To Be Continued...

I was unhappy with the way that linking to this page displayed a spoiler paragraph from my last post in San Diego (though almost anyone who would read this account already knows the ending), so I felt the need to insert something else as placeholder.

I'm pondering another update, as there have been developments since I last set words to page on the subject... but for now I'll just say this:

La Mouette's Volvo Penta diesel engine is now nestled into the back of Kyle's truck, northbound on I-5, and probably nearing Seattle at this very moment.

Good tidings ahead.

Overcoming the Char-hell-ston Malaise

"Welcome to hell."

Hell? I knew Charleston had its flaws, but this was the first time a local had put it in those terms.

After much deliberation, Kyle and I had come to the decision that we'd leave La Mouette in Oregon for the winter and continue south by land, bound for San Diego. As that was our original "first" destination, it only seemed fitting that we still aim for it, regardless of our mode of transport.

La Mouette will winter in Charleston, with further decisions concerning her fate to be put off until the spring. She may reside in Oregon for some time longer than that, or we may transport her back to the Puget Sound when the weather favors our endeavors a bit more. Regardless, it may be years before she tastes the salt off the Australian coast.

Before leaving her, though, she needed to be readied for the stay. The first thing was to get her off of the transient dock and into more permanent mooring.

Having no engine, we enlisted Randy's help in moving her about the marina. He kindly dropped his dinghy in the water, attached the outboard motor, and lashed onto La Mouette's starboard side.

The weather had been gusty and rainy all day, but it seemed to be clearing up, giving us a chance to get La Mouette moved.

I readied the mainsail, so I wouldn't be caught helpless if the dinghy motor died, and moved to take the tiller. Kyle, who was going to walk to the new slip to meet us and catch the lines, undid the dock lines and tossed them aboard as Randy kicked the engine into gear.

I swung the tiller hard over to bring La Mouette's nose around, but got no response, and instead looked on in horror as the current dragged us towards another finger dock, with its accompanying metal pylons that La Mouette knew all too well.

I yelled for Randy to try and maneuver us with the dinghy, and he jammed the throttle up, managing to drag us just clear of the dock and into the open.

As our boat speed increased, I finally got some rudder control and was able to steer us off of the transient dock towards our new slip.

Thankfully everything went smoothly from there, though Randy did get soaked as the waves broke over the gunwales of his dinghy.

I did get a bit of a scare as we approached our new slip at low tide and I glanced over the side to see the rocky bottom appearing dangerously close to the surface.

Nothing is quite so frightening on a sailboat as looking down to see clearly defined ground lurking beneath the water.

I crossed my fingers and steered on, and we managed to get La Mouette safely to her new home on G dock, just in time for a gusty downpour to roll in.

We'd just made the only window that would open in the weather all day. Huzzah.

All that remained was to pack up what we wished to take with us, get all of her vulnerable external gear (sails, life raft, etc.) tucked safely inside, and rig up auto bilge pumps (to monitor the water level of the bilge and pump it out without any human presence necessary).

On the last trip to the marine supply store, I was chatting it up with one of the salesman when I mentioned that our trip south had stalled and La Mouette was to be a resident of Charleston for the foreseeable future.

"Welcome to hell," he cheerily replied.

A few moments later, as I rang up some items with a different salesmen and told him of La Mouette's engine woes, I heard it a second time.

"Welcome to hell." This time less cheery.

I guess the locals know how awful it is after all.

Once we had what was needed to button up the boat, it was decided that I would head to Eugene to secure a rental car while Kyle would finalize La Mouette's winterization.

I made a call to the taxi company to have a car pick me up at the marina at 7:15 the next morning, Wednesday, November 4th, to transport me to a bus station in Coos Bay, a town about 10 or 12 miles away.

"7:15 tomorrow morning at the marina complex," the driver confirmed before hanging up.

Excellent. Only one more night in Crabvolkia.

(Although, to be fair, life on our new dock was pretty good. We were in a separate marina basin, and no crab folk ventured that way. It was clean and out of the way.

One guy, who the security guard jokingly referred to as the "admiral of the dock," stopped by the boat to warn me to keep it locked up when I wasn't around.

"Watch out of the tweakers!" he warned.

Oh, trust me, I always do.

I took a few moments to talk with him, as I wanted to know of any potential threats to La Mouette's safety, but his story began to stray from sensible warning into absurdity.

"You see this?" he asked as he rolled up his sleeve, pointing at what looked like a needle scar. "They did this to me. The cops found me wandering down the road spouting gibberish. I don't remember a thing!"

Maybe he was telling the truth. But maybe he was what he was warning me against, and his trip over was a good way to scan the boat for booty.

I told him that if the tweakers wanted a couple of old boat cushions, they were welcome to them. Of course, there was more to take than that, but no need to let the admiral in on it.)

On the morning of the 4th, with only a couple hours of sleep under my lids, I waited in the chill morning air for the taxi.

I'd gotten outside at 7:10, wanting to be ready when it arrived, but by 7:20 there was no cab to be seen. At 7:21, I got a call from the driver.

"Hi. Did you need pick up at the bus station? I'm waiting outside."

"No. I'm going TO the bus station. I need pick up at Charleston Marina Complex."

"Oh, whoops. Guess there was a mix-up. I'll get there as soon as I can."

By 7:30 I was starting get a bit sour. If I can't catch the 8:00 am bus, I can't get another until 1:00 pm and what the hell am I even doing awake?

It was then that I got a call from the driver informing me that he couldn't make it in time and they would have to send a different driver to get me.

The cab finally pulled up at 7:50 (after driving by me once). I jumped in and told him to get me to the bus station by 8:00, if that wasn't too much trouble (which it obviously was).

Now, I'm not really a morning person (I've been described by my father as a mean rattlesnake in the early hours). People who know me well understand that it can be hazardous to speak to me in the morning unless I've specifically addressed you first, especially if I've had very little sleep and have been standing outside in the cold for 40 minutes because of your company's inability to put addresses into computer systems properly.

But the cab driver didn't know me well. So he talked. And my ire grew.

"You know, I had the strangest delivery this morning. Three pregnancy tests and a jug of juice."

Not strange enough to interest me at 8:00 am. Sorry.

"I once delivered a maple bar to a lady. Twelve dollar delivery charge for a two dollar item."

The clock read 7:59 and we weren't even in the town yet. I looked out the window, ignoring him and cooling the morning rage.

Fortunately for me, similar kinds of people to those working at the cab company also worked for the bus depot, and the bus didn't exactly leave on time. Despite arriving late, I was able to get a ticket and board it before it pulled away, allowing me to opt out of bludgeoning the taxi driver to death.

Having spent so many years in Japan, where cell phones are seldom used on public transit for verbal communication, it was a jarring experience to ride on an American bus (especially after basically being cut off from civilization for a couple months).

I generally like some privacy when I'm on the phone, but I guess most bus passengers don't feel the same. One fellow even read his credit card number (3-digit security code and all) aloud while making vacation plans. I didn't feel the need to steal credit card numbers, but it seemed foolish of him to assume that I, or any of the other passengers, would be above such things.

Once I'd arrived in Eugene, I called a friend (who had visited us in Charleston weeks before, expecting to never see me again) who picked me up at the bus station to grab some breakfast. After enough bacon had been consumed, we spent a few hours hanging out and chatting before he drove me to the airport to pick up a rental car, a brand new Nissan Altima.

The rental attendant tried to sell me on the uber insurance, telling me I could return the car in any condition, no questions asked, if I signed up for it. While the idea of totaling a rental car in some ridiculous fashion sounded intriguing, I knew there would be some catch designed to prevent that very occurrence and turned him down.

The first thing that struck me about the car as I approached it was that there wasn't a key, just a wireless remote. That didn't make any sense until I opened the door and saw that there wasn't any keyhole on the steering column, just a round START button on the dash. Huh. I didn't realize that cars had gone to push-button start. No worries. Just push the button.

Which I did. The car's electrical system turned on, but I didn't hear any engine sound or feel any vibration. Hmm... maybe it's a hybrid. I didn't think the Altima was one... but. Shift into gear, accelerate. Nope. Definitely not a hybrid. How the hell do I start this thing? I thought I was technologically savvy!

I'll attribute my troubles to sleep deprivation, because I suddenly realized that a little symbol on the dash readout told me to hold the brake and press the button. Oh. That makes sense.

The car started up smoothly, I adjusted my seat and mirrors, and was off.

It was an amazingly beautiful scenic drive back to the marina, which I pulled into some time after dark. Driving in, I realized how small Charleston really was. When you walk everywhere, places can seem larger than they are, but it took mere seconds to pass through the whole town, literally a blink-and-you-miss-it kind of place.

Having transport for once, we picked Randy up and drove to Coos Bay for a little food not made by the same place we'd eaten at almost every day since arriving. We settled on Chinese. It wasn't special, but at least it was different.

By the time we'd fed and gotten the boat all packed up, it was about midnight. I was pretty tired by this point, but there was no way I was not going to be the one to drive us out of Charleston.

Farewell, sweet La Mouette. Hello, Pacific Coast Highway.

The drive south was amazing, as anyone who has driven the PCH can attest to. Winding through redwood forests, racing along cliffs that drop to the rocky waters below, it was nice to be driving in a new car rather than an old jalopy. I nearly made Kyle ill no some of the sharper hairpin turns and endless s-curves, but I sure had fun.

Our only trouble came from a police officer who didn't believe that Kyle was who his driver's license claimed him to be. Considering I was driving (the speed limit, no less), I was unsure of his fixation on Kyle's I.D.

As his questions continued, it became clear that he suspected us of renting a car in Oregon to bring drugs into California. I'd never been suspected of that before, but given my shaggy, unkempt nature, it wasn't unreasonable for him to consider me a candidate for such behavior.

Apparently reassured by our answers, he left us with the cautionary advice to "slow down. The weather is getting bad."

I looked at the gentle-seeming sky and couldn't help but remind him of my Wisconsin driver's license, and he conceded that none of the local climate could compare to Wisconsin winter's adverse driving conditions.

On Friday, November 6th, we spent the day lazing about at the beach in Ventura, California. Venture is just south of Point Conception (California's elbow), the point on the sailing trip we'd been dreaming of, when the Northern Pacific violence gives way to SoCal sunshine.

It was difficult to watch the boats sailing about in the calm, serene waters, knowing that La Mouette was stuck in some Oregonian sailboat trap (we were not the only boat stranded there this year), but hanging out on the sunny beach helped soothe the hurt some.

We spent the weekend in Ventura, staying at a friend's house. We relaxed, went to a farmer's market, cooked real food (as opposed to restaurant fare), and hung out around a bonfire.

All in all, it was just the sort of relaxing weekend needed to rid us of the Charleston Malaise, as we'd taken to calling the mood brought about by our extended stay there.

From then on it was south yet again, to San Diego, our destination, where we've enjoyed the last month of summery winter in the company of my brother and his wife (along with a few strays here and there).

Kyle bought a new truck and left on December 9th, bound for Seattle, and I'll be out of here on the 15th, headed home for the holidays and then off to... somewhere.

I've had ample time to reflect on the trip.

To some it may seem that disappointment is what has been left in its wake, but I state definitively that disappointment is not what I feel.

I feel thrilled, terrified, proud, vain, humbled... confident. All of the things that I felt before, but more so.

We sailed the North Pacific in September and October (it just isn't done, people!) and it didn't break us. Yes, it did break the Volvo Penta engine, but not our spirits. Had our vessel been able to continue, she would have found willing crew.

As it is, we made it pretty far. One thing we learned from the old salts we met along the way was that it's tough to make the trip out of the Puget Sound and south to paradise.

This year was Randy's third attempt to leave Seattle by boat, and now he's stuck in Coos Bay as well until the weather begins to turn in the spring.

When Kyle had first found La Mouette, one of his nautically knowledgeable friends told him he was better off buying a boat in the Caribbean than trying to start from the Puget Sound. We'd laughed off that advice back then. It seems sound now.

So, it may just be rationalization of defeat into victory (a useful skill, btw), but I feel triumphant. Sure, things didn't go according to plan, but they so rarely do. What would be the fun if they did?

I've had an amazing four months since leaving my job, and I wouldn't trade them. I've experienced large swaths of the spectrum of human emotion in that time. I've writhed in debilitating agony and gasped at the beauty and terror of the natural world.

And while it may seem strange, in many ways, the moments of agony were as good, or at least as important, as the moments of contentment and bliss.

So now... the trip is done. Well, that trip is done. The future will unravel to reveal others (though admittedly not for a number of years).

La Mouette will rest in Oregon for the winter before most likely heading back to the Puget Sound. I may or may not be there to greet her.

If I can convince my old job that I'm worth bringing back, I'll be headed towards Seattle. If that doesn't play out as I hope, my thoughts are leaning towards heading back to Japan. My work visa expires in mid-June, so if I want to renew it, I'd best get there before then.

But those are decisions for another day.

For today, La Mouette's journey south is at an end, and so is the documentation of it.

See you on another day for a different adventure.

Sailing Vessel La Mouette out.

Scrub Launch or: The Short Happy Life of the Volvo Penta

"Well, shit. I guess that's that." The situation looked bleak, but I had a smile on my face. At sea, everything must be a joke.

"Yep." Kyle wasn't exactly smiling, but considering our circumstances, I'd say he was cheery enough.

We were about ten nautical miles into a 120 nm leg from Coos Bay, OR to Crescent City, CA, trying to sneak through a consistently rough and dangerous stretch of coast on Saturday the 10th before our weather window was due to slam closed with a vicious winter storm's Monday arrival, and our engine had just seized to a stop with a sickening metal-on-metal screech.

Before setting out, we had spent four or five days in Charleston, OR, enjoying mostly good weather and visiting with friends (a friend of mine from my time in Quito, Ecuador had driven down from Eugene to visit, bringing along some of Oregon's finest, and my father's old friend had come by for a visit as well, gifting us with heaping bags of fresh produce picked from his garden that very morning... apples... grapes... zucchini! Hooray for things grown in Oregon soil).

A big storm, the first of the winter sea storms, was due to hit the entire west coast on Monday, and we were eager to make it to California before that happened. The difference in location was only 100 or so miles, and the storm would hit there as well, but reaching California represented a symbolic victory against the Northern Pacific.

We set out a little after noon with high hopes. We had a restored sense of confidence in the Volvo Penta diesel engine, and an underlying, ever-present confidence in La Mouette's seaworthiness (despite our engine woes, La Mouette's sailing prowess has never been in question - she rides the wind with the best of the sea birds).

Randy and Ivy, our buddy boat, set out a few minutes ahead of us and we caught up with them just outside of the Coos Bay bar. There was a strong wind from the north and the seas were high, with swells from the west and wind waves from the north, set to worsen through the day before dying out on Sunday ahead of the storm.

Knowing we needed to make good time to get to safe harbor before the storm's arrival, we kept the engine cruising and raised up our full mainsail with a smaller storm jib on the fore stay. La Mouette crashed willfully through the swells at over 7.0 knots, taking us ten miles in no time.

I hadn't yet put my foulie gear on and got a nice frigid shock to my back for the carelessness as a wave crashed over the side and into the cockpit, so Kyle took the helm while I went below to gear up.

As I gathered my things, I heard a curious "EEEP" from the engine compartment. (The hell? Mitchell!) So I opened the panel to investigate a bit. A minute later, the screech repeated itself.

I yelled up to Kyle that we had a problem.

SCREEEEEEEEECH! Our starter-generator was beginning to whine a bit.

The starter isn't a part of the engine's combustion process, but its function as a starter necessitates its being connected via belts to the engine's flywheel. So, as the engine runs, the flywheel spins and in turn spins the the shiv on the starter.

Now as it spun, it was starting to give off short but unsettling metallic screeches. I sat looking at it for a moment, pondering the implications.

As I pondered, the starter decided. It suddenly screeched at me in a rapid burst before quickly setting into a continuous metallic howl as it began to seize up.

I frantically yelled up to Kyle to shift into neutral so I could shut it down, but the engine snuffed itself out struggling against the newly created belt friction before I could even hit the kill switch.

I jumped into the cockpit to take the tiller so Kyle could assess the situation. The wind was rising and we kept a speed of over 6.0 knots. The swells were coming in off the starboard side, and they would tower over us before slamming into La Mouette's hull, sometimes breaking over the rails and soaking the cockpit.

Kyle shouted up that the flywheel wouldn't turn over. No more engine on this leg.

He came back into the cockpit, and I'm sure we both felt the same sense of disappointment at the sudden reversal in engine fortune.

Only one thing to do: I laughed a bit.

"Well, shit. I guess that's that."

"Yep."

Just then, Randy's voice came in through the VHF and I went below to answer.

"Are you guys still running the engine, or just sailing? Over."

"Uhh... our engine has just informed us that it won't be with us for the rest of this journey. Over."

"Please explain." I'm sure he hoped I was joking, but he wasn't unaware of our previous engine troubles, and perhaps a sinking feeling set in. That's just conjecture, though. What I am sure of is that he forgot to say "over."

I filled him in on our newest troubles, promising to let him know when we had decided our next course of action.

My first instinct was to turn tail and run for Coos Bay. At ten miles, I could still see Cape Arrago, on the south side of the entrance to the bay.

But.

We did have a very strong north wind. If it held out, it would blow us all the way to California by the following morning. If it didn't hold out, however, it would leave us dead in the water off the rocky Oregon coast with winter's first storm sweeping towards us.

After a little deliberation, Kyle and I both thought we could make it. La Mouette is, after all, a SAILboat.

I thought we should give Randy a vote, as he would be the one stuck trying to help us if an emergency did arise.

He radioed over to us wondering at the latest news, and I told him what we were thinking with the qualifier that we were interested in his take on that.

"With this big storm coming, I think it might be best if we headed back. Over."

Kyle and I readily agreed. I don't think either of us actually felt that great about continuing on into the unknown when we had a set of known circumstances only ten miles away in Coos Bay, and we didn't take any effort to convince.

I swung the tiller over and brought the sheets in tight to the wind before pushing La Mouette's nose across and back in the direction of our last port of call.

We sailed along at a good clip, getting thrown about a bit in the rough weather, but soon a new problem presented itself: How the hell were we going to get across the Coos Bay bar, up the river and into the marina?

It was much too rough for Randy to tow us in, and he recommended calling in the Coast Guard.

I didn't think we were bad off enough to justify military intervention, and I had purchased unlimited towing insurance from Vessel Assist for just this type of situation. I grabbed my cellphone (thankfully in range) and called the 800 number, filling in the call center worker and giving him our GPS coordinates. He told me they had a vessel stationed in Charleston and that the captain would hail us on the VHF.

In the meantime, Kyle was sailing us back to the bay. We had perfect wind to sail across the bar and into the bay, but I felt uneasy about sailing in, as I couldn't help but remember the Lost at Sea memorial in Charleston with very recent names on the rolls and the countless photographs adorning the walls of the cafe of ships wrecked at the very entrance we were now approaching (the most memorable photo shows crew members of a sinking ship scrambling up the rigging while three men on the beach look on helplessly... the caption states that all of those men eventually dropped to their deaths in the icy sea, just a few hundred yards from dry land).

Kyle got us close to the breakwater and then turned us around, heading back out as we waited for the Vessel Assist, who had radioed that they were getting close.

A few minutes later, at about 3:00 pm, we spotted the red boat motoring towards us. The bar conditions were so turbulent that the large boat launched completely out of the water off numerous waves. It would be difficult to get the tow set up.

I asked through the radio if it might be easier if we sailed into the protection of the breakwater. Now that we had some help, I felt our chances for grounding had lessened acceptably.

Kyle deftly guided La Mouette back through the same bar entrance we'd left mere hours before. In its protection we dropped sails and the Vessel Assist boat moved in next to us, throwing lines to attach to our cleats so they could raft us in.

Breakwater or no, the water was still quite choppy, and La Mouette fought against the V.A. boat, slamming against the protective fenders in an unsettling way.

I was up on the bow (where I had tied the line) when Kyle yelled that he needed some help. The force of the struggle between the boats and the waves had put so much tension on the line that it began to bend the metal rods that make up the rear pulpit (a sort of protective railing/cage around the cockpit). We had to get the line rearranged without letting the V.A. boat's stern drift away from ours, a process that nearly cost me my left arm as the boats crashed against each other.

Lines re-secured, all limbs accounted for, the V.A. boat rafted us back to the same dock we'd hoped to never see again.

As we came in, the captain of the V.A. boat failed to see that a small fishing skiff was in the slip, scrambling to get out of the way, and he had to suddenly break off the approach.

As the boat speed dropped, the wicked river current grabbed us and started to pull the two rafted boats away from the slip.

In his attempt to maneuver us back into position, he also failed to notice the giant iron pylon towering 12 feet out of the water at the end of the slip, and he was about to savagely ram our port side against it.

My heart pounded as I leaped across the cockpit, grabbing a fender in a desperate attempt to wedge it between La Mouette and the pylon, which would easily punch a hole right through her fiberglass hull.

With only inches of clearance left, I shoved the fender down, praying I could place it right.

The V.A. boat pushed, and La Mouette slammed into the perfectly placed fender, squeezing it down from its normal 8-inch diameter into a nearly paper-thin blob. Instead of crashing, she bounced back the other way.

Whew.

The captain, however, still failed to see it, and he tried once more to mangle our beloved boat.

This time we had some forward movement as well as the lateral, so my fender was only in the proper place for a moment before rolling out and baring La Mouette's milky white hull to the rusted iron pylon that lusted after her.

I threw my body against the pylon. I wasn't foolish enough to get between it and the hull (again, I like to have all of my limbs), but I hoped to wrestle it enough to keep as much force off the contact as possible as it raked across her.

I shoved with all of my inconsiderable strength, but I couldn't keep her from making contact. I just prayed that we wouldn't sustain any major damage.

As the pylon cleared the stern, the V.A. finally settled us in the slip. After jumping to the dock to secure the lines, I bent down to survey the damage.

She'd taken a long rust-colored kiss, but it rubbed off to reveal that La Mouette hadn't even taken a scratch. (The grapes, fresh off the vine from my father's friend, didn't fare so well. They'd been smashed to jelly sometime in the last hour as we'd flung our bodies about trying to make it in safely.)

A bit dispirited at being back in Charleston, we walked with Randy to the cafe, where I informed the waitress that an Avocado Swiss n' Bacon burger would go a long way to making me feel better.

The rest of the day was spent at rest. The diagnosis of the engine would have to wait until the next day.

Sometime after midnight, I popped my head out of the cabin to check the weather. The wind had died completely. If we'd pushed on towards Crescent City, we might very well have been caught in the pre-storm doldrums. Good call, Randy.

When Kyle did investigate the engine, we found the source of the screeches. The bearings in the starter had disintegrated and it had seized up, stopping the engine when the flywheel couldn't turn it.

As the starter isn't really a part of the main engine, it would be an easy fix. Kyle ordered the part (plus one for spare) off the internet. All we had to do was wait for it to come, slap it back on, and away we'd go.

Meanwhile, my father had decided that our pace was too slow and that he'd been away from my mother for too long, so he departed on the SUNL for San Diego, where my mother was to meet him so they could visit my brother.

It was during this waiting period for the part - a string of rainy days brought on by the storm - that we became acquainted with the crabvolk. The crabvolk are the people who come to the marina to throw their crab pots off the docks. They leave raw chicken parts and fish heads laying about, which the seabirds flock to feast on, shitting everywhere, and when they bring their seaweed-covered crab pots back to the surface, instead of throwing the seaweed into the water, they throw it on the dock.

The combo of seaweed, chicken guts, and gull shit that we have to walk through to escape the docks just never gets old for some reason.

The crabvolk have many other great qualities, too numerous to list here, and they've essentially come to represent to us the hellishness of being stuck in Charleston.

(In all fairness, some of them are pretty nice people, but the majority make you wonder how certain strings of genetic code even manage to continue on through history.)

Incidentally, any fans of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia got to catch a glimpse of Charlie's "crab people" lifestyle in the episode about the recession a couple of weeks back. Needless to say, the crew of La Mouette thought the joke was timely and hilarious.

The starter wasn't due to arrive until the 21st, so I spent my time writing (and also a fair amount of time successfully liberating Altea from Dohlr's evil grip in Fire Emblem).

The part came in on the 20th, and the weather looked good to make our second escape attempt on the 24th, two weeks after our last try.

Kyle attached the pristine new starter and we excitedly prepared to fire up the Penta.

The first flick of the switch fired the starter up, but the engine wouldn't turn over. Not a great sign, but the Penta had just sat cold for a couple of weeks.

A couple of tries later, she did start up, but sounded a bit off. Throttling up, she didn't want to reach normal RPM, and the exhaust was billowing thick, smelling of burnt oil. It sputtered along for a few minutes, but then began to slow before dying completely.

Apparently, the hard stop had damaged something, possibly bent a rod... not something that can be remedied with a simple adjustment. In essence, without a rebuild (and possibly even with one), our 1974 Volvo Penta was dead.

Call it.

A few days ago, there was only one path ahead: fix the starter and get the hell out of Oregon. Now a myriad of avenues have opened up, none as desirable as the old choice.

We could try to go without an engine, but the Northern Pacific in November is no place to be without power. These waters are unforgiving and new storms blow in with startling frequency. If you can't be sure of making safe harbor within the limited weather windows, it's foolhardy and dangerous to even leave port.

We could rebuild the engine here in Charleston, but that's an expensive and time-consuming process which might still leave us with a gimpy old horse. No guarantees.

We could order a new engine and install it here. This is the most desirable option, but new marine diesel engines are certainly not free, and it seems somewhat discouraging that "less than ten grand" could somehow seem like a bargain.

I'll reiterate our satisfaction with and confidence in La Mouette as a sailing vessel. I don't even have the slightest desire to part with her, and this boat with a new engine would be a world beater.

That said, we could leave La Mouette in Charleston for a while... set to return... at some point.

If we did that, the trip in its current incarnation would be scrubbed. If that is the case... where to next?

I'm not expected anywhere for some time, and my taste for adventure hasn't waned just yet.

Walk to San Diego? Bicycle? Motorcycle? Crawl? Hop a plane for Chile and a ship for Antarctica? The choices are unlimited.

I've no idea what will come next. We might sail out of here with a new engine within the month, or we may abandon the sea route altogether within the week. It's impossible to say.

What say ye, internet mob? Do we stick it out and get La Mouette back in the fight now, or leave her here for the winter season?

If we go... where and how? South by foot? North by train?

By hook or by crook...

Whatever happens, I'm sure it will be fun, or at least interesting. And if not, then I'll remember the rule of the sea: Everything must be a joke, told with a smile on your face even when there's a tremor in your belly.

My belly isn't trembling just yet, but the smile's there all the same. You'll see it when you see me, wherever that may be.

Well, That Wasn't Such a Chore Now, Was It?

"How's the engine running?"

"She's purring like a damn kitten!"

"Alright! Rock on, La Mouette!"

Randy's exclamation crackled through the VHF radio, transmitted from the sailing vessel "Ivy," La Mouette's new-found buddy boat, cruising along a short distance east of us. It was the first time on this trip anyone has had a reason to be excited about the performance of La Mouette's engine.

Ivy and La Mouette met up in Westport, both heading south from the Puget Sound dreaming of warmer waters, and we'd decided to join forces against this wretched North Pacific coastline.

(Randy, coincidentally enough, recognized La Mouette from Everett Marina as the boat he fell in love with and nearly purchased two or so years ago. Fortunately for Kyle and myself, he instead set his sights on Ivy, a green 29' Islander which he is single-handing down the coast.)

We had limped into Westport Marina after a rough sail, already detailed here, that was made vastly more difficult by the continued impotence of La Mouette's Volvo Penta diesel horse. Having no way to motor against the headwind blowing dead from the east out of Grays Harbor, we'd spent the morning being slapped about the face repeatedly by the sea as we beat our way in. But we'd made it.

The Penta, of course, despite having been so sweet for so long, had been giving us trouble from day one. We weren't five seconds from the dock in Everett before she'd given us a firm sign that all was not well, but as she worked well enough for our purposes in the Sound, we didn't give that warning its due respect.

Our first foray into the Northern Pacific, however, had made clear that we would need the Penta to perform, lest we get into some real trouble for want of engine power. We'd nearly been unable to enter Grays Harbor under sail as it were, and sea conditions can definitely get a lot worse than they did that day.

So when the weather report prompted us to wait a bit longer in Westport than we had originally planned, it was decided to utilize that time to try and bring the Penta back to life, to resurrect her sweet form that had been present from the day she came off the line in '74 but had so recently faded.

My father, who has been tinkering with engines for the last 45 years, and Kyle, the driving force behind La Mouette's purchase and continued excellence (he's basically made this whole trip happen by himself, seeing as I'm pretty worthless when it comes to this thing humans call "work") were the prime players in this effort, with myself offering little to the mix.

The initial symptoms spoke of fuel injector trouble, and that's where the investigation began, triggering a process that would come to resemble a crash course in diesel engine mechanics, with my father as lecturer and Kyle as able-minded student.

Kyle pulled the injectors with little trouble, but the nearest service shop was in Tacoma, many miles away. Luckily my father had purchased a Chinese-made SUNL motorbike that gave us vital mobility while in port and expanded our range from how far we could stand to walk to how far we could stand to blast along at 100 kph trying to avoid getting run down by logging trucks and soccer moms. Quite a difference, really.

As I wasn't very involved in the engine work and I've got class M (motorcycle) certification on my driver's license, I suited up and hopped on the SUNL for a little ride. As long as I was heading there, I'd hoped to catch a visit with my friend Bill in Tacoma, the city with that evergreen aroma, but a phone call revealed that he'd been struck down by the flu (PAX crud?), so I'd have to settle for a ride down beautiful US-12 (a road that I could've followed all the way to my house in Wisconsin, had the prospect of more sailing seemed too daunting) and WA-507 on a beautiful sunny day.

We were worried about the duration 0f the injector service affecting our ability to leave Westport with the next weather window, so we needed to get the parts to the shop as soon as possible. It being Thursday, the schedule could get pretty dicey if the injectors needed a lot of work (the shop isn't open on the weekends), so I wanted to arrive in Tacoma before they closed at 5:00 pm. It was after 2:00 when I got on the SUNL and the google said it would take over three hours to get there. Alright, SUNL, get ready for a thrashing.

I hammered that little bike for all she was worth. Had she been a horse, I'd've surely killed her, but it was a bit before 5:00 when I hit the Tacoma city limits, and Kieth at H&H Diesel had said earlier that someone might be around until a quarter or half past. I was gonna make it!

I thought. But I'd never been to Tacoma before and I didn't realize that WA-7 is less of a highway than a never-ending stretch of eternally red stoplights. I didn't make very good time the last ten miles of the ride.

When I got to H&H at 5:35, there was not a soul around. I stashed the box containing our two injectors under a tree near the entrance, left a message on their voice mail and considered my options. I was desperately hungry, but I only had an hour or so of light remaining and wanted to utilize it for the ride. Riding at night is both dangerous and bone-chillingly cold, so I wanted to get as far from Tacoma as I could before nightfall.

I was nearly tempted into stopping by the promise of Kimchi (Korea's gift to mankind) at a small market in McKenna, but was nearly out of light, so I kept on, resisting the urge. As darkness fell, the temperature dropped drastically and the SUNL's dinky headlight decided that it wouldn't provide me with enough light to make a 100 kph rate very safe.

At a certain point on a cold motorcycle ride, a rider's desire for escape begins to overwhelm his or her sense of safety, and considering how dangerous riding is in the safest of conditions, it's easy to rationalize that you can't be increasing the overall risk that much by going faster, and the payoff begins to feel worth the danger. So I began to push the bike once again, and for the next two hours broke my personal rule of motorcycling. Namely, never accelerate beyond your ability to see and respond to upcoming conditions.

Flying blind through the night, unable to see potential danger, and near brain-dead with cold, I made my way back to Westport and La Mouette, only making one wrong turn along the way, and arrived a bit after 9:00 pm to find Kyle and my father waiting with hot food. I was too numb to display any sort of gratitude, but I definitely appreciated it.

After spending eight hours on the bike that day, just sitting still out of the wind, free of the ass-numbing vibration of a four-stroke engine, felt like the best moment of my life. There is, quite honestly, an abundance of that feeling of late. I'm constantly feeling the best moment of my life as I escape one self-inflicted misery after another.

That feeling is my favorite part of sailing, actually. My father calls me a masochist, but he also admits that he's never felt more alive than after a skydiving jump when his main chute failed to open, forcing him to come down on his reserve chute. It happened on three of his over six hundred jumps, and he jokes that every other time he was secretly hoping it would happen again. No wonder my mother wanted him to quit.

I slept well that night, albeit still cold from the ride, and the next morning the diesel shop called around 10:00 am to report that they'd already finished servicing the injectors. I was thrilled that they had finished so quickly but a bit dismayed at the thought of another eight hours on a bike when I didn't feel recovered yet from the previous night's chill. This time, though, I could possibly make the whole trip in the daylight if I could drag my ass out of bed to do so.

I got up, ate a peanut butter sandwich, donned my gear once again and got back on the SUNL for another blast to Tacoma (the city of Tacoma!). The sun was out again, and Mt. Rainier as well, and I noticed scenery I'd been in too much of a hurry the day before to see. It really was quite the scenic drive.

At the diesel shop, Kieth handed me our injectors, looking beautiful, almost new. When he told me that they hadn't been in a level of disrepair to cause the level of performance loss we were having, I began to worry a bit about needing to rebuild the entire engine, a time-consuming and expensive process, but I had kilometers to burn (the SUNL's odometer reads in km) before dark, so I thanked Kieth for his prompt help and saddled up once more.

There would be no denying myself kimchi this time, and I stopped to buy two jars from a Korean woman surprised at the road dust-covered white kid wandering in eager for kimchi (though I'm not sure why she was so surprised... who buys kimchi in the middle of nowhere Washington?).

After that short stop, I hit it again, hoping to make Aberdeen by nightfall, which I managed (just barely) to do, giving me only twenty or thirty minutes of riding in the dark, dreaming of kimchi pork and rice the whole way.

Kyle and my father had continued working on the engine in my absence, but could only test the results of their efforts once the injectors were back. After Kyle put them in the next morning, we fired up the Penta... and as I'd feared from Kieth's take that the injectors weren't too bad, the engine persisted in its sickness. Damn.

There were a couple more things to check, but if they didn't pan out, it'd be rebuilding time. Trip's over. Go back to work, kid. Damn!

As we sat in Westport, prospects seemingly dimmer by the moment, we tore through our chocolate stores. I personally ate enough before sleep one night that I woke up with a feeling of nausea worse than any seasickness. I've always prided myself on my ability to consume inhuman amounts of chocolate, but I guess I'm getting old... and probably developing diabetes.

At any rate, Kyle and my father began to work on other solutions. Prospects brightened a bit when the thermostat was removed and found to be horribly broken. Perhaps this could be the culprit! The broken thermostat is letting in too much cold water and the engine can't burn hot enough to give us any power... maybe?

My father went off to procure a new one, returning with news that it would arrive "tomorrow." The weather was supposed to be good... perhaps we could get the part in, fire up the Penta and get the hell out of Westport!

Except that when waiting for parts, "tomorrow" is NEVER the next day, and in this case, the part that arrived two days later wasn't a fit for our Volvo. Foiled again.

Or so it seemed. But the extra time also allowed extra analysis of the engine, which revealed that the valves were badly out of adjustment, and the engine wasn't breathing right. That, combined with the broken thermostat, could very well be the root of the problem, so Kyle and I adjusted the valves and waited for the arrival of the proper thermostat, ordered from a shop in Aberdeen and picked up by my father on his SUNL on a rainy Thursday morning, a week after my 800 km ride for injector service.

Thankfully, it was the right part this time and Kyle magicked it back onto the engine and we fired her up... And a bit o' the old sweetness was evident from the start. She'd still need a good and long run to burn all of the crud out of her that a cold running temp had allowed to build up, but the instant performance jump had us confident that the problem had finally been resolved. We'd only know for sure by using her.

We let Randy know that we'd be ready to leave that evening and got ready to finally make our way from Westport. My father got a motel room, allowing us the luxury of hot showers before departing, and Kyle and I boarded La Mouette (my father to make the journey on the SUNL) with high spirits. If the engine would hold up, maybe these ten days in Westport would be worth it.

As we made our way from the slip, the power of the Penta was immediately evident, but it was still early and we were wary of disappointment, so we kept our hopes in check.

Randy had left a few minutes before us, and we met up with him out in Grays Harbor, kicked La Mouette into a higher rpm, and motored across the bar at 4.0 knots, back into the Pacific.

Needing to give the engine a good workout, we didn't raise the sails. Randy, knowing all about our engine troubles from our week of telling him we'd be ready to go "tomorrow," was surprised to see La Mouette charge along through the water and was excited to hear through the VHF that the was purring right along.

"You guys are going pretty fast. Over."

"Well, we haven't been able to do this before...EVER! Over."

We kicked her up to 2000 rpm and cruised along at 6.0 knots (we'd only managed 2.0 knots in calm water just days before), cruising up the swells and surfing down, again and again, elated by thoughts of a properly functioning engine and the ability to continue the trip.

Now we just needed to get south before the weather got too bad.

It was after 7:00 pm on October 1st, one month out of the slip at Everett, and we were still off the coast of Washington. Time to get a move on!

I geared up for my night watch, set the Autohelm (an electronic arm that can steer the boat, which is really handy under engine when the sails aren't up to balance your course), and scanned the night with the engine chugging away, giving me more confidence with every smooth revolution.

At one point in the night, a rescue helicopter buzzed over our mast to land on a distant cruise liner before buzzing back towards land, but apart from that, my watch was thankfully without event. I even felt great. No sign of sickness as I cruised on through the night, occasionally chatting with Randy on the VHF.

I woke Kyle up after sunrise for his watch and was fast asleep shortly thereafter. When I awoke at around 2:00 in the afternoon, my empty stomach lurched, and a wave of motion-induced nausea washed over me. Great. Here comes that familiar feeling. I crawled into the cockpit, sunny but cool, and tried to banish the feeling... but it had its hooks in. We'd spent too long in port and I'd lost the sea legs that I'd suffered through so much to gain on the last leg of the trip.

I hacked up some air over the side rails, but my empty stomach surrendered nothing. Just that bit of release made me feel a little better though, and I ate some rice before going back into the cabin to sleep more until my watch began at 7:00 pm.

We slowed down during the day because we were covering too much water too quickly and would arrive at Newport in the dark. By slowing down, we hoped to delay our arrival until after sunrise on Saturday, as the entrance to Newport is narrow and tricky to navigate.

A bit before dawn, a little finger of a thunderstorm blew through, soaking me but causing little harm. Randy, about five miles north of us, wasn't as lucky, getting knocked down by some 35 mph gusts, but escaping without too much trauma.

After another twelve hour stint on night watch (Randy had been awake 36 hours by this point... not sure how he does it), we were in perfect position to make our way into Newport. The tide was still moving out, and we had to go against the current to cross the bar... something La Mouette had balked at a week before, but she motored in at 5.0 knots, a reassuring 5.0 knots that elicited from me some mad scientist jokes to express my satisfaction at the Penta's return to life.

We followed Ivy into Newport's southern marina and had the dock lines secured by 8:00 or 9:00 am. I called my father, already in the city, and Kyle and I wandered off to meet him, leaving Randy to some well-deserved rest.

A bit of bacon later (Kyle and my father even had bacon-wrapped oysters), we were back at the boat, resting in the sun.

I spent the day lazing about before we went of in search of more food. I, of course, had my sights on a bacon cheeseburger. The Whale's Tale in Newport didn't disappoint, and our waitress reminded me of the "Manic Pixie Dream Girl" movie archetype... which, I'm sure, garners substantial tips for her.

(That's one shallow-minded comment I'll make about Newport: there are actually attractive people there, whereas Neah Bay and Westport were like something straight out of Gummo. All the beautiful people in those places must have fled to Seattle, or never existed at all...)

We sailed out of Newport on Monday to arrive in Coos Bay (also in Oregon) on Tuesday (today), finding the best sea conditions of the trip so far. Kyle and I even had appetites, and, thanks to a gift from Randy, even got to eat some bacon at sea.

I also, for the first time this trip, didn't pull night watch, and spent a frigid evening cozy in my blankets.

SoCal and Mexico are still quite far off... but these last two legs, specifically the recovery of the engine, have put us in high spirits.

We escaped Washington, and the Gulf of California is just that much closer. But, like with the engine a few days ago, it's wise to temper hopes with some cold realism.

The North Pacific is a cold and scary place, and we've a long way to go before we're out of it. I've got to focus on the sailing and bear through the suffering until the next respite, when I'm safe and sound in the next foreign port, or on the hook (at anchor) in some protected little cove.

Well, what do you know! That's where I am now, enjoying the most recent best moment of my life.

Wish you were here! :D

In Which the Crew of La Mouette is Thrashed But Does Not Lose Hope

"I'm going to vomit into the scuppers now. My apologies. Watch your feet." Kyle found my preemptive apology funny, greeting it with laughter, but it sure didn't feel funny leaning out of the cabin companionway and heaving my guts out into the cockpit drains. I only saw the humor later that night, and I, too, chuckled as I washed Kyle's recently returned banana paste out of the cockpit with a bucket of seawater.

There is not a man aboard La Mouette who has not surrendered his stomach to the seas.

Seasickness is a spiraling malady, and once it has its claws in, one is hard pressed to escape. The best defense against it is to stay outside in the cockpit with your eyes on the horizon, for going below decks into the cabin, robbing your senses of perspective, is when you open yourself up to an attack. For day sailors, this tactic of staying above decks may be all that is needed to avoid sickness.

For us, however, staying in the cockpit is only manageable for so long. One must eat, sleep, escape the elements, or use the facilities. All things done below decks... where the sickness lurks. Even were one able to do all of those things on deck, it would matter little as night fell, stealing the horizon from your gaze and confusing your brain and inner ear, giving your stomach over to turmoil.

If you are going offshore, be prepared for seasickness. Be prepared for brain-scrambling nausea. Be prepared for paralyzing cold sweats. Be prepared for suffering and self-doubt.

We left Neah Bay on Saturday morning, intent on rounding Cape Flattery and finally beginning our south-bound course. The weather reports for Oregon sounded severe as we left port, so we planned on making a shorter hop (two or three days) to Grays Harbor, with an option to skip over it if the weather permitted. A west wind ensured that we would have to beat against it in order to round the cape, but it was a sunny day and the weather and wind were reportedly quite fair a bit off the coast. If we could claw our way out of the final western bit of the Strait of Juan de Fuca, things sounded favorable for us.

It took only a few short hours to learn that, in this part of the world this late in the season, even favorable conditions carry an aspect of menace, one infinitely more intimidating than I had ever imagined.

The day began with the three of us in the cockpit, spirits high as we finally ventured out into the big drink, the pacific ocean, violent and cold with frigid Alaskan waters riding the current down our way and ten foot swells rolling in from Japan.

Current and swells, though, are just one aspect of the water. The real devils are the wind waves. Swells are large, rolling undulations caused by far-off disturbances. They may be ten feet high, but they generally come in at a slow enough frequency that you can ride up them and surf down. They can be intimidating, but are usually manageable, which is fortunate, as they are nearly omnipresent.

Wind waves, on the other hand, are water disturbances directly caused by the wind blowing through the area. They, much like you, surf along on the swells, violently sloshing against each other and making choppy seas. Best conditions will keep the wind waves below two feet, but they can easily grow to four, stretching to ten on days from nightmare.

Imagine rolling ten-foot waves stretching into infinity with violent four-foot baby waves surfing along on them, and that is about what we had as we beat out to round the cape with Kyle at the tiller.

It was rough, but we felt confident as we beat northwest against the wind to get enough distance to clear the cape. After a bit, my father disappeared below to rest in the v-berth (front section of the boat), leaving Kyle and I in the cockpit.

As happens, I eventually began to feel the call of nature and I debated on what to do. I was bundled head to foot in heavy weather gear, smashing along against wind waves and swells that made it too violent to use the toilet, and my bladder wasn't getting any less full. I began to prepare myself to pee over the side, but it felt somewhat unsafe hanging myself off a railing in rough water, and Kyle recommended that I go below to use the pee bottle. The fool I am, I took his advice.

My reward, as you've already seen, was multiple trips to Heavesville. I had to fight to concentrate so I could finish going to the bathroom and still have time to make it to the cockpit to empty my stomach, just managing to finish before the waves of nausea became too great.

Between mouth-clearing spits, I warned Kyle off of even attempting to go below. Pee in the scuppers if you must, just don't go down there. He took my advice and proceeded on an iron man twelve-hour shift on the tiller while I retreated below to try and sleep, knowing I would be on night watch and needed rest. I can't say I slept so much as lay in a near-death state, but I did rouse myself every two hours or so to get sick into the scuppers, though by this time I was only dry heaving. Apart from the teeth-chattering shivers that came after each heave session, I had only self-doubt to keep me warm. Here I was, nearly paralyzed with sickness... in the BEST weather conditions we could expect. Can I even make it down the coast? How much misery does one deliberately put himself through? Can I feel like this one more month? One more day?!

At about 10:00 pm Kyle called out, asking me to wake up, which was following by a hacking and sploosh sound. The disappearance of the horizon had taken its toll.

I, still in my foul weather gear, grabbed my head lamp and watchman's cap and stumbled into the cockpit to relieve him of watch. My stomach still churned and I felt drunk-stupid, but he wasn't in any better condition than myself, so I settled in next to the tiller. It was a clear night, but moonless, so only the light of Jupiter cast a slight glow on the water, sloshy and churning as ever.

I hadn't eaten any food all day, so I tried choking down a banana (a food I hate... but strangely eat daily). After just half of it I was hanging my head over the rails, sending the banana into the sea, reeling in shock and losing control of the tiller, sending the boat spinning into the waves.

As the last heave began to subside, a feeling of relief and calm swept over me. I looked up into the sky, felt the wind on my face, put the boat back on a bearing of 180 degrees, and laughed at myself.

Damn me if this isn't fun.

Chuckling, I washed the cockpit out with a bucket of seawater, trimmed the sails, and blew through the night, due south.

A glutton for punishment, I nibbled down half of a chocolate chip peanut crunch nutrition bar. It stayed down. How about the other half? Hmm... Perhaps my senses had finally acclimated. I still felt the "hangover" aspect of the sickness-a tender stomach and a weakness of body-but my inner ear was no longer tumbling down a flight of stairs, and I could take in the beauty of Jupiter and the Milky Way, shining brilliantly 50 miles west of the nearest source of light pollution.

As the eastern sky began to fill with light, the combination of little sleep, little food, and much vomiting finally began to overwhelm my ability to remain alert.

I had been tracking the light of another sailboat throughout the night, and I knew he couldn't be too far away. The light patterns he was giving off had him moving on a mostly parallel course, but occasionally he would veer onto an intercept course before veering back, constantly bringing his line towards convergence with ours.

I kept the binoculars around my neck so I could keep tabs on him, but as my energy began to fade, it became harder and harder to keep track of him amongst the swells. My eyelids began to droop, and those same binoculars that were so handy to track him with began dragging my head down towards the deck, impossibly heavy.

I checked on the other boat, saw the white of his stern light and knew he was moving away. Safe for a bit.

I leaned back and stared at Jupiter, amazed at how much light it casts. It slowly split into two bodies as my eyes lost focus and my head fell to the side. Seeing the two points of light flash across my vision snapped my attention back from the near-sleep trance I had almost succumbed to. I swung my gaze around in a panic, looking for the other boat. How long had I lost focus for? His red port bow light showed him heading back towards us, on intercept again.

I could either fight off sleep (and probably fail) while watching to see how close he could get, or I could change course a bit myself, hopefully waking myself up in the process.

So I pushed the tiller over and fell off the wind a bit, bringing it to blow more on our starboard stern (back) than beam (side). Trimming the sails brought our speed up slightly, but we began to move as quickly as the wind when pushed along on the swells, and the sails began to repeatedly luff (flap loosely) and snap back full with an annoying pop.

My wits began to fail me as I ran through some solutions to get the sails to sleep (run quietly), but we were still moving well enough, so I let the sails move about as they would and watched the sun crest the eastern horizon and bring our first night on the Pacific to a close.

The light revealed that our new course had put us ahead of the other sailboat and showed him to be some miles off. No need to pay him much mind in the light, but even with the sun up, I still had to struggle to fight off sleep, so I was thankful as Kyle clamored into the cockpit a bit after 8:00 am. I gave the tiller over to him and crawled below, stripping off my gear and surrendering myself to my blankets, fast asleep.

Kyle, from his accounts, sailed through a sunny day. The swells were still high, but it was a beautiful day and he steered us back in the direction of the coast, towards Grays Harbor.

We were still about 30 nautical miles out when I woke up in the dark. I slipped back into my second skin, once again grabbed a meal bar and my water bottle and dragged myself back into the cockpit, ready for another night shift, this time sailing towards the lights of the mainland and Grays Harbor.

One of the trickier aspects of sailing this coast is that safe harbors can become scarce in bad weather. Grays Harbor, for example, is a river outlet with a big sandbar that the big swells ride out of the deep water and slam into, creating large waves and breakers, which can be impassible, especially for a sailboat with a meager engine.

To get in aboard La Mouette, we would have to time the currents right and ride them into the harbor. A stiff northeast wind was blowing us there at five knots, and I thought we would easily get into the harbor before 3:30 am, when the tide was set to switch against us. If we couldn't clear the bar by then, we'd have to wait until 9:30 am, which by this point seemed like eons away.

Around 2:00 am we were five miles out, so I roused Kyle to have two people awake in case we needed to work some magic with the sails. I had navigated us to the buoys that mark the entrance, but soon realized that I should have considered the wind blowing dead down that channel and tried to take a short cut, as our engine didn't have the chops to make a dead sprint against the wind.

As it was, we would never beat into the bay in time to catch the tide, and we had to abandon our approach about two miles out, turning back to wait for the light and the tide. Ultimately, our experience in the morning made me glad I hadn't gotten us there in time during the night.

When we'd given up, Kyle had gone back to sleep, so I sailed back and forth a bit north of the harbor. The wind changed to dead east and picked up in intensity. Large wind waves began to slam against us from the east, getting nasty as they clashed with the swells rolling in from the west.

We lost ground over the next couple of hours, ending up five miles out again thanks to the rising wind. I knew the wind was going to be tough to overcome and I didn't want to miss the current a second time, so at about 6:30 or 7:00 am, I began to beat back and forth into Grays Harbor.

The seas slammed into La Mouette, soaking me (but luckily washing all the puke from the rails) with blast after blast of icy saltwater. Kyle came back topside sometime after 8:00, and we continued our beat, back and forth into the wind.

It took me five hours to get those five miles, and I've never fought harder for a shorter span.

A large cargo ship hulked in the bay at anchor, and we surely would have struck her in the dark. We nearly had to rub rails with her as it was, given the zig-zag pattern we needed to follow to gain against the wind.

After finally gaining an angle that would allow us to clear Point Chehalis and head into the Westport Marina, we came up, dropped the main sail, and staggered into the marina, whipped.

After securing our dock lines on float six, the three of us sat at a picnic table along the marina boardwalk. It was about 1:00 pm, and I'd been at the helm for well over twelve hours. All I could do was sit with a wide-eyed, shell-shocked stare. Now that I was in safe harbor... could I really just so cavalierly venture back out again in a day or two (when the next weather window was set to open)?

On Saturday, as I lay incapacitated by paralyzing sickness, I had wondered at my ability to withstand such conditions. How long can you willingly suffer? How many times can you leave a calm harbor to fight against sickening seas?

If the sea intimidates and incapacitates you when the weather is as good as it will be, given the season, do you really chance going back out into it, asking for more?

Sometimes a sailor needs a short memory.

It's late in the season, and the weather is turning. We set sail again on Monday, headed south, thoughts of the Baja dancing in our heads.

-------------------------------------------------------

Those of you watching the SPoT may have noticed that I made a trip to Tacoma...twice. My father has purchased a motorbike, and I used it to take our diesel fuel injectors in to be serviced. The entire west coast is awash with hazardous sea warnings, so we're stuck in Westport for a few days. Hopefully this injector servicing will take care of some of the problems that have arisen of late with La Mouette's diesel horse. It was a butt-numbing 800 kilometers, but Mt. Rainier is quite beautiful from US-12 and WA-507.

I Always Did Love a Good Party

"We're being boarded by the Coast Guard!" I yelled to all aboard La Mouette (Kyle and my father). It was a quarter to eight in the morning, and I was just about to get some sleep after pulling a 1:00 am to 7:30 am watch as we sailed west through the Strait of Juan de Fuca.

After moving backwards with the current on a cold, mostly windless night, a warm southern wind had blown a kiss on my face at about 5:00 am and sped us the remaining 12 nautical miles to Neah Bay, the last stop in the Strait before rounding Cape Flattery and hitting it south with everything we've got.

I roused Kyle a bit after 7:00, as we made our final approach to the protected little bay, and he took the helm from me so I could get some needed rest. I went below, flopping fully clothed onto the settee (imagine a couch) with the intention of resting a bit-just a bit-before taking my foul weather gear off and crawling into my blankets. In reality, I probably would have fallen asleep with that gear on had Kyle not called down for me to turn on the VHF radio.

Technically, regulations state that the radio should always be on, monitoring channel 16, but we often use it only when we see other boats about. The early morning traffic rush of super-freighters into the Puget Sound was just beginning, so perhaps Kyle just wanted the radio on in case he had to communicate with one of them...

...or perhaps the Coast Guard cutter that had just turned its .50-caliber-laden bow towards us had something to do with it.

I flicked on the radio, but we had apparently already missed a hailing call from them, because they decided to go straight for our ears with the cutter's megaphone system.

"If you can hear me, raise one arm." Kyle and I each raised an arm.

"If you have a radio, go channel 81." I flicked the radio over to 81 and identified our rig as the sailing vessel La Mouette, proceeding to have a little one-sided Q&A with their radio operator about our previous port of call (Friday Harbor), our intentions (sailing into Neah Bay), etc.

Then came the magic words. "When was the last time you were boarded by the Coast Guard? Over."

Uhhh... do you use the same tactics on the U.S.C.G. as you do on Gozer the Gozerian?

"We've never been boarded by the Coast Guard. Over."

Dramatic pause. Am I going to have to cross the streams?

"Proceed on your present course. We're sending over a boarding party. Have all of your documents ready. Over."

"Copy. Over." I guess bedtime just got pushed back a bit.

After yelling my warning of the impending party, I scrambled topside to help get the sails down and we began to motor into Neah Bay, a jet boat full of coasties charging towards us through the current. Keeping my priorities straight, I grabbed a mini chocolate bar to gobble, found my passport, and flopped back down on the settee to await their arrival.

The (admittedly awesome) orange and black jet boat Zodiac bumped against us and two armed representatives of homeland security hopped into La Mouette's Safari cockpit. They requested that all crew get topside, so I once again gave up my cushioned repose and went up to greet them.

I was immediately envious of their foul weather gear, even telling them so. My father suggested that all I had to do to receive a set was sign my name on a dotted line. I think I'll keep my own set, actually.

After securing La Mouette's armory (a Marlin 30-30), the two fellows were pretty good natured and they found no reason for concern as they ensured that La Mouette and her crew met U.S.C.G. regulations, checkbox by bureaucratic checkbox.

The morning warmth that had so kindly warmed me up a short time before turned out to be fleeting and a heavy rain began to beat down, forcing the paperwork-toting coasties below decks. You might think that the Coast Guard would have figured out some way of writing in the wetness, but I guess our tax dollars can't make every miracle happen.

I stayed at the helm as the rain beat down, and after one of the coasties had finished his bit of paperwork, he returned to the cockpit to chat with me a bit. He had just gotten off nightwatch and was asleep himself when the cutter spotted us, forcing him from bed and into a rubber Zodiac with a gun strapped on his belt. Heckuva morning!

We commiserated on lost sleep and chatted on a fatigue-inspired variety of topics, including but not limited to: drug smuggling, journalism, and cheese (he made the wild assertion that Tilamook cheese was superior to Wisconsin cheese, but the man was obviously mad with sleep deprivation, so I let him off with a slight chastising).

When the other one was finished giving La Mouette the checklist review, he transmitted the all clear (minus one violation-not fine worthy-for a missing 'A' on the bow registration stickers) and the jet boat zoomed back over to us. I bade my sleepy conversation partner farewell, and they jumped away.

By this time, I had motored us near the gate of Makah Marina in Neah Bay. Kyle got the dock lines ready and I piloted us into a slip a bit before 9 am. Lines secure. All hands accounted for. A good day.

Neah Bay is a beautiful little town surrounded by mountain and ocean. I can't get cell reception, but there is wi-fi to be pilfered.

The last day has been spent prepping the boat for the big run down the coast. My bacon cheeseburger was passable (nothing compared with Friday Harbor's fare), and we bought $25 worth of chocolate minis at the store. California, here we come.

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Anyone who wishes to obsessively track our progress via GPS can do so via this redirect.

Photographic evidence of our passage can be found here.

Well...It's a Start!

"She's yours!” I yelled as I pushed the bow of La Mouette from F float of the Everett Marina for the last time, and leaped to catch her before being left ashore.

Kyle nudged the throttle into forward, and La Mouette's sweet and ever-reliable Volvo Penta diesel engine sputtered to a stop. This was strange because: a) she was sweet and ever-reliable, and b) the engine had been running without problem for nearly an hour. Apparently we should have given it two.

Kyle ducked below to magic her back to life as I grabbed a large fender preparing to fend off against any of the multiple boats on F float that a stiff westerly wind was blowing us towards.
I heard the Penta rumble to wakefulness and Kyle reappeared to take the helm. La Mouette responded somewhat mutedly, but at least respond she did. Kyle steered her away from slip F 48, her home for many years, and I stood before the mast, on the lookout for traffic, debris, and seals. I saw none of the former two, and one of the latter. Look out little guy!

First stop: Fuel Dock. La Mouette needs a top-off. 4.9 gallons of diesel later, we're back into the stiff wind with a limp engine. She could clear the gate, though, and from there we would have a perfect wind to blow past Jetty Island, round-up to pass Hat Island, and blow on up the east side of Widby, bound for Deception Pass.

I doubted the Penta (engine) for a few minutes, but Kyle kept faith, and sure enough, it began to run smoothly, shaking off a recent disuse to resemble her old self. Despite having sails up and a favorable wind, we pushed along with the engine (I mostly slept, really) for a good while to get her warm for the trip. Nothing worse than not having her when you're expecting her services. Next time it will be two hours running after a layoff.

Shortly after nightfall, Kyle lowered the anchor in Holmes Harbor, off Widby Island, and we set in for the night.

...which actually turned into three nights. Playing with the new Kayak, fishing, and relaxing in a sun-draped harbor are, after all, exactly what this trip is all about.

On Friday, Sept. 4th(after having left Everett on the 1st), I pulled up the anchor (a process which will eventually kill me or turn me into a brute) at Holmes and we sailed north, settling down near dark in Penn Cove, a protected little spot not so far from Oak Harbor.

It may have been too protected. (dunDundooon!)

The following morning, the weather report told of a small craft advisory (very strong wind with large waves – for the record, La Mouette, all 27 beautiful French feet of her, falls into the “small craft” category, so when this kind of advisory is issued, they're talking to us), but we saw sun and had light wind in Penn Cove.

Should we put a reef in the sail (shorten the mainsail by tying a section off to reduce surface area)? If the winds are really as high as all that, we really should. But we didn't. Because they weren't as high as all that. In Penn Cove.

Out of Penn Cove... well a different wind was brewing. A high wind. A wet and wild, blow-you-ten-miles-faster-n-you-can-spit-out-the-seawater-from-the-first-wave-that-hit-you-ten-miles-back kind of wind.

So Kyle heaved up the anchor (I really cannot stress enough how arduous of a process that is) and I raised the full mainsail to blow us on out of Penn Cove, headed east and then north, around the top of Widby to Deception Pass.

The wind seemed light and swirling, meaning a long, slow trip ahead of us. As Kyle got the anchor aboard, he noticed that the anchor trip line (a long piece of rope with a floating buoy on it attached to the anchor) had wrapped around our keel (the part of a sailboat that reaches down into the water and is quite heavy, giving balance while sailing). It would be unwise to start the engine for fear of wrapping that line around the propeller, disabling our propulsion system and really fouling things up. Our problem wasn't that bad yet, and the boat was in motion, needing to be sailed off the shore, so the line would have to wait. I certainly didn't relish the idea of swimming under the boat in 58 degree water, fumbling around with a tangled rope. Hopefully we wouldn't need that engine right off.

This is when that aforementioned wind o' the ages blew in on us, sweeping up between Widby and Camano islands with a fierce temper and sending Kyle and I on a drenching two-hour thrill ride across the the head of the Saratoga Passage into Skagit Bay (where the landmass of Camano would protect us from the blow a bit, lessening the intensity of the ride).

The day before I had noticed a small tear in our biggest jib (foresail), so Kyle had notched on the smaller, more manageable storm jib before weighing anchor. If we'd noticed that tear one day later, it would have been because a 25 knot wind had just blown through it, splitting the sail open like a wet napkin. So good luck there.

What wasn't good luck was having our full mainsail up in such high winds. The boat was seriously overpowered, crashing into giant swells and sweeping the deck with brisk 58 degree water. Kyle was awash in it as he got the storm jib up. (Good thing we had our foul weather gear on... oh wait. We didn't!) Once that was done, I moved to take down the main so we could get the reef in.

The sail slapped me in the face a bit, sending my sunglasses (luckily not my favorite pair) tumbling to the depths, but it came down with only that bit of fuss and a great deal of water flowing through my shoes.

I made it back to the helm and Kyle rushed to get the reefing system in so we could get the mainsail back up, quite a bit shorter. La Mouette responded well to the new sail arrangement, and we blazed across the water as fast as our hull would allow. I'm sure we've never gone ten miles faster.

The sun toyed with us a bit, keeping the wet from being miserable, and once we'd gone ten or fifteen miles, we came to Skagit bay, settling down into a more manageable blow. The wind was still high, but nothing like in that first expanse.

The wind in the northern inland waters funnels between the islands and whips around with unpredictable patterns and force, and we'd just come through a taste of it (with a lot more in store in the coming weeks). I also got a good taste of stomach acid, as I felt seasick for about 10 minutes before getting it out with a few good dry heaves. Yum. At least there were plenty of delicious salt water face washes over the next two hours to help me with the taste, and after seasickness passes, it generally stays gone (but results may vary).

Once we tucked into Skagit bay and the wind lessened, it was time to take care of that pesky line wrapped around the keel. Kyle kept La Mouette sailing on a slow reach as I donned my wet suit and hopped into the kayak to get a better look.

Luckily, I didn't have to go for a swim. I was able to untangle the line enough from down at water level for Kyle to pull it free and get it aboard. Now we could make use of the engine, which we did in short order to cut through a narrow channel to arrive at a nice little anchorage, protected from all the blow and bluster of the land. Where I now sit, safe and mostly dry. Tomorrow, September 6this slated for bad weather, so we'll just be chilling where we're at. The kayak needs attention, after all, and so do all of the little nooks of all the islands around.

So, as the Beatles sang... Raiiaaaaaiiiiaaaaiiiin. I don't mind. (Then they hit the bass riff. You'll just have to imagine that part on your own.) -OUT-

But it wasn't meant to be. As I'm sure everyone in the Seattle area noticed, Sunday was craptastic. I wasn't foolhardy enough to venture out in the kayak, so I just spent the day scribbling away in a notebook.

Monday, we were able to raise the hook and motor off to Deception Pass, which is much cooler from beneath the bridge than above it. If you hit the pass at the right time, the current goes out like a toilet flushing and you shoot through the rocky narrows on into the Strait of Juan de Fuca, a short skip from the San Juan Islands.

After another night on the hook, a bit south of Blakely Island in the San Juans, we figured to be about a ten to fifteen mile sail from Friday Harbor on Tuesday morning. It was such a beautiful day, with good sun and not too much wind, that I'd rather have stayed in our little anchorage to go kayaking... so a bit of a compromise. I jumped in the kayak for a little race.

Who could get to Friday Harbor first, Kyle in La Mouette or myself in the Kayak? (To make it a bit more of a challenge, I dropped two full water bottles on my left foot while gearing up, the combo of the two bottles smashing my little and big toes and adding a fun new aspect to the whole trip. I won't go on about it, so just imagine me wincing in pain while I type this, and cursing the decision to buy the sturdy red metal water bottle from Fun and Games.) After about 20 minutes, it was obvious that with the light wind blowing from the direction we were headed, the kayak would make the trip faster, so I puttered around within sight of the boat for six hours or so, before climbing back aboard once the sun fled behind some clouds.

Cruising through waters hundreds of feet deep, even within sight of the islands, in such a small vessel made me feel a bit giddy. I'll say it was the highlight of the young trip so far. The water was glass calm, and I paddled after a porpoise who didn't have much interest in playing with me. I buzzed near towering cliffs and drifted in the middle of a large expanse of water, feeling right.
We spent one more uneventful night on the hook, stopping short of Friday Harbor by a couple of miles, and then motor-sailed the rest of the way there Wednesday morning, jumping onto dry land for the first time in over a week.

The obligatory bacon cheeseburger was delicious, for those who might be curious after such things.

We walked around the town, gathering pieces for the boat and even took in the new Tarantino film (which I liked).

I've also, obviously, pilfered a bit of Wi-Fi. Are you still reading this?

Hope all is well with everyone, and you should know all is well with me. We'll be in Friday Harbor the next couple of days, awaiting the arrival of my father.

The San Juan Islands are nice, but I sure won't mind kayaking around a jungle lagoon in the near future. Still a month of sometimes-brutal sailing ahead of me before I can even get to the warm water (much less the jungle), but SoCal, here we come.

P.S. A hot shower after a week afloat = aaaaaaaahhhhhh. ;D

こんな生活で日本語をすぐに忘れちゃうかなぁ。