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.

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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。