Going Slowly, Sometimes in the Wrong Direction
Or
Sailing from Hawaii to Oregon (Summer 2013)
I have two lists – the first is a very rarely discussed or
disclosed list of things I would actually like to do in life. This list morphs and changes over time,
mostly as my interests change. As I do
something on the list, the list doesn’t get smaller but rather shatters into
multiple goals I didn’t know I had. So, for
example, running a marathon was on the list.
Then it became running a marathon under 4 hours. It also then became running an ultra
marathon. Thus, the list never ends but
subdivides like an amoeba.
The second list is made up of things I never really thought
about doing or had any intention of doing but when the opportunity emerges I jump
at the chance. I call it my serendipitous bucket list.
Sailing across the ocean technically started on the second
list, something I didn’t give much thought to doing. At some point, however, it made it onto the
first list. However, the specifics of
what I meant by “sailing across the ocean” were not all that clear. It is hard to say if what I had in mind included
sailing across the ocean on a 38 foot boat with only one other person for 24
days. However, given the fact I’ve been
told I’m not a good sailor, I went with what was open to me.
It began with a phone call.
The conversation went something like this:
Ron [who taught me what I know about sailing]: There is a guy looking for crew to sail to
Oregon and you should give him a call.
Me: What kind of
experience would I need?
Ron: He is looking
for a woman who can cook and stand watch.
Me: Well it seems I
match the criteria.
Ron: It is a good
opportunity to build your sailing resume.
Me [to myself]: I
have a sailing resume? I need a sailing
resume? Who knew I should be writing down
my sailing experience. What counts I
wonder?
Ron: You should give
him a call quickly before someone else takes the position.
Me: Thanks! I will.
And I did
That is how I met Richard.
Richard had been sailing around the world for the last 15
years more or less. He would at times
head back to the United States to deal with family issues, but then he would
return to his boat and sail it to another destination – Morocco, Australia, the
South Pacific, you name it, he had been there.
He had arrived in Honolulu after a 30+ day sail from South America. His plan was to regroup, enjoy Hawaii for a
bit and then make what was to be the last leg of his 15-year journey back to
Oregon. In part his retirement from
sailing was brought on by the fact his girlfriend, Anita, who had been sailing
with him for much of this time, decided she was going home to Oregon for good. He was choosing to join her.
After I phoned, we met at the yacht club where Richard was
checking his email. He was a scruffy
guy, who looked typically Oregonean mixed with seafarer. He seemed not to be a crazy psychopath. One of my criteria for long-term intense
activities is that my partner not be a crazy psychopath. I can handle pretty much anything else I
think.
 |
| Richard about half way through our voyage |
Richard explained a bit of what he wanted in his crew. My duties would include cooking dinners. As Richard explained it, he would take care of
breakfast and lunch would be sort of somewhere in the middle. Richard would do the dishes. He claimed he was not a good cook, hence the
division of cooking labor. He also liked
to have everything in its exact place, hence the division of dishwashing labor.
I would also need to stand watches, which were three-hour
rotations. My first watch would be 6PM –
9PM, then again from midnight to 3AM, then again from 6AM – ect. However, he said, the morning watch wasn’t as
important since he didn’t really need much sleep and generally didn’t go back
to sleep until after breakfast anyway.
The days were a bit less formal about watches but it was a good idea to
be checking the radar and/or having someone on deck most of the time.
Unless it was bad weather.
Then the idea was you just huddled down below and
periodically acted like a groundhog by poking your head up high enough to see
around.
After Richard finished doing his email, he took me to see
his boat, Moonshadow.
Moonshadow is a 38
foot Alujueaha [though I am spelling this incorrectly] and Richard has kept her
in pristine condition.
The cabin was
wood paneled and very clean.
 |
| The Galley |
 |
| Since we "hot bunked" meaning we just rotated shifts of sleep -- this is the bunk we slept in for the trip. |
There was
no unnecessary clutter, though Richard had plenty of books on board – both
reference books, but also books to read.
Cruising, it turns out, includes lots of time for reading.
An alien concept to my sailing experience so
far.
The boat seemed in great condition even though many of the
lines and sheets (sailing for ropes) seemed old (though who am I trying to
fool, I don’t know anything about what makes a boat in good condition).
So, in my mind, Richard was not a psychopath and the boat
seemed seaworthy and after some issues with the timing for his trip, I was
signed on as crew. How could I say no to
an opportunity to sail across the ocean?
Given I was to be the cook, I started prepping food and
menus for a trip that could take anywhere from 21-30 days. I bought a vacuum sealer and made lots of
meals. My theory was it would be easier
to heat up pre-prepared food than try to cook it on the boat.
I was right about that.
Also, in the event I was sea sick, I would not be shirking
my cooking duties, but instead could quickly heat up a meal and then go about
being sea sick.
I was right about that too.
Either way, I had somewhere around 15-20 meals cooked,
depending on how much we ate, all frozen and vacuum sealed. I don’t know what other people eat while
sailing from Hawaii to Oregon, but we ate a lot of Indian food.
Given the nature of my summer, I then went traveling in
Europe for 2 weeks, assuming all the time that Richard would find a better
companion, set sail and leave me with three weeks of frozen dinners for two.
I have abandonment issues since my divorce. Go figure.
However, he did not throw me away for someone better. Thus, in the two days between my return from
Europe and our trip, we finalized the provisioning, I packed my bags (actually
I had done this before leaving for Europe because that is just who I am), I
wrapped up my work stuff, I said goodbye to my friends and we set sail.
To Kauai. [Day one]
I’ve sailed to Kauai before and so found this leg of the
trip a bit anti-climatic. However, the
trajectory for our trip North before we head East is evidently better from
Kauai. Also, Richard wanted to see the
island and chances were he wasn’t going to be sailing back this way any time
soon.
 |
| Leeward side of Oahu |
 |
| Heading to Kaui |
As we left the Ala Wai harbor, we raised the sails. Then proceeded to turn the motor on and use
it for the next six or so hours. There
was no wind. I’m not sure what the omens
are for leaving on an oceanic crossing without wind, but then we had bananas on
board too. Richard wasn’t one to be concerned with superstitions (as he liked
to say, women were not supposed to be on boats either).
It is about 121 nm to Hanalei Bay from Honolulu and we
motored a good part of it. I became worried
that if we were using up this much fuel getting to Kauai, how would we make it
through an entire 2400 mile journey?
Richard assured me we would have enough.
Aside from motoring if there was no wind, we would use the engine to
re-charge the batteries and run the water filter. However, neither of these took too much fuel.
As we finally began to leave the Oahu shore the wind picked
up and we were able to sail.
Our target
speed was 5 knots or about 8 miles/hour.
This was our target speed for the entire 2400 miles.
I can run this fast, actually faster most days.
Richard said he was heading down to get some sleep, said
good night and left me by myself.
I tried to act like this was nothing, but after he went
below I was on my own and in charge of a sailboat for the very first time.
Ever.
All other crossings I have done to this point involved at
least one other person and I was not the one in charge but more along as moral support.
On Moonshadow, standing watch means you have to try to make
sure you stay on course. We were using a
windvain to navigate, which is basically a wooden stick contraption that you
hook up to the rudder that will steer the boat based upon wind angles. It does need to be adjusted every once in
awhile since it isn’t a compass, but otherwise it keeps you from have having to
steer all that much.
Watching also means you try to make sure you don’t hit
anything. At night this means watching
for other boats since you won’t see anything in the water in the dark anyway. We had radar and also could identify how far
boats were and their anticipated closest point of interception, but it was good
to keep your eyes peeled just in case.
On this first night, after the sun set, I watched the
fireworks from the 4th of July go off along Oahu – I could see the
fireworks from Ko Olina and Haleiwa at the same time getting smaller in the
distance.
Soon it was dark except of the stars and the bioluminescence
in the water. I spent my first three
hour watch waiting for the seas to get heavy and the winds to rise. I imagined all sorts of potentially catastrophic
scenarios – which turned out to be one of my favorite nighttime pastimes. On
that first night, catastrophe was sure to hit in the form of the impending
rough seas and high winds. The boat
would somehow break in the bad weather and we would sink. However, this never happened. The channel was
almost as still as a bathtub. Later I
spent a good deal of time thinking about giant octopus coming out from the deep
and destroying our boat. Being alone in
the dark in the middle of the ocean doesn’t necessarily bring out the most
rational side of a person.
I’m pretty sure Richard didn’t sleep much that night. He was up and down my entire shift, checking
on things and making adjustments. After
the shift change, I slept quite well for my 3 hours and then was back up again.
Watching.
Nothing happened.
When I awoke after my second shift to the morning sun, we
were already off the coast of Kauai, again with no wind.
We had breakfast and then Richard went down
below to get some sleep while we motored along the Kauai coastline.
[Day two-three]
When we finally arrived in Hanalai bay, we anchored along
with probably a dozen or so other boats.
There were people seemingly living on their boats in the bay and then of
course there were quite a few cruisers such as ourselves who were using the bay
as a jumping off point for their next sail.
 |
| I think people were living on this one |
 |
| The mountains as seen from Moonshadow |
It is important to note that Richard was a cruiser not a
racer.
Being a cruiser means that sailing is intended to be
civilized and relaxed. Thus, too much
heel on the boat is to be avoided (heel is when the wind tips the boat on an
angle, which is to be maximized if you race and minimized if you cruise). Speed was not the primary criteria for a trip
either, but comfort. As someone whose
entire sailing experience has been racing or delivering boats to be raced, all
of which included the need for some level of speed and discomfort, these were
alien concepts to me. Of course, I
didn’t understand the full implications of these flipped criteria until we were
at sea.
For 20+ days.
The cruising world is a parallel existence to the land-based
world most of us live in day to day.
There is a network of sailors who cruise around the world and often know
each other, or know people who know each other.
They meet up in a port, hang out for a day or two and then go their separate
ways. Often they will converge again months
or years later in some different port. They
keep in contact via ham radio, where there is a system of boat check-ins. You can set up mini-groups with boats
traveling your way or you can check in with sailing networks to whom you report
wind, weather and wave conditions as you journey to your target
destination. I’d imagine it is like traveling
groups of RV owners on land but with ham radios instead of cell phones.
 |
| On its way to Oregon too... |
As we came into Hanalai Bay, Richard already had some
boat-buddies in port. John, who was also
from Portland and was also sailing back that way a few days after us, was
moored not too far away. His wife had
flown in for the Hawaii part of the sail, but would not do the ocean
crossing. It seemed to be not unusual
for married men to do the ocean crossings with crew or solo and then to have
their wives meet them for the shorter parts.
John’s wife would fly home once the crew he had found showed up.
There was another boat anchored here with a friend of a
friend of Richard’s, also heading roughly the same direction as us and around
the same time. These boats and a few
others became part of our little sea faring net as we crossed the ocean. One of our past times over the next few weeks
became plotting our relative courses and mileage after checking in with these
other boats each day. While we were not
racing, it was fun to see if we could maintain our lead (we left first) and
also see how fast the other boats were going. Also, even this small bit of human contact
with the outside world made things more tolerable.
Anchoring in Hanalai bay was the first day of my exercise in
learning to do nothing fast, having patience, sitting still a lot, and
generally slowing down to the pace of a cruiser. This was perhaps the most difficult part of
the crossing for me. I am not a cruiser
– I live my life at as high a speed as I can manage. I am not stationary any longer than
necessary. Even when stationary I am
doing things. Cruising does not embrace
speed.
 |
| Learning to enjoy the sunset |
Richard really wanted to stay a day in Hanalai and while I
would have rather just got going, we hung out and wandered around, doing nothing,
enjoying a beer at lunch because, after all, there wasn’t much else to do.
I wanted to fish while we were at sea and so we bought a few
lures, including some dangly earrings.
We looked at the navigation charts and our intended course.
 |
| After Hawaii there was no land on the charts.... |
To get to Oregon from Hawaii you must first sail north for a
really long time, then head east. It is
a big ocean and at this point we couldn’t be too specific about our course because
we didn’t really know what the wind and weather would be like. If the winds favored us then we might be able
to turn towards Oregon early, if not, we might have to go above Oregon to sail
back. Depending upon the angles, on some
points of sail we would actually be heading towards Japan, not Oregon at all.
After a day of doing nothing, we set sail at 8:00 am,
embarking on our crossing.
Given that the next weeks were passed on a 38 foot sailboat
and there was literally no exit but to arrive in Oregon, I was curious to see
if I had the mental capacity to make it through something like this. There were times it was hard to keep from
screaming I will admit, mostly from lack of exercise.
Day Four:
Instead of sailing into the sunrise, we motored away because
there was no wind.
 |
| Glassy water does not suggest wind. |
 |
| But it is pretty |
 |
| And we put the sails out anyway. |
Also we were going
north.
There were, however, dolphins that
came to swim with the boat.
In terms of
omens, I’m pretty sure this is a good one.
 |
| The water was so clear and still even I was able to get some dolphin photos! |
 |
| I love dolphins. |
 |
| Yep. More dolphins. |
While we want to head north, the wind was letting us go
about 340- 350 degrees which will have to be good enough for now. While over time the difference may end up being
significant, at this point we are going generally in the right direction. As a sailboat, you can’t be too choosy.
After a few hours of motoring we were able to put the sails
up and achieve our 5 knot sailing status.
Anything over 6 knots tends to make Richard uncomfortable, in part
because it is literally not as comfortable to be heeling, but going 5 knots also
protects Moonshadow from possible damage.
I can argue against comfort, but not against potential damage.
The day flew by, it got increasingly choppy and windy,
rained a bit, and I got nauseous around dinner and had to skip it. However, that was the extent of my sea
sickness for the day and night – not so bad really.
Day Five:
In the mornings we are able to take stock at how far we went
in the last 24 hour period. By the
morning of the second day we had made it 110 nm, which is going to be about par
for the trip. With 2400 miles to our
waypoint, this will be a slow process.
In fact, given that not all the miles can be directly subtracted from
our mileage, the miles go down agonizingly slow.
Land had been out of sight since a few hours after we left
the day before.
It is simply open ocean
now.
 |
| There were birds the entire way -- this surprised me. |
 |
Not actually sure what day this was taken.
|
We were sailing about 330 degrees,
but this might be what we need to do to get around the Pacific high.
The Pacific high is the windless circle
around which the major ocean currents go in a clockwise directly.
To make it to Oregon we need to sail west of
the high, hit its top point and catch the winds heading east.
In theory, that is.
In practice who knows what will happen since
the Pacific high is much further north and west than normal this summer and we
don’t really want to sail to Japan before heading to Oregon.
Still, we have many days to contemplate our course before
figuring out what to do. The key is not
to get stuck in the middle where there is no wind. Of course, there is a lot of trash there and
as far as tourist destinations go, I have to say the giant garbage patch in the
pacific is on my list.
Day Six:
The days are filled with doing nothing.
Well, there is lots of time for reading.
Time is punctuated by eating, which happens
at regular intervals.
I was able to eat
dinner tonight, which is good – I had been worried about sea-sickness but it is
turning out to be a non-issue.
I have
felt a bit nauseated around dinner time but otherwise am fine.
 |
| I took a lot of pictures of water |
Given that we are not technically heading towards our final
destination, we did manage to tick off 100 nm of the 130 nm we sailed. It is both demoralizing and fun to watch the
miles count down on the GPS.
Day Seven:
A flying fish landed on the boat over night.
We did not eat it.
 |
| Flying Fish |
We have made it to 28 degrees latitude from Honolulu, which
is at 23. Watching our latitude change
is another way to watch our position change.
At my evening watch after Richard had gone to bed, dolphins
came to play with the boat. Given I had
nothing else to do, I tried valiantly to get a picture of them. It is really hard to take pictures of moving
dolphins with a slow camera.
The wind picked up to about 20 knots around 2:30, waking
Richard up. He always wakes up if we
heel too much and then comes up to help bring in the sails. I try to tell him I can do this on my own,
and he often seems shocked that I do trim the sails on my own, but he still
comes up through force of habit.
Day Eight:
A ship appeared on the AIS (our radar for ships) but we
never saw it. We have seen nothing
except for floating small bits of trash since leaving Kauai.
Except for dolphins.
I have stopped worrying about all the work I should be
doing.
I am learning to just stare at the water as a past time.
Day Nine:
No wind in the mornings has put a damper on our forward
progress. We are at 32.40 so still
heading Northish.
The wind has moved a bit behind us and we are able to head
more downwind.
The days flow fast in a blur of eating, reading, napping,
staring at nothing, and then the night begins.
Time is different once you give up schedules. I’ve often wondered what people are thinking
when then are staring at nothing (like those people who sit on planes without
books or anything). I’ve never been able
to calm my mind sufficiently to do this – I have to be reading. Now I know they are actually not thinking
anything, but exist in a sort of mental stasis.
Or, they are not thinking anything clearly with a point or direction but
instead exist in a flow of incoherent images and thoughts. At least that is what is happening to me as I
learn to stare at the sea without thinking anything in particular for longer and
longer amount of time.
Maybe this is what meditation is supposed to be like.
So, people staring at the back of the seat in front of them
on a plane have really achieved a higher state of existence.
Actually, if I think too much then I start to realize just
how long this trip is going to take! Then
I want to scream.
It is better to stare blankly at the horizon.
Day Ten:
So, given we are cruising, it means showers come with the
ride.
A shower consists of using water
from the desalinization pump and mixing it with a bit of hot water heated up in
a tea kettle then dumped in one of those gallon drums with a pump that you use
to water gardens.
You then sit in the
cockpit and soap up and rinse off.
It is
a fairly quick affair but does make all the difference.
 |
| Shower facilities |
My shower today ended with me being drenched by the biggest
downpour to hit us so far – the water was flat and the rain poured down.
It was marvelous.
Day Eleven:
The wind and waves have come up. While we did 150 nm in the last 24 hour period,
the weather has taken a turn for the worse.
I watched a lightening storm during my late night watch. Trying to move at all means being thrown
about like a rag doll. Cooking involves
bracing one foot against the chart table and keeping your body against one of
the counters.
At 3:00 am at the end of my shift the windvane quit.
The waves were rough and both shifts had been
spent prairie dogging from the companionway.
However, once the windvain quit I had to go steer manually while Richard
tried to fix it.
 |
| Windvain from when it was working |
It isn’t fixable it turns out.
Fortunately we have an autopilot as a backup.
The battering seas are draining and yet somehow I was still
able to sleep.
Day Twelve:
We are still in a storm (though I don’t think I am supposed
to call it that because storm is a term of art for sailors) and still many days
from where we can turn towards Oregon.
Richard thinks we need to hit at least 46 degrees before we can make
that call.
Every morning he downloads what are called the GRIB files,
which gives us wind speeds/directions/etc.
Based upon these we can’t head east yet.
However, we can continue to be battered by waves.
Day Thirteen:
We are close to halfway.
Things got calmer which was nice.
Also, a whale came and swam with the boat for awhile, most likely a
Humpback.
Day Fourteen:
So, it looks like we will actually cut the Pacific High by
going kind of through and around it to the east, not the west. Given it is super high and west this year, we
are able to hit our bearing now instead of heading up to 46 degrees. So, we have begun to angle towards Astoria.
After ten days of seeing absolutely nothing, I watched a
ship pass us during my night watch. We
never came close to each other and the phrase “like two ships passing in the
night” takes on new meaning – you really could be so close to someone else and
yet miss them entirely.
Or they could possibly run you over without seeing you.
If they are a large tanker.
That isn’t really what the phrase means
though.
 |
| There isn't a tanker in any of these -- it was just a great sunset |
Day Fifteen:
The weather has turned bad again – at least 25 knots of wind
and very wavy.
It is relentless.
People go on roller coasters because they are
fun.
They are fun because they do not
last more than one minute.
 |
| It is almost impossible to capture big waves in a photo |
Imagine a roller coast for two days – it is not fun.
Day Sixteen:
I stared at a swinging basket for a really long time.
Then I made a cake.
The weather was good enough to sit above deck during the
night watches instead of in the companionway.
 |
| Me in the companionway |
The full moon was out.
I spend my evenings listening to music and wishing I had
loaded my Ipod with more This American Life episodes.
Day Seventeen:
I ran out of books on my kindle to read. Fortunately there are paperbacks galore.
I watched a tanker for about an hour.
 |
| It is like television. Only slower and no action. |
All the sails are out and the wind is light.
916 nm to go.
Day Eighteen:
Sailors are like rednecks – you just throw all the
compostable and biodegradable trash off the back of the boat. One of my favorite past times is throwing
something in the water and then seeing how long I can see it. I figure that is about how long I would be
visible if I fell overboard.
There is no rescue out here.
Since the windvain died we have been using an autopilot that
is a bit too small for the boat. It has
miraculously held out so far. However,
it is not enjoying the job and is having difficulty staying on course.
Day Nineteen:
Another way this boat is not like racing – tonight at
midnight we had to gybe the boat. This
maneuver took 45 minutes. First, we had
to take the pole off the yankee (which is the large jib which we were using
sort of like a spinnaker). Then we had
to furl that sail. Then while I drove,
Richard brought in the main. We were
going to put the pole back up but went with the staysail instead.
Not fast but we did end up going in the correct direction.
Day Twenty:
The pole broke today but fortunately didn’t tear the
sail. We got it down and Richard
hopefully can fix it.
 |
| When the pole was working.... |
|
I also found Solitaire on my Ipod – it makes time fly during
the night. It only took me 2.5 weeks to find
it.
Day Twenty-One:
Made bread.
Sat in the sun because there was sun to sit in.
Day Twenty-Two:
We have kept our time in Hawaii time which means my 6-9
watch includes the sunset and my 12-3 watch includes the sunrise. It is kind of nice.
As we get closer to land there are now boats – fishing boats
to watch for.
They don’t care about us
at all.
 |
| Not a fishing boat but something to look at |
The pole, which has been lashed to the mast broke loose this
evening and we had to secure it to the deck.
All the breaking things seem to happen at night.
The wind is around 30 knots, the seas are high, and we have
to deal with the pole.
 |
| It is impossible to give a sense of how big the waves are -- but they are breaking in open ocean. |
Day Twenty-Three – Twenty-Four:
Only 68 miles left to go!
20 knots of wind and still very wavy.
The waives are like a rolling 20-30 foot monsters. We dip into the trough and then ride to the
peak. They constantly look like they are
going to break over the boat but then we rise over another one. Pictures do not do them justice.
Even though we still have 20 miles to go, I keep looking for
land. However, it will be dark before we
are within sight of land.
Our goal is to go into the “graveyard of the pacific” also
known as the Columbia River Bar.
Crossing from the ocean into the mouth of the river creates a fantastic
back current as the tides go in an out.
The plan is to time our entrance when the tide has finished going out
and is beginning to go in so that the clash between river and ocean is at its
minimum.
I had been warned about this entrance at the beginning –
that it can take down far larger and more powerful boats than ours.
That being said, as we came towards the channel markers in
the dark, I prepared for what was to be the most intense part of the trip. There was a moment when I heard the water
pushing against itself – it made a discernable sound and I thought, “here it
is” we will feel the pull of the ocean now.
But nothing happened.
And we were through with not even a wave.
The next and final hours of our voyage were spent following
the channel markers up the Columbia river to the harbor where around 2 am we
docked the boat, had a glass of Champaign to celebrate our safe arrival and
then fell promptly to sleep.
Day Twenty-Five:
I awoke in a boat that wasn’t moving and was able to get off
the boat and stand on a dock that also wasn’t moving.
The colors were green and so much different
from the greys and blues of the last 20+ days.
A shower on land was marvelous.
As with all endings of epic adventures, this one ended with
a farewell. My parents had kindly driven
to Astoria to pick me up – we had lunch with their friends and then said
goodbye to Richard who was meeting Anita to take the boat up the river to
Portland.
I’d like to say that I have some lessons learned from such a
long journey. First, if you undertake an ocean crossing you better know how to
fix everything on your boat or sail with someone who does. Second, don’t fall off the boat – you will
not be saved. Third, I can actually withstand
the solitude of the ocean and not go crazy.
Fourth, I already wonder what my next trip gets to be…..
