From Cubanna With Love

Coqui is safe in Portland, requiring only a few acts of derring-do

2008-06-06T14:59:00.000-07:00

At the end of May, we successfully delivered Coqui from Everett, WA to Portland with only three mishaps. Our route was 360 nautical miles and took us through Puget Sound to the Strait of Juan de Fuca then down the Washington coast to the Columbia River.

Our crew consisted of my dad (Bob), Anna, Heather and Chris, our captain for the delivery and the most experienced among us. The latter two were in fact required by the insurance company since Anna and I have little sailing experience. They also required us to rent an EPIRB (emergency beacon) and have onboard a life raft and GPS. Whatever happened to old-fashioned trust?

We started the trip by packing five adults and tons of gear into a rental car and driving to Everett. We arrived at the boat in the middle of the night and surely annoyed our liveaboard neighbors with our preparations which included loading 20 days worth of food onto the boat for the four-day trip.

The next morning we started out with Tom, the former owner, taking video of our departure and making us feel special. We had decent wind for a while but winds are fickle in the Sound and we soon had to motor to maintain our desired minimum speed of six knots. Nobody threw up, but the rough chop the first day made most of us feel at least a little nauseous. No matter, the scenery was gorgeous. We motored through the night taking shifts in pairs and when Anna and I woke up it was morning on the second day and we were 12 miles out into the ocean, which was glassy smooth without even a slight breeze. The calm was interrupted once by a small pod of what we think were humpback whales, with calf. At one point they surfaced 30ft from us before diving under the boat, making me ponder the article I had just read about a male whale ramming and sinking a sailboat off of Hawaii. Being able to tell a story like that would almost be worth it I thought, proving that I have no business sailing.

Since leaving the Strait of Juan de Fuca we had been continuously recalculating our fuel range because of the amount we had to motor. We wanted to avoid a stop in Westport since it would put us off-schedule and weren’t able to determine their fuel dock hours since they never answered the phone. So we sailed part of the day under spinnaker and made as much progress that night as we could in the very light winds. By morning we calculated that we were just inside of our fuel window to reach Astoria if we used our 5 gallon reserve.

At around noon on the third day we began our crossing of the Columbia River Bar. The bar is so dangerous because it’s a huge area of shallow water where the powerful flow of the Columbia slams into the incoming tides, or creates very fast currents if the tide is ebbing. Add to that lots of commercial traffic and light winds and it’s not difficult to imagine how bad it would be to lose our engine from running out of fuel.

The waves weren’t high during our crossing but we had to motor hard to make progress against the ebbing tide and we were burning fuel at an alarming rate while carefully navigating near the channel. Our gauge was reading zero when we approached the charted marina entrance, only to find that what we thought was the entrance was just a bank. We had to motor around to find the actual entrance cut into a massive steel floodwall, nearly invisible from our direction. I’ll forever hate the Port of Astoria for thinking it’s a good idea to leave a marina entrance entirely unmarked. When we filled up we found we had something like 45 minutes worth of fuel left after motoring for the better part of three days. Yikes.

From Astoria on, river navigation supplanted open water navigation, requiring far more concentration. We had to share the river with giant commercial ships while fighting a very strong current and watching for debris. Our first impact occurred during the night in a shallow channel with a large, submerged log. With no moon it was quite impossible to see, even with a bow watch. Since it was flowing with the current we hit it at 5 or 6 knots and jammed it into the bottom since the water was so shallow. We reversed off of it while checking for damage and found none but it’s nerve-wracking to hear the sound of an impact on the hull, which your irrational brain wants to imagine is about as strong as an egg shell. We anchored for the remainder of the night so that we could see objects in daylight.

The next day, during my navigation shift, we hit a submerged wingdam. The mistake I made was to follow a depth contour without accounting for the actual depth of the river, which was much higher than charted. Oops. Again, no apparent damage done but it’s hard to tell without hauling the boat out of the water. We had a smooth motor the remainder of the trip, finally arriving in Portland at 6pm on day four. If you happened to be driving over the I-5 interstate bridge that Sunday evening, you might have been one of the hundreds of cars cursing the sailboat that glided underneath and made you 10 minutes late.

Super-special thanks to Chris, Heather and my dad for helping us out on this mini-adventure! Complete pictures are here, except that there are none of my dad since all of them with him turned out blurry. He's part Sasquatch.

Stage 2...complete

2008-05-05T16:28:00.000-07:00

It feels slightly weird to refer to a boat as "her" seeing that she's really an "it", but I'll stick with tradition, no matter how politically insensitive, because it makes me feel manly.

We found our boat last month in Everett, WA and we closed yesterday! She's a 1983 Beneteau First 38, built in France and in excellent shape. She's currently in Everett but in two weeks we'll be sailing her down the Washington coast and up the Columbia to Hayden Island.

The buying process was similar to purchasing a house except that we had to put 10% down before we were even allowed to take her out. Didn't matter; the instant we saw her we were in love and we backed up our emotions with the knowledge that multiple First 38s have circumnavigated the world and at least one did it with a family of five. Beneteau is also one of the highest volume yacht-builders in the world which is extremely helpful when having repairs done and locating parts abroad.

Her previous owners named her Coqui, which we're keeping for now, and more pics are here. I'll post details of our 4-day trip from Everett in a couple of weeks.

XOXOX

Progress report

2008-01-07T23:40:00.001-08:00

Yeah yeah yeah, I know I fed everyone visions of grand adventures and I still don't own a boat but come on, the Portland real estate market is LAME. I'm even disappointing those who hoped I would leave the country for a while so they wouldn't have to listen to me (sorry mom).

Even so, there is good news to report. The sale of my house is now pending and should close in late February, barring any problem with the semi-weird deal. As soon as we have the (much-friggin-smaller-than-originally-anticipated) check in hand, Anna and I will shop 24hrs/day until a boat is had. We considered putting an offer on a local Catalina that we love while still in possession of the house, but what good are toys if you're too in debt to enjoy them? So we're watching...and waiting. Baby steps sir, baby steps. With any luck, we'll be sailing by summer, which we tentatively plan to spend part of near Vancouver Island to earn our legs.

Thanks for all of the support and encouragement, we love you all!

How to keep up

2008-01-07T22:00:00.000-08:00

Greetings peoples! To follow our travels online you have a few choices, which I envy because they are all cheaper and safer than ours.

The least-nerdy option is to get updates via email. Those who sent me email addresses will be automatically added to the mailing list but if you'd like to remove yourself from it or change your settings just follow the instructions at the bottom of any update message.
Subscribe to the blog using any blog reader like Outlook, Google Reader or one of many others. Just go to the site and click the 'Subscribe' link.
Simply check the site whenever you feel like it. If you hate email and don't read blogs, you can just visit the site to catch up but you won't get any reminders for new posts. If you like the sound of that, just unsubscribe from the email list.

Any of these choices will get you the same content since posts are sent to the blog and mailing list simultaneously. Also, we won't post that often so don't fear for a flood of useless crap from us. Let us know if you need any help, we want you with us!

The crew without a clue

2008-01-07T20:56:00.000-08:00

Asher
Ship's Boatswain and Chief Paper Snowflake Maker
Age 6

This strapping young lad is Asher and if you claim to have seen a more thoughtful and stoic countenance I will be forced to call you a liar, dear sir. Asher's artistic and organizational aptitude will no doubt come in quite handy to plan passages and entertain the crew once underway. He is moderately excited and a little bit skeptical about life on a sailboat but as parents, Anna and Cuba doggedly educate him on the wonders of life at sea with nary a mention of cramped quarters, upset stomachs or gale force winds, much like those Navy commercials. Such is the privilege of parenthood.

Liberty
Liaison and translator to dolphins
Age 4

As fearless as any salty-dog sailor on the sea, Liberty is ready for absolutely anything, anytime, anywhere, save sleep. That would be a highly valued quality if she were old enough to stand watch at 4am, but as it is she'd better learn to make a bloody good cup of coffee. Her entertainment capital and cheery disposition more than make up for any deficiency contrived by youth however, and the crew looks forward to the embellished and best-selling memoir of our travels that is sure to come from her hand.

Anna
Wanna-be pirate queen and Ship's Flogger
Age 28

A gregarious mother-of-two and excellent dancer, Anna is everything one could hope for in a mate, ship or otherwise. Anna and Cuba met in September of '07 and as is their way, took time to reflect on their future, exhibiting patience and prudence. By mid-September of '07 they had finally decided to live together, sail together and start working towards a life on a boat. The general feeling among their friends is that Anna will quickly become the skipper while Cuba is relegated to the galley which is, after all, a man's place.

Cuba (okay, "Ron" to his mother)
Wanna-be pirate queen wanna-be
Age 30

Once widely regarded amid the Midwest as the person who could eat the most fried rice in one sitting, Cuba's slow descent into obscurity eventually brought him to Portland and provided him with friends, family and a girl he couldn't possibly deserve, so does he embrace contentment and settle down? No. Instead, he talks this woman and her two kids into moving onto a sailboat to spend years at sea in the Pacific. As his wise father once said, "The only person dumber than an Alsobrook is someone who marries one."