Sunday, May 31

Fort Bragg!

Just kidding! 

Friday night was tough. Huge waves, gale force winds, pretty wild. Early Saturday morning found Jason and me sitting in the cockpit together, wearing as many clothes as we could manage to wear and still move, shivering and miserable, but headed for Fort Bragg and a little respite from the rough seas. Around 7:30, we made our way up the little inlet to the marina...only to learn that they don't have any services unless you're a commercial fishing boat. They recently shut down their fuel dock, and now fuel is delivered by truck, available Monday through Friday, by appointment only. The nearest marina with a working fuel dock was in Bodega Bay, about 80 miles south. Eighty miles doesn't sound like much -- you could drive it in an hour and a half -- but on Pensive, it's a full day's sail. After we moaned and cried and felt sorry for ourselves for a little while, we headed south. 

We made it to Bodega Bay around 8:00 last night, tied up at the first empty slip we found, and went to sleep. And here we are. The weather report tells us that coastal wind is extremely light right now, but should start acting normal again by Tuesday morning, so we're deciding how long we want to stay here.  

Once we resigned ourselves to what felt like more wasted time, yesterday's trip was pretty nice. We all rolled our eyes at our own ridiculousness. "Pretty nice" means we only wore three or four layers of clothes instead of five or six! Fantastic! It was still mostly grey and cloudy, but a little warmer. 

I picked up my phone (now used as a clock) sometime Friday night and held it up over my face to see what time it was, a strong wave hit us and knocked it out of my hand, and now I have a phone-shaped bruise on my face. That pretty much sums up Friday night. 

Yesterday was my birthday, but when the girls woke up and realized we weren't stopping at Fort Bragg, after all, they suggested we pretend it's today instead. I think that's an excellent idea. Today is already much better than yesterday, and my birthday celebration has now begun. Instead of having a "community glass" of water, we all got our own glasses at breakfast today! Big time partying. The grey skies are looking a little brighter, and the marina here has unlimited hot water for showering!  

The trip so far is not exactly going the way we'd imagined it, but we're doing okay. We're all still laughing a lot. No one has suggested we call it quits. We've still got some Tostitos and some ramen noodles left. We're continuing to believe that the sun will shine on us eventually. Our shower score is zero-zero, even though we've had a few close calls, and even though Nora has tried to trick us into arguing a few times. She's sneaky. 

Yesterday's menu: 

breakfast: leftovers

lunch: tuna salad on crackers

dinner: roasted salmon with bok choy

Today's: 

breakfast: scrambled eggs and bacon

lunch, dinner: TBD

Friday, May 29

The gods are against us. The weather since we left Seattle has been the same every single day: overcast, grey, damp, and cold. The wind has been misbehaving, too. For the last two months, it's been acting predictably, but as soon as we came out of our safe little bay, things went wacky. I'm writing this now with 20ft waves coming at us from every direction. It's crazy. We've zigged and zagged and made a little star pattern as we've come south, and today we learned that there's a tropical storm, Andres, forming off the coast of Baja California. He looks like he's going to turn into a hurricane and move northwest -- possibly headed the same way we will be. We don't really want to meet him, so we've revised our plan a little bit. We're currently about 60 miles from Ft Bragg, so we're going to head that way and tuck in until we see what Andres is going to do. We've all been wearing the same clothes for a week now, and we don't smell very good. I hope they let us into the marina. We'll reevaluate the rest of our route after we find out what Andres is planning.

We saw millions of those little jellyfish our first few days out, and then they disappeared. They were back today, and in even bigger numbers than before. There were entire blankets of them on the surface of the water. No one has been brave or desperate enough to eat one.

We usually keep the water pressure turned off and just turn it on when we need it. I turned it on before dinner, and a little later, Grace opened the door to their bathroom. You've seen those cartoons where someone opens a door and a wall of water flows out? That's pretty much what happened. Somehow the girls' shower got turned on and it completely flooded their bathroom, and those 20ft waves I mentioned were just rocking it out into the cabin every couple of seconds. I got the drain pump turned on to suck most of it out, but now all of our towels and laundry are soaked through. If we had some sunshine, maybe we could dry them, but it seems the sun is afraid of us. He just keeps hiding.

We've been out here for almost a week, and the constant sameness is surreal. l knew that there wouldn't be a lot of landmarks, but the unchanging weather and horizons make us feel a little crazy. We can easily imagine that we're the only people left in the world. We haven't even seen any other boats, except for a tanker just beyond the horizon that almost looked like a ghost ship, it was so faint. If we didn't have our GPS, we'd have no reason to believe that we're even moving - we could just be on an endless ocean treadmill.

Yesterday's menu:
breakfast: scrambled eggs and bacon
lunch: pretzels
dinner: chili and cornbread

Today's:
breakfast: leftovers
lunch: ramen noodles
dinner: mac & cheese, tomato soup

Wednesday, May 27

We'd been warned that it takes about three days for seasickness to abate, and as long as we're counting days of ocean sailing, not just days on the boat, that seems to be about right. We're all feeling much better now. We managed to keep a sense of humor about it -- the barf jokes were flying like crazy. If you can laugh while you've got your head in a bucket, you know things haven't gotten too terrible. We're all very, very happy to be past that stage, though.

Anyway, we anchored at Neah Bay on Saturday night. Remember that fishing derby I mentioned happening there over the weekend? Know what that means? Lots and lots of dead fish. Those dead fish draw sea lions and walruses and birds, and they all stink like crazy. It was sort of equal parts cool and disgusting. It was a quiet place to spend the night, and we could have done worse than waking to the chorus of dozens of sea lions piled on top of each other and seeing eagles perched everywhere.

Since then, we've seen a few dolphins and billions of jellyfish. The jellyfish wash up onto the boat with the waves. The water drains off, but the jellyfish stick to the deck. They're only about the size of a silver dollar, and they have handy little wings that you can use to pick them up and throw them back where they belong. Yesterday, I saw a bird. He was big and ugly, but I said hello anyway, and I'm pretty sure we're friends now.

We left Sunday morning and headed out into the ocean. Where the waters of the strait met the waters of the ocean, it was a swirly whirly mess. The winds weren't behaving nicely, either, so we had to go way west of our intended route and then come back east, which felt like a frustrating waste of time. We're back on track now.

It's cold. We knew it would be cold for a few days, but we didn't know it would be this cold. We're all wearing all of the clothes we brought, and for a while, we couldn't all be on deck at the same time because we didn't have enough clothes for everyone. We don't have a thermometer on the boat, but I'd estimate it to be about -432º. I'm not sure why the ocean hasn't frozen over. I've decided that it's going to be sunny and warm in two more days. I'm basing that on pure, desperate, blind hope.

The menu for Sunday, Monday, Tuesday:
breakfast: rice
lunch: nothing
supper: rice

Today's menu:
breakfast: berry muffins
lunch: baked potatoes with salsa
supper: chicken tagine, spinach and mushrooms

--

Kayte: ramen burritos? I'm intrigued.

Sara A.: Thanks for the tip about ginger pills. I don't know if they're helping, but I'm afraid to stop taking them.

Martha: Eggs are fabulous, and we love your illustrations.

Robbie: I've been daydreaming about a Bloody Mary. I'll be coming in to see you very soon after we're back in town.

Tuesday, May 26

We're still alive, just seasick. It's been a rough few days, but I think it's improving. We remain in good spirits. More tomorrow, I hope.

Friday, May 22 - Saturday, May 23

This morning, in the pre-dawn darkness around 4:00, I was leaning out over the bow, pulling great gobs of nasty off of the anchor before I finished hauling it in, and I thought, "I wish I had a flashlight. A headlamp would be even better ... Wait ... I packed a headlamp! Go, me!" Packing planning success! Woohoo! (I didn't actually GET the headlamp, but I'll have it tomorrow. If I remember.)

I failed in one respect, though: ramen noodles. I love ramen noodles. Love them. I could eat them every single day. Not the fresh kind, although they're plenty good, but the cheap little packages of dried noodles found in every supermarket in the US. (During our vegan phase a few years ago, I discovered that the Top Ramen Oriental flavor didn't have any meat products, so now I'm partial to that one. Obviously, we didn't try veganism for health reasons.) I realized yesterday that I didn't bring nearly enough ramen noodles. Fortunately, we made it today to Neah Bay, our last stop before Hawaii, and I managed to find a few more packages in the little marina store. Disaster averted.

Jason and I both had some doubts yesterday about whether turning back and tucking in overnight was a mistake, but our passage today was so much smoother that we're comfortable with the decision. We have to remember that while we definitely want to make it to Hawaii, we're not racing anyone, and it's much more important to us that we're comfortable and enjoying the trip. Aside from my ongoing seasickness (see the Saltines below), I think we're succeeding.

What we ate yesterday:
breakfast: cinnamon rolls
lunch: Tostitos Hint of Lime
dinner: chicken cacciatore and Caesar salad

Today's menu:
breakfast: oatmeal
lunch: Saltines for me, mac & cheese for everyone else
supper: linguine with pesto

As we were unpacking yesterday, we were all teasing Grace because she brought four pairs of shoes, which is absolutely ridiculous. I also have four pairs, but mine are perfectly reasonable. I have rain boots, because we're on a boat and things get wet. I have boat sneakers, because they have non-skid soles and someone I know told me a gory story about a particularly horrifying injury that someone received when he was sailing to Hawaii and not wearing shoes. I have flip-flops, because we're going to Hawaii. And I have shoes to wear on the flight home, because I would lose all self-respect if I wore any of those other shoes. (I'm not usually opposed to flip-flops, but after three weeks at sea, my bare feet might frighten people. I don't want to risk it.)

I took a lot of pictures to share our living quarters today, but it turns out there's no cellular service up here in the middle of nowhere, so we're switching over to satellite service and don't have the bandwidth. Sorry. You'd all have loved seeing the library and the gym and the master bath, where you can take a shower while you're sitting on the toilet for maximum efficiency.

Tomorrow, we finally head out into the open ocean!

Lessons

Somehow, in the middle of all of our planning and preparations, we all failed to realize that this is a holiday weekend. It's not just any holiday, either, it's Memorial Day, which is when all the people whose boats have been sitting in the marinas all winter long head out on the water. Apparently, it's also the weekend of a huge annual fishing derby at Neah Bay, where we were planning to stop one last time -- without a reservation -- before we head out to sea. The whole marina is booked, with a waiting list. Oops. 

Luckily, we didn't make it that far, anyway! We cast off our lines just after 4:30 this morning and had peaceful, calm waters to usher us out of Elliott Bay. We made it to the Strait of Juan de Fuca before we hit some rough water, getting rougher...and the forecast changed to gale force winds through tonight. I was lying flat on my back, vowing not to be sick, trying to decide if this was actually fun or not, and thinking of things that would be less fun (getting eaten by tigers, snow-skiing naked) or more fun (lying on a beach in the sunshine, not being seasick), and Grace was sitting in the cockpit turning green, when Jason decided to TURN AROUND and head back to quieter water. I knew I loved him. Now we're peacefully anchored in a quiet little bay off of Port Townsend. We're going to wait out the weather and try again tomorrow morning. My little family is happy out on the deck of the boat. 

Survival at Sea

I don't know a lot about survival at sea, and I'm hoping not to learn anything else. We have every safety device known to man, and it's now all set up and ready to use.

We all have leashes to tie ourselves to the boat if the water is rough, and tags to wear on our life jackets that will set off an alarm if we fall overboard. We're taking shifts so that someone is awake and on watch 24 hours a day. Jason and I split the overnight duty (he's got 11pm-3am, I'll have 3am-7am), and we'll each be doing our shifts alone, but the girls will be taking theirs together during the day. We also have an emergency beacon that will send our location to the Coast Guard if needed. And of course, we have a satellite phone and modem, so we can watch funny cat videos online if things get really bad.

Our life raft will automatically explode out of its case and inflate if it hits the water. I'm imagining that would be pretty neat to watch, except that if it happens, I'm unlikely to be sitting nearby with a bucket of popcorn. It's really heavy and awkward, and we had a couple of near misses while we were perfecting the installation. If Jason hadn't been nearby to catch it, we would have had a few chances to see it explode. It's strapped tightly to the back of the boat now, though, and I'm hoping it will stay there forever.

I'm a little bit of a weirdo about preparing for our survival of an apocalypse, so we had a few weeks of emergency MREs at home in a secret hiding place, and we've taken those to bring on the life raft with us. We could survive for a while with those, as long as the megalodon shark doesn't get us first. 

We also have survival suits (and my Halloween costume for next year). Those suckers are a little strange. 

There are four sizes: Child, Intermediate Adult, Adult, and Jumbo (the brands differ a little bit in the specific size names and limits, but they're all pretty similar). They encase your body completely, so they all have weight ranges and maximum height limits, and you don't want to get one that's too small. The Child size is for weights from 44-110lbs. That would fit three of us, but the maximum height is 4'2". We're all too tall! That never happens! So we're all going for Intermediate Adult, which fits weights 110-180 lbs, and heights up to 5'8". Jason gets to be a normal Adult (110-330 lbs, up to 6'3"). Jumbo is over 220lbs or 6'3". They all come in handy little carrying bags with instructions for putting them on correctly. ("If time permits, remove shoes...put non-dominant arm in, then hood, then other arm...Relax. You can not sink.") 

Our most important survival technique involves a little competition. If the girls argue, Jason and I get to give them a point on our scoreboard. If we're arguing, we get a point. When we get to Hawaii, the team with the fewest points gets to take the first hot showers. I'm totally winning this one, as long as I can get everyone else to understand the rules. I had to explain last night that the contest doesn't begin until we're actually on the boat. Arguments on shore do NOT count. I'm getting them out of my system while I still can.

Sailing: A Love Story

It's surprising to me how many people ask if I'm really okay with going on this trip. A lot (a LOT) of people seem to think that I only agreed to go to make Jason happy, but that's not really right. I do want him to be happy, and it's true that the trip was his idea, but the conversation went like this:

Jason: I think we should sail our boat to Hawaii.

Me: Okay. When?

He didn't have to persuade me. I'm the reason our family flew through the air with the greatest of ease, went ice climbing with axes and crampons, rode bikes through Japanese rice paddies. In fact, the reason we're sailing at all is that I wanted to learn how a few years ago. I'm the one who'll be hanging from the top of the mast in the middle of the ocean if there's a problem. I may not look like much, but on the inside, beneath the curly hair and the knobby knees, I'm a beast. I'm burly and brave and tough. (Yes, I do know what those words mean.) I don't usually go around telling everyone these things (at least not until now), but Jason knows me. He certainly knows that I'm brave enough to tell him if I don't want to do something.

I love sailing. I love it even more on simpler boats than ours. I love the sound of the water rushing below the boat. I love when our boat is heeling over the water, zipping along because we've harnessed power of the wind. We've harnessed the power of the wind! That's a glorious, godlike feeling. I find charts fascinating, I think Morse code is cool, and I can't wait to compare my sextant readings to our GPS coordinates. Jason would like a bigger boat; I'd like a smaller one. If I had my way about it, we'd probably spend a couple of years sailing around the world on a homemade raft, navigating only by the stars. (We'd have to tow a barge for all of our food, but that's a separate issue.)

I'm not scared about going on this trip. I'm excited. The things that really frighten me (grumpy people, cockroaches, tardiness) aren't going to be out on the water with us. We're both moderately intelligent people and competent sailors. If something happens to Jason, I'm not going to throw my hands in the air and just drift around aimlessly until we die. I'll have a good cry, eat some chips, trim the sails, and keep going. My expectation, though, is that I'll be able to spend my shifts eating the chips, trimming the sails, and enjoying the journey.