and headed for deeper water to figure out the problem which turned out to be the port propeller stuck in gear. We were afraid to turn the boat off in case it didn't come back on so we helped him anchor while the boat did slow circles in front of folks who surely thought us idiots. After a full day, we arrived back in Friday Harbor having circumnavigated the island so that Anna and I could prepare for everyone an exquisite meal of hot dogs and mac & cheese aboard Coqui. I adore having eight people crowded around the table down below; it feels like home.
