Almost to San Fransisco
October 5th, 2019
We are just a few hours away from sailing (motoring) under the Golden Gate Bridge! After being stuck in Newport for a week, we saw a weather window and took it! Our plan was a straight shot to San Fransisco but after 72 hours we were whipped and there were snarly seas coming, so we ducked into Fort Bragg for the night. We arrived before daybreak and spent an hour going in circles waiting for enough light to navigate. The entrance is super narrow and none of the markers were lit, so I’m glad we waited. We snaked our way up the Noyo River about a mile, and tucked into the marina. Then we took a five-hour nap and ate an entire Papa Murphy’s pizza. That night the sea lions were SO loud I wanted to mace them with our bear spray. We planned staying on two nights but we had a decent weather window the next day, so we went for it. Just a 24 hour push and we’d be in sunny San Fransisco!
Emma had been very upset that we didn’t press on. The snarly weather never materialized and we could have kept going! Two other couples were already down in SF and she was suffering from some serious FOMO. But then we had a weather window the next day and she got cold feet! She was so nervous she almost cried. “What if we’re making a stupid decision??” she wailed. I calmed her down with a shot of tequila and we took off, snaking our way downriver back towards the entrance.
Crossing the bar the waves were pretty damn big. Our bow was plunging underwater. Emma was not pleased. Once we got into deeper water and got the mainsail up for stability the motion was much better. Before long the sun was going down. Our autopilot belt broke and we couldn’t put the spare on without taking off the steering wheel. I sewed the old one back together but it broke again (twice). The threads ripped right through the old belt. After three attempted repairs it was quite a bit shorter than when we started, so I took a piece of 1/2” webbing and sewed it on as a patch. It worked like a charm!
We sailed with great wind at our backs for the first half of the night. Despite our sweet preventers we had FOUR accidental jibes, but all was good. We were moving with great time, 6kts under a reefed main with only 10 kts of apparent wind at our backs. Quite lovely! The wind crapped out around midnight and we’ve been motoring since.
First Offshore Passage
Newport Oregon, USA
September 18th, 2019
We waited in Neah for almost a week. As time went on more and more boats filled the anchorage, until BOOM! One Wednesday morning they were all gone. All but us and our buddies Tree and Morgan aboard S/V Molotov Mirin. We had decided to wait one more day until the waves died down.
It was a windless 48 hour voyage. The waves were coming at a very uncomfortable angle if we headed straight south, so we have to “tack” back and forth as we went down. I became seasick after the first few hours. We maintained intermittent radio contact with Molotov. They suggested we hoist the mainsail to help stability the boat. What a difference!
Initially it was quite lumpy and Emma’s eyes would grow wide as we sank in the trough preceding a larger swell up to about 2 meters. “This is it!” she would cry. They we would lift up and over like a cork, or a duck. Later in the day the seas laid down a little bit.
I was still feeling lousy so Emma took the first watch that night, from 8-12. I was quite delighted to snuggle down in our sea birth, piled up with snuggly blankets and held in place by our newly made lee cloth. Laying down in the cockpit was a completely different story. The boat still had enough motion that you would get rolled right off the settee unless you had a leg up to brace. It ended up being quite the ab workout!
Keeping watch was quite tolerable. We had the full cockpit enclosure set up, so we were 99% protected from the rain and wind. A single blanket was enough to keep warm. The water itself was pretty simply. I set my watch on a repeating 15 minute times, then laid down with my head near the companionway and snooze. When the watch beeps I can lean my head back to see our RADAR display. Next to me I have the VHF mic with AIS displayed. I peek through the dodger to see if there are any lights ahead, check the iPad to see that we are still on course, then back down for another 14 minute nap.
The fishing boats were abundant. Under my watch there were two within a quarter mile that I changed course to avoid. That doesn’t sound very close, but in the cold blackness of the open ocean where a collision could mean sinking, it was close enough.
The night watch rolled by fairly quickly. I started out with a quick mental calculation: 4 hour divided in 15 minute intervals equals 16 watch beeps. It seems like a lot to start, but they go steadily ticking away. By 4am I was snuggled back in the sea berth.
The day passed without anything eventful. I puked over the side a few more times. The most memorable part of the day came in the afternoon when we were refilling the main fuel tank from our on-deck 20 gallon tank. We shut off the engine and the silence was deafening. It wasn’t particularly flat, but the feeling of not moving seemed unique and foreign.
We brought out the siphon hose and started pumping. Bright red diesel crept through the clear hose and snaked across the deck to the diesel fill plate. The ocean breathed glassily, and suddenly, a fish friend appeared. He lazily floated up to the surface, revealing that his entire body was a head. He was flattened side to side and appeared to have no body at all. He had these little fins that stuck up and down, and rise all the way to the surface right next to us and laid sideways like he’s looking right at us. His iridescent body glimmered in the sun. We tried to take a picture but he swam down away from the camera. It happened more than once—he must’ve been camera shy. It took about 20 minutes to siphon the 20 gallons of diesel. We sat with our big head friend, watching the red fluid twist and turn across the deck with the silent enormity of the ocean surrounding up. Then it was over. The fist left, the engine fired back to like, I threw up from the diesel fumes aggravating an already queasy stomach.
Another night went by at 15 minute increments. At this point we had targeted Newport as our best bet for fueling up. The next town would have us coasting in on fumes, so we chose Newport. We were already on schedule to arrive early so we swung our course wide to time a slack arrival for the river bar crossing. We were due to get in right around daybreak.
A few weeks ago, I noticed that the insulation on our bow light wire had chafed through where it goes into the bow pulpit. I traced the wire down below and found other bad areas. I tried to pull the wire through with a new one attached, but it was caught somewhere in the pulpit and wouldn’t budge. While in Port Angeles I was looking everywhere for a wire and a deck fitting. I was talked out of it by other cruisers who assured us that our masthead tricolor light was sufficient.
As we approached the entrance to the Yaquina River of Newport, the horizon was just starting to lighten. Suddenly a fishing boat came tearing out of the entrance at full speed. Then another. It was like the opened the floodgates and fishing boats were tearing out, zigging around us and passing on both sides. It was total chaos. Each one made us jump as it emerged from the darkness. One boat was coming straight towards us with no lights. I was afraid they were going to hit us, and I was ready to blast the airhorn and unleash some profanities when THEY started yelling at US! “This is the Coast Guard! You need to turn on your bow light. YOU ARE GOING TO CAUSE A COLLISION!”
Oops! Glad I hesitated on the airhorn and the cussing. Emma went to the bow in some swelly seas and shined a flashlight into the lowlight fixture to provide some sort of illumination, hanging on for dear life all the while.
Preparing to Take The Big Left
Neah Bay, Washington, USA.
September 12th, 2019
I highly anticipated our arrival in Neah Bay. I imagined it full of cruising sailboats, the air practically buzzing with static electricity in the excitement and anticipation of the future passage-makers. In fact, we met several excited crews in the previous harbor of Port Angeles happily exchanging “Hellos!” “You heading down the coast?”
We arrived at Neah Bay in a bleak fog and steady rain to find a desolate anchorage. As we got further a lone anchored sailboat emerged through the fog. We gravitated towards the boat and dropped anchor in 30 ft of water.
Im sitting under a wool blanked with wool socks next to the warm fire and Emma is cooking us up a soup. It sounds like she’s giving birth in there, but I think it’s just the onion getting to her. The soup smells incredible.
It’s bittersweet to be closing the chapter on the San Juan Islands in the Salish Sea. It was a great place to learn how to sail. Dealing with the tides and currents gave us a healthy appreciation and respect for those forces. I expect that much of the sailing we have ahead of us will be less technical and less complicated. I do lament the fact that we didn’t make it up to Alaska. At the same time, I feel like we have an enormous buffet laid out before us, and we are about to feast! There’s no wrong place to go, and there’s always cool stuff ahead of you. The world is round, after all!
So here we sit, teetering on the very edge of the country, balanced over the mighty Pacific Ocean. When the time is right we’ll pour over the edge like spilled water pouring off a table, down, down, down…But until then we wait. Now is when anticipation is at its maximum. The buildup, the tension, the inexorable waiting! We will just have to eat soup and water the other sailboats roll in.
Zero to Cruising
Written By: Daniel Eicher
I fell in love with sailing 12 years ago, on the sailing team at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, VA. Many a lazy afternoon was spent bobbing on the James River in our racing dinghies. On lucky days we would see some wind. I delighted in the lively heeling of the boats, and relished capsize drills.
I fell in love with cruising as a lifestyle just a few years later. After graduation I found myself living in Spain as part of an English teaching program. Luck was with me, and my random placement landed me in Mallorca, the the largest of the Balearic Islands in the Mediterranean Sea. Mallorca is a breathtaking experience—pristine white beaches, crystal clear water, underwater caves, hiking through olive groves on a cliffside over the sea, and of course the sailing! Each year for spring break my coworkers chartered a sailboat for a weeklong trip, and I was invited. Over the course of one week we circumnavigated the entire island, and I was hooked. I saw the potential of sailing as so much more than a pleasant afternoon activity—it was a lifestyle.
I fell in love with my cruising partner Emma Davis two years ago. A decade had passed since my time in Mallorca. I was now living in San Antonio, Texas, four years into my career in the family pest control business. I was struggling. At first my sales position was exciting. The thrill of the hunt, the rush of landing a big sale, and the excitement of seeing my paycheck after a “big month” were motivation enough. I was happily socking commissions away into the sailing fund. I was hard working and I excelled, breaking the company sales record in my first year. I got promoted to manager of the San Antonio/Austin branch, which grew into the south Texas Branch. That next year won the “President’s Challenge” for the top performing branch. Bonus earnings went straight into the kitty. In my free time I was still singly focused on the goal of cruising. I took a 3 day cruising course in the Gulf on a long weekend. I bought a 16 foot trailer sailor “Soulshine” and fixed her up for weekend trips to nearby lakes. I read The Pardeys, Mortissier, and countless blogs. I was moving towards my goal, but at what felt like a snail’s pace. I was losing my grip, and becoming increasing distracted at work. I literally thought about Mallorca and sailing every single day. I began to lose all motivation for work, and I knew I couldn’t keep it up much longer. My heart ached for the sea. And that’s when I met her.
I was at the dog park one evening, reading a sailing textbook “The Voyager’s Handbook. A cute girl with a sunburnt nose made eye contact from across the park. I returned to the textbook. It had been a rough day at work and I didn’t feel like talking to anyone, even cute girls. A few minutes later I looked up again and noticed that my dog was humping hers. It was actually quite a sight—a 20lb terrier standing straight up on her tiptoes, hips pumping as she gave her best to a 50lb lab mix. I smiled at the sight, and my mood softened. “Is this your dog?” I asked as the cute girl approached. Several hours of conversation followed, in which I poured my guts out to this random stranger. I told her all about my dream to go sailing and how its all I think about, my struggles at work, the guilt, the lack of meaning in my life. Its like something broke inside of me and all this stuff just came pouring out, drenching the shoes of the person in front of me. Emma just soaked it up, listening intently and demonstrating the compassion and understanding that I would later learn are at the core of her identity. Emma was teaching middle school science in a low income neighborhood in San Antonio. She gave her heart and soul to her kids, many of whom were homeless or undocumented. She started Science Club, she organized trips to NASA and took the kid flying in airplanes at the local Air Force base. She was the teacher that on the first day of science class lit all the lab tables on fire. She was also the teacher that every middles school boy fell in love with. And now she had stolen my heart, too.
Emma was down for the adventure from day one. She got bit by the travel bug during her study abroad stint in Nepal and India. She had put in a solid five years in the classroom straight out of college, and was ready for a break. We hatched our plans to sail the world together. Emma would finish the school year, and then we would make our move. Quit our jobs, rent the house, pack our bags and head out on the road. We bought a van and built it out with a bed, a sink and some water tanks. We would live in the van and travel around until we found our dream boat, then sell the van and sail off into the sunset.
It was a tearful departure when the day finally came. For one reason more than any other, it was that our faithful pups, our loving canine companions that had brought us together, would not only be left behind, but separated from each other as well. We gave our final pats, then hopped in the van and made tracks towards West Texas.
Our van expeditions took us through the desert and over the mountains until we hit the ocean. Then we made a right turn up the rugged and wild California coast. We took our time along the way, savoring nine months of van life and visiting just about every National Park and scrap of BLM land we would get our hands on. We camped amongst the redwoods, slept under the stars in the desert, and suffered three flat tires along the way. We parked the van in a sunny patch next to a river in Idaho and lost track of how many days passed. We soaked up the American West down to the last drop.
Our travels took us through Oregon and up to Washington State. We looked at boats all along the coast. We even checked the east coast; during a planned holiday trip back to my hometown in Maryland, we took a New England road trip to look at boats. Heck we even caught a fight to La Paz when a really promising boat came onto our radar. The search was becoming exhausting, and frustrating. At long last we found “the one” up in Anacortes, Washington. She’s an oldie—going on 40 years, but a tried and tested Bluewater cruiser, a Pacific Seacraft 37. The previous owners had undertaken an extensive refit just a few years prior, but had aged out of cruising and wisely decided to sell the boat.
We only did one winter living aboard in Washington, and one was enough. We moved aboard in February, and jumped into a full time effort of getting the boat outfitted and ready to head down the coast before the next winter could get us. We took sailing lessons and navigation classes, and experienced firsthand the horror I have heard so much about, of watching the outfitting expenses piling skyward, and to-do lists that only grow longer the more tasks you compete. We suffered the damp and the cold, sleepless shivering nights with condensation raining from the hatch above the v berth. Fortunately, our time in the van had been a perfect primer in “tiny living,” and this softened the transition to boat life. A 37 foot sailboat is actually quite spacious compared to a 16 ft wheelchair van, and we were enamored with our new home, our steed, “Indy.”
We started our with small trips around the San Juan Islands. The Salish sea was a challenging place to learn, with enormous tidal exchanges and powerful currents. We learned a healthy respect for these natural forces, and developed a cautious diligence for which we are grateful. We also learned a love for the wild beauty of this place. The trips we took in early spring were especially memorable, with the summer crowds absent we often found we had anchorages—even whole islands, totally to ourselves. We hunted Dungeness crabs in the shallows and dug up clams at low tide, then roasted them over a fire on the beach. We spent drizzly PNW days at anchor working on indoor projects and savoring the warmth of the propane heater. While rowing the dinghy at night we marveled at the surreal beauty of bioluminescence in the chilly water.
As spring turned into summer it was time to begin cruising in earnest. Up to this point we had still been retuning to the marina after our trips out to the islands. It was time to cut the docklines and leave the comfort and safety of the marina behind. We knew living at anchor would present more challenges, but we were ready. We had experienced the peace and tranquility of an isolated anchorage in a beautiful setting. We had grown weary of waking up to the sounds of the marina, looking out the port light to see the corrugated brown metal of the shed next to our slip. Spoiled perhaps by the privacy of isolated anchorages, we started feeling almost claustrophobic by the crowding of boats and people while living dockside.
We planned a shakedown cruise to Desolation Sound in British Columbia. We still had a number of projects left, but nothing we couldn’t do at anchor. We decided a good shakedown before heading down the coast was more important than staying at the dock trying to get all the projects done. For we were already learning that you never really get all the projects done. So north we went, up the inside passage into Canadian waters. We saw even bigger tides and even more intense currents, and the ruggedness of the wilderness only increased with our northward progress. We learned the graceful art of the stern tie, completed our first overnight passage, and caught our first fish—a ling cod. We also mastered the use of a lead-line, found a short circuit in our depth sounder wiring, and replaced half our chainplates.
One evening we were pulling into a new anchorage after a long day of windless motoring. A breeze picked up and we decided to sail the last few miles. With the engine off the silence was deafening. The breeze freshened and the water murmured gently as we picked up speed. It was the golden hour, right when the clouds are glowing with the light of the setting sun and everything has a beautiful bronze aura. We saw splashing in the water ahead, moving across the surface. It was a pod of dolphins 300 strong, leaping into the air. The pod made a turn and came straight towards our boat. They passed us on all sides, like a water parting around a rock as it flows downstream. Dolphins next to the boat swam sideways so they could look up at us as they passed. Others leapt high into the air, squeaking in what can only be joy. Our feelings were best summed up in Emmas euphoric exclamation: “Its like f*$#%& flipper!”
Before we knew it summer was drawing to a close. It was time to head back south again. Back to Anacortes where we would anchor outside our old marina for our final preparations before heading down the coast. The nights were turning chilly, and fall was in the air. We could smell winter right around the corner, and our window for a September southbound departure was approaching.
Our friends in Anacortes gave us a ride to Costco, where we filled their trunk to the brim with provisions. Later that evening every nook and cranny on the boat was filled. The boat was prepped for passage. The list of projects had been worked down to a manageable level. We felt confident in our skills and ready for the next step. And then once again “the day” arrived. The day of our grand departure. Only this time was different. We had taken dozens of trips on our boat, but we had always come back to our home base of Anacortes. Even when we weren’t in the marina, we had the familiar surroundings of the town, and the support of the friends we had there. But this time we were heading out on a trip with no plans to return. We were leaving it all in our rearview.
It was 100 miles our the straight of Juan de Fuca to the west most point of the continental 48. There we would wait in Neah Bay, dangling over the edge of the continent. We arrived on a gray, chilly day to find the anchorage empty save one boat. Over the next few days more and more southbound cruisers arrived. As more boats pulled in I felt the energy in the anchorage building. The air was buzzing with the anticipation of the voyage ahead. We chatted excitedly with cruiser friends and watched the forecast together. A weather window appeared. We watched closely as it approached, then arrived. At long last the morning came when we sailed out of Neah Bay, crept out to the very edge as if peering down off the edge of the world, then held our breaths and made “the left.”
This Post Has 3 Comments
Mom
15 Sep 2019This is really well written. I read it before, and it’s good. You just have to follow your instincts, and get out when you have to. We have good instincts! Hope you don’t run into him at Baha haha this year!
Mom
8 Dec 2019Fantastic anthology! So well written Daniel!
Love you guys and your special story! May the adventures continue!!!! xoxo!
Tom Racette
26 Mar 2020Good to see you are having fun out there. This is Tom from Puffin across the dock in Anacortes. This fall, I sailed with our cruising friends from Tonga to New Zealand. Still magic to make a big crossing. Some day, you may make that same crossing.