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