Tag Archives: Sailing

Choices

By | | Out My Writer's Window, Uncategorized
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by Erik Dolson

“You have to make a choice,” I told my daughter again, acutely aware of how many times I’d told her already, as if by sheer repetition the message might overwhelm whatever fear or reluctance that was holding her back.

“You need to have a plan,” I said. Again. She didn’t need another college degree, she needed a job. To jump into the river and become part of life’s flow toward whatever her future held.

“More school by itself is not a plan.” She’d heard that before, but thankfully did not roll her eyes. She’s such a good person, and so capable, I did not doubt that future would be bright. I just needed to convince her.

“I’ll help in any way that I can, but I won’t help you stay stuck in Central Oregon. I wouldn’t be doing my job,” I said, not for the first time. We’d just moved her sister to a house in Portland, she and her mother and her sister and I. From there I headed north toward the boat, with a stop in Port Townsend, always one of my favorite towns.

It was cold and windy, though, and walking about was hard in the chill off the water. After an expensive night’s sleep on the top floor of a Victorian era hotel where I slept in a room named after Miss Pearl, a prostitute who lived and loved a hundred years ago, I drove on to Anacortes and took a ferry to Friday Harbor where I’d left Foxy almost two weeks before.

When I woke on the boat on Sunday, the day was surprisingly benign. I checked the weather online, listened to the NOAA broadcast and made a quick decision to head down the Strait of Juan de Fuca to Victoria that morning, instead of waiting out the next storm due on Monday, which had been my plan.

The boat came together easily, so I cast off at about 10 am for a calm three and a half motor/sail to Victoria.  Foxy and I were well on the way out of Friday Harbor on the ebb tide, doing almost 10 knots down San Juan Channel to the turn at Cattle Point into the strait.

It was a bright and lovely day, little to do but look out for logs and watch for orca. I took a “project inventory” of what had been done on Foxy over the winter, and what remains to be done. It had been a productive, if expensive, winter.

There’s a new house on the boat. It improves life even more than I thought it would, providing another living area that is dry and bright, important up here in the Pacific Northwest. In southern waters, should I ever get there, the walls will come off and it will provide plenty of shade.

I’d just had a new fuel filter system installed in Anacortes. One wouldn’t think much technology goes into a fuel filter, a can of pleated paper, but new designs make changing them easier, with much less mess in the bilge and potentially in the environment.

I had the engine flushed at the same time; the silicate had dropped out of the coolant and collected in the bottom of the catch bottle. I realized it had been a few years and the previous job was only a partial flush because it’s hard to get a diesel engine up to operating temperature on the dock, heat necessary for the flush to do a full job..

I’d built the framework where the solar panels now hang, 1,080 watts of power to charge the batteries, and now the panels are properly wired. There’s a new wireless radar on the mast that works just as advertised, and the old one that shaded the solar panels has been sold, albeit for a pittance. The dinghy motor runs after the winter lay-up. Love them two-strokes.

The automated identification system (AIS) is installed and operational. I knew I needed one when, coming south from Alaska two summers ago, Irish and I hit that storm off the coast and a trawler suddenly appeared that I couldn’t identify and did not know if it was dragging long lines across my course.

Now I post my AIS location on Facebook when I take off from someplace, not so much because I think anyone cares that I’m out and about as to give authorities a place to start looking if I don’t show up. That’s assuming someone would be expecting me. I may need to work on that system.

There’s a new and yet another battery monitor that works with the solar panels and also gives me more information about, and maybe some control over, my batteries.

I wish I was a better electrician, but I’ve changed out the fluorescent lights in the galley and head (bathroom) for more pleasant LEDs that sip far less electricity; added a light to the pantry so my old eyes can see the difference between oats and brown rice, each in a container with a green lid, and avoid unpleasant surpises before coffee in the morning, and I added another light to the engine room so I don’t have to juggle a flashlight with my teeth to check the oil and water.

I own one LED not yet installed for the master stateroom and three more for corners in the engine room. I need two more after that, one for the closet where the life jackets hang and another for the aft stateroom. That should be good enough. We’ll see. It’s a boat.

Still not done is replacement of the propane system. That’s the last of this winter’s major projects. The hose that runs from  tanks in the stern locker is 30 years old and cloth covered, and the plumbing of that, like most of the other plumbing on the boat that I’ve removed, redesigned and reinstalled, was not done very well.

I have to change the position of the solenoid that, with a switch in the cabin, cuts off the gas. While I’m at it, I should probably swap out the old pressure regulator and old pressure gauge.

It took a week to get hold of the man I’d hope would do this work, but he’s has to fix an expensive boat that hit a log crosswise at 25 knots, damaging a whole lot below the waterline. So I’ll probably do this one myself. It may be propane, but it’s just plumbing, right?

I dropped the old lifelines off at my chandlery to be remade, tough new stainless lines around the deck to replace old vinyl covered ones that had at least a few cracks where corrosion was seeping through the covering. Lifelines are not something you want to fail when you put your weight against them, intntionally or because you lost your footing.

Oh, as soon as the weather warms a bit and I can sit comfortably on the foredeck, I have to polish the cones on the anchor windlass so the anchor falls to the bottom at a controllable rate. And install my wireless windlass control, so I can put the anchor down under power or pull it back up while I’m at the helm in back, with steering and throttle controls. That’s a consideration when single-handing a boat out in the bays and anchorages.

This is all part of the plan: Prepare the boat for this summer, and maybe next winter, too. After March surprised Central Oregon with 30 inches of snow in three days, I do NOT want to spend another winter there. No. Just no.  Maybe Mexico.

When I pulled into Victoria, docking was bit tricky. The wind pushed me away from the dock, and when neighbors came to help, I gave very poor instructions. It’s different looking down at the lines than standing on the dock looking at the boat, and I communicated poorly.

There was no damage, it was all good, but I hate being incompetent and had to give thanks and make some apologies for asking the impossible. This being Canada, apologies were gracefully accepted.  I still need to come up with a better plan, and maybe shorter lines, for docking in difficult conditions.

Afterwards, when I was sitting back with coffee, I checked in with Irish to make sure she was okay after traveling back from her dance contest in Indiana. She surprised me with news that she was getting another dog the next day, a puppy.

It was an arrow well placed. I hate it when significant news is kept from me, even when it doesn’t directly affect me. A little hangover from an unpredictable childhood, I suppose, but I had no right to question her decision, and Irish pointed this out. And that caused me to ask, what the hell, why is this an issue for me?

It took an hour or two. Her desire for a dog has been deep and long standing. Keeping her from getting a dog was a major guilt of mine last summer, when we were still together. She brought it up often, but a dog, and those responsibilities, weren’t part of the plan.

It wasn’t the tipping point in our breakup, certainly, my guilt not the dog, but it was a factor. It was something she wanted so badly, and she’d suffered so much. And I wanted a dog pretty badly myself, since I’d lost mine in the divorce, but I’d made a choice and had a boat, instead.

Her being able to get the dog she wanted should have brought me joy, but instead made me feel lonely, small and selfish, because it highlighted, or underlined, the fact that she’s not here in Victoria, and I haven’t had a dog in a good long time, either. Now that I write this, I think my childish reaction came from the realization that by acquiring this dog, she is finally ready to move on, as I have urged her to do often enough. Now I am proud of her, happy for her, but still miss her, too. I’m allowed my contradictions.

Decades ago, when I was chasing adventure around the world for a couple of years, I wrote my father that “Loneliness is the price of freedom.” Sometimes the choices are not easy, even the ones we put off as long as we can. We still choose. That’s what I’m trying to tell my daughter, we choose even when we don’t, even when we hide from the consequences.

It’s all good, I told myself after a day or two.  I’ll get the propane locker plumbed and the tank refilled, and I’ll fix the BBQ while I’m at it, install the new lifelines, and then I may just take off. That’s a decision I can make, after all.

There’s no reason to overstay in Victoria, as much as I love this place, when there are places I haven’t yet been. As I used to say, what seems like long ago, it’s time to Rock and Roll.

“Be Deliberate”

By | | Second star to the right
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By Erik Dolson

Wind howls through shrouds and halyards while rain splatter splats on the deck above in a cadence of the storm. It’s intimidating to think about taking Foxy up the Strait of Juan de Fuca, from Victoria to Friday Harbor, in the morning.

Is this the tail of a front passing through late, or the front of one scheduled for Sunday but arriving early? The plan is to thread the needle between them.

I sent a note off to my mentor Roy. What did he think about weather for the trip? He agreed it looked pretty good, which is what I thought until about two hours ago when this slop moved in. My guess it will break sometime over night, gentle up in the morning and I’ll be out of here without an issue.

Today was spent cleaning up lines on deck, making the jib ready to deploy if it will give me the boost I hope is available. The currents are supposed to be mild, in my face at first but then a small push from behind. We all know what an absolutely stellar tide and current reader I am.

At least I’ll have an indicator of my speed through the water. The little paddle wheel with magnets had lost three of its six paddles, and the hollow within which it spun had sprouted green tendrils of growth. It’s a rush pulling the unit out of its hole in the bottom of the boat for the repair, water rushing in between my feet, and it’s a rush pulling the temporary cap off to put the indicator back in.

But it’s done. When putting the speedo back in, there was more water than I expected sloshing about in the locker. I tasted it. Salt. So the temporary cap was not as water tight as I’d thought. I put a little extra push when tightening the indicator down into its spot in the hull. I’ll check that again in the morning.

Water tanks are full, though making this transit was not on the agenda when I filled them. I was going to take the ferry. That’s a simple trip: hour bus ride from Victoria to Sidney, two hours on the ferry from Sidney to Anacortes where my truck hopefully still sits.

Oh, winter ferry schedule doesn’t include the Vancouver Island to Anacortes run until the end of March? Oooops. Told my daughters I’d be there in Sisters. made business appointments, wanted to be in Seattle in a week for the boat show to buy equipment at a discount. This was going to be a fast turn-around, Victoria to Sisters, Oregon to Victoria in about a week or ten days.

No ferry.

Plane from Victoria to Redmond, Oregon? Short notice plane reservations are really expensive, because after all, they know you probably have little choice. And my truck’s in Anacortes. If I drove back up I’d have two vehicles in Anacortes, none in Oregon, then a boat in Victoria, B.C., Canada.

My friends Jim and Leslee used to do stuff like that, and I named the chaos that inevitably results after them. It can take an act of God to sort it all out.

Which left taking the Ferry to Vancouver, B.C., Canada, then a bus or train to Mt. Vernon, Washington, then bus or cab or friend to Anacortes to my truck. That would just about double trip time, with luck.

But hey, look, there’s a weather window on Saturday, the tidal currents are mild, mid-day. I could take the boat all the way to Anacortes or just to Friday Harbor and take the inter-island ferry to the truck, have dinner with Roy who said I could sleep tomorrow night on his boat, then hit the road, refreshed and ready to roll.

I’d just have to thread a pretty wide needle between storms in the strait of Juan de Fuca.

Which, right now, outside the warm comfy cabin of my boat tied securely to the dock, sounds like a wide-open howling mouth with teeth gulping down January storms from the Pacific.

I wonder if the strait is inhaling the end of the last storm, or the beginning of the next? We’ll take another look in the morning. Roy’s previous advice to “be deliberate” extends to many situations. Plans can change, at least until you’re out there, literally and figuratively over your head.

The best of intentions

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by Erik Dolson

Now THAT was a success. Planning the tides, the currents, time of departure, time of arrival … I’ll tell you, I have talent. A special talent, in fact …

Somehow, I got it all exactly wrong.

Not a little bit wrong, not off on the shoulder wrong, but current dead on the bow wrong, full flood, maximum flow.

I’d planned to do 9 knots in my calculations the night before. At first I told myself it was the wind. Not really supposed to be any wind, according to two different forecasts I consulted, but there it was, about 10 degrees off the bow of the boat and blowing 18 mph. So I wasn’t making 9 knots, I was making 7.2.

But, I told myself, when I turn to the west the wind will be just off the starboard stern, and I’ll make it up then!

Sure enough, I turned the corner by Roche Harbor and the wind, now going more my direction, was much less fierce. So the speed of the boat picked up to … huh? Now the speed was down to 6.8 knots, over the ground, as current sped against me through the narrow gap.

Okay, okay, we still have the longest leg, down Haro Strait. That should go much, much better. It’s a long run, wind from the port side rear quarter, I bet I’ll do … ah c’mon! 7.3 knots!?!

This time I looked again at the currents on my iPad, at the same program I looked at last night. They must have changed it while I slept! Because it clearly showed exactly what I was seeing on the water. Flood at 10:30 a.m. Maximum flow at this time. Against my direction of travel.

So instead of 3 1/2 hours to Victoria, it took over four. No big deal, nothing to do when I arrived, anyway. I was there at 12:30ish, only because of having made my 8 a.m. sunrise departure which, honestly, was a bit of a miracle by itself though it would have been a faster trip if I’d overslept an hour or two.

I pulled into customs exactly as I wanted, it all felt good as I backed into the wind, tossed a line over the new cleat on the dock, realized I was still going aftward because I’d not shifted into neutral, jumped to put the shifter into forward to stop the backward momentum, regathered the line and again threw it over the cleat on the dock … then tried to hold the boat for a second before realizing it wasn’t the current that was pulling me forward but the slowly chugging Yanmar I again had not taken out of gear … banged my head on the corner of the new house getting to the gear shift …

Okay, stop. Just stop. This is not that hard. Be deliberate, my mentor once said.

Stop the boat. Throw and secure spring line. Position boat against the line. Tie the stern line, then the bow. Now you can call customs. Whew!

Leaving customs, I left all the fenders down and lines ready to deploy at the marina two minutes away. When I saw the slip I’d been assigned, in the easiest possible location, I spun Foxy about in the harbor full of boats with holiday crowds at the wall, backed smartly up alongside the dock, stopped the boat and had her tied securely in about a minute.

Oh, yeah, done this before, not a big deal. (Sshhh.)

Farther but faster, of course less travelled

By | | Out My Writer's Window, Uncategorized
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by Erik Dolson

This evening I plotted two courses from Friday Harbor to Victoria, B.C. I’ll take the longer one tomorrow, the last day of 2018, and maybe get there sooner.

The route around the southern tip of San Juan Island is 26.2 miles. The route around the north end of the island is 30 miles. All things being equal, the southern route would be about a half hour faster.

But unless I’ve misread tide and current tables, I’d be going against the flow most of the way on the southern route.  If I head north, currents should give me a boost first toward Roche Harbor, and by the time I get to Haro Strait, they should carry me south. Go with the flow.

If that’s correct, the longer route should take about 3 hours 26 minutes from just outside Friday Harbor to just outside the breakwater at Victoria. The shorter route would take 3 hours 48 minutes, or so.

A quarter hour is meaningless, of course. It’s a sailboat. It motors along at about 8 knots under power, which actually isn’t bad for a sailboat. But I was born impatient, and my other hobby rips along at 160 miles an hour. There the competition is against other drivers, and there’s competition with myself, the scramble for tenths if not hundredths of a second, the roar, the thrust, hanging on to the edge of traction.

This is a different focus: repairing dorades so they don’t gulp water, placing mooring lines where they’ll be accessible when close to the dock, tying down solar panels so they don’t flap like wings in a bit of chop and wind; making sure the jib can be deployed if the engine fails, or the anchor if drifting close to shore. Look, think, be deliberate, step carefully. Prepare, execute.

Taking the longer but faster route is really more about the challenge of seeing if I’ve plotted the course correctly, read the current tables, done my homework. If not, I’ll pay the penalty of a slow slog. I’ve done slogs against the currents in Juan de Fuca, and it really stretches out the distance.

Plus, I’ve made the southern passage a number of times, never taken the northern route and would like to see something new. It might be a good idea to become familiar with a back-up transit, too, in case Juan de Fuca is particularly nasty some day when I need to be someplace.

But that’s just a rationalization. I’ve been doing that a lot, lately. Explaining myself to myself. Let’s just put the new passage down to a mild case of adventuring, of seeking the heightened senses of not knowing exactly what’s around the next bend.

Single handing

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By Erik Dolson

Ferry servicer between Anacortes and Sidney B.C. was shutting down until late the first week in November. The boat needed to be in Friday Harbor around the beginning of the month. Weather looked good for a passage down the Strait of Juan de Fuca from Victoria. Time to go.

Engine checklist completed, I cranked over the engine. Oil pressure good. Temperature good. RPM smooth and good. Light gray smoke coming from the exhaust with the water.

Foxy’s a little over 13 feet wide. The slot between boats looked to be about 15 feet. I was pretty sure we could make it, but threading backwards required a little help, less than I was given, in fact.

“Don’t push! Don’t push!” I called out to the young man who thought he had to clear a boat by two feet when we only needed one. He leaped to the stern where the prop on my outboard hanging at the transom was about to dig a long groove in the side of his own boat. Damage averted.

In the harbor, I reminded myself of Roy’s advice: “Be deliberate.” I walked slowly to pull up and stow the fenders. I carefully wrapped mooring lines around the life lines. I walked slowly back, watching where I put each foot. I should have put Foxy in neutral, I realized. A stumble and fall overboard would have likely the same result here as out in the strait, unless I fell right in front of one of the little yellow water taxis buzzing about the harbor. The water is that cold.

Thoughts began to settle out in the straight, as did turmoil of last months. The unanswerable question: “How can you say you love me, and leave at the same time?” remained unanswered. I had no answer. But the volume receded even as I knew I had turned it up to ten, not Irish.

Oil pressure good. Engine temperature good. RPM good.

Life is not simple, for anyone. Sometimes I think there’s a dynamic balance between our capacity to organize versus the chaos we create just by living. Whether it’s the drunk  who struggles with the ATM machine, or me sitting silently in a patch of afternoon sun, or Irish, who referenced that “sinking feeling when you realize your life is a mess.”

The dinghy is secure. Hot coffee is in the pot up at the helm. Life jacket is at hand if I have to go forward. Fire Extinguisher. Tool kit. Oil pressure good. Engine temperature good. RPM good.

I gave her best care I could, so I thought. Physically. Spiritually. Financially. I knew it wasn’t enough, because I knew me. Of course I could see that in her eyes, too, though what I saw was pain because  I was unable to immerse myself in what we had, unwilling to change my priorities, to find a compromise that I didn’t believe in.

I told her I was toxic. She denied it but that made it worse because it said that I made this awful choice and could have chosen differently if I truly loved her.

There were no boats nearby. Large islands drifted slowly by. Tides were with me again, now twice in a row on a transit between the U.S. and Canada. The GPS showed nine knots, then over ten for a while as I rode the flood in from the Pacific Ocean.

I’ve not had Foxy out in the Pacific yet, and won’t consider myself a sailor until I do, with twenty foot waves or forty foot or even higher, hatches battened down, strapped by harness to jack lines, green water washing over the deck. Books and pans on the floor, maybe even having to heave to, sail opposite rudder, just to ride out the storm. That could well actually kill Irish, destroy her Parkinson’s weakened body, as if the boat and I had not come close enough already. May nausea of that shame mark me forever.

Recently I read that some choose to just tie everything down and go below during fierce storms, let them blow over, let the sea have her way, bob like a stick of wood if far enough out that a continent won’t get in the way. That’s something I should learn to do.

Flunking the test on fog, I untied from the mooring ball, everything looking good. I squirted across the channel to the dock where I wanted to tie up for a few weeks while some work is done. I heard no bellow from ferries in the fog, and kept a sharp eye out. Uneventful. Did good, I thought.

Ten minutes later I heard a ferry cross the track I’d just made. I heard it’s horn. I heard it’s engine. I damn near heard people talking on deck, but I couldn’t see its three story hulk 150 feet away, no further from me than it would have been had I been in its path without a radar reflector and the AIS for broadcasting my position sitting uninstalled on the desk below.

Hard to know what you don’t know.

But on the solo trip up the strait, I hadn’t had that experience yet. Then a long wake stretched out behind the boat, in a moment undisturbed by wind or wave, future or past. Oil pressure good. Engine temperature good. RPM good.

Fear

By | | Second star to the right
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by Jane Miller

Fear comes like the fog – “on little cat feet.” I had thought I was only afraid of dentists, but now I am faced with stomach-gripping anxiety and heart-skipping panic.

I’m afraid …

… we’re going up to the boat in less than two weeks.

… sometimes I almost remember the fall and the impact that took my right eye and crushed my face.

… the medical bills I’ve racked up over two countries seem insurmountable.

… I don’t have a job and given my list of physical injuries and diseases, I am not likely to find one.

… we’re planning on Alaska this summer – three months on the boat, sailing the Inside Passage.

… sometimes I still don’t know if I wouldn’t place second in Erik’s heart to the question of “Jane or the boat?”

Yep. Fear about a lot.

And then, the preternaturally cheerful part of my soul begins to break through the gloom, sunshine burning off the fog of a chill morning. Even though I do not have answers or a plan for almost anything, I am pretty sure it will all work out.

One. Learning to sail has been on my list for as long as I can remember. My Irish ancestors were ship captains and engineers who came over in the 1860s. My great-grandfather captained a clipper ship, the General Knox, out of Thomaston, Maine, down around the Cape, up to San Francisco, and back and forth to England.

My first time on the boat was magical. Our teacher said I was a natural, but that was before my fear about heeling and capsizing came to the fore. I have learned and continue to learn, though, about sailboat dynamics, lines and rigging, standing and balancing, navigation and currents.

In my heart I knew I was ready for sailing, but that was before the fall.

Two. The “fall.” So many people want to know if I remember it, and until recently the answer has been that I remember the fall (sort of) but not the impact. But just last night before sleep crept over the snow to my pillow, I remembered: my foot not quite making the landing, the sense of falling, my face as it hit the unforgiving fiberglass and mahogany.

I don’t know if it’s real, though. I don’t remember hitting the deck or being wedged between the seat and the binnacle. The only thing I remember for certain is being lifted, set down so gently, a towel pressed into my hands.

I don’t want to remember the rest. That bit of amnesia is what’s enabling me to even think about setting foot on the boat.

Three. I received excellent medical care in Canada and Oregon. Dr. James Taylor (yes, that’s his name) in Victoria, BC, tried hard to save my eye but knew it was a long shot all the way. The care I received at OHSU has been phenomenal. But the specialized surgeries, with appointments and follow-ups, tests and medications, along with the prosthesis, are beyond expensive. And in America, no job means no affordable healthcare.

So I’m buying insurance for the year at a price that will wipe out every cent I have saved. That leaves my household bills, car payment, insurance …

It’s no one’s burden but my own, but sometimes I wish the government would be able to provide help quickly and compassionately to people who can’t work anymore, instead of relying on the Social Security Administration to force people to apply and reapply, hire a lawyer, wait, and then – maybe – be granted disability.

Four. Alaska. Life on the boat, in port, costs almost the same as life in Sisters. It’s still just the two of us, we buy groceries, do laundry, work on maintenance … The list is pretty long, but when we are in Sisters we do the same thing.

Sailing to Alaska is different. With no real crew, it’d be just us. The boat was designed to be sailed by two people, but I’m pretty sure what they had in mind was NOT me. It’s going to be last summer’s trip to Desolation Sound multiplied by 12. On that trip, the fan belt broke and clogged the turbocharger, we broke a line clutch, and we jury-rigged a way to shift gears using two strings. I almost left completely in a fit of pique, and then we motored a marathon 22 hours over two days breathing diesel fumes from the poorly-running engine to reach Anacortes in time for me to go back to work.

It was also beautiful beyond words, more fun than I imagined it could be, and exciting and rewarding as I gained new skills and grew more comfortable on the water. We can do this! It just might take some additional help.

Five. Erik and I had a discussion one night earlier this week or last, once we reached the warmth and security of the treehouse. Concerns had been brewing, some new, some not, about my dedication to strength training, my fear of capsizing, his desire to keep the sailboat because of the time and money committed, about his need to spend his time doing, not lounging.

He was wrong about some, maybe right about a couple. When I am pushed to do something, I won’t. Simple. Stubborn. Irish. And sometimes childish. All the literature on Parkinson’s Disease lists the need for fitness, but I never suggested we Barco-lounge for hours watching football, although I do love the game.

However, I understand his concerns. I need to be stronger than I was and definitely than I am after five weeks of operations and recoveries from the injuries of my fall. When the boat heels, I range from mildly discomfited to panicked. I’m improving, but I don’t hide it well. I cannot spend my days on the boat scared we’ll capsize, which is virtually impossible in the kind of sailboat we have.

But as we talked just a couple of days ago, we want to be together, on the water, or in Sisters, or traveling. And that’s what matters.

I am still afraid. I will be until I step across the water from dock to boat. But I decided when I was diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease, and I tell myself again and again … I am not going to be defined by my adversities. I am going anyway.

Second star to the right, and straight on till morning.

The Good Life

By | | Out My Writer's Window
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Quiet waters lapping against the hull lulling us to sleep, swimming in a warm ocean, in Fiji, snorkeling to view brilliant wonders of nature, maybe catching a fish to filet and toss on the grill. My hopes for life on the water: idyllic, adventure, a time of writing my deepest thoughts, for myself if not for others .

But the inspection board was stuck. It was wedged tight in the main cabin sole (floor), over the macerator pump, which I wanted to be able to access in case there was a problem. It had possibly swollen due to the change in climate here in Foxy’s new home. I’d brought my little hand-held electric sander that would make short work of the problem.

How hard could it be?

I tried one more time to remove the board without unscrewing other parts of the floor for access to pry it off. Success! The board came up a quarter inch, enough so I could get a grip and ease it out of its confine. This was going to be much easier than I feared.

It was eight a.m., I’d be done at nine, maybe ten.

Oh, gross! There was water in the cavity under the macerator pump, an irregular puddle about the size of four hands side-by-side, and something that might have been a sponge at one time but was so covered in blue-green mold that it was unrecognizable. A gelatin-like substance ringed the uneven puddle so perfectly, I knew it had grown there.

Sanding the board and ignoring that mess wasn’t an option. What if the growth pushed the board up by itself late one night and crept into the stateroom (bedroom) to suck what’s left of my brains out one ear? Even if it didn’t, I’d know it was there. The little wet-and-dry vac was just waiting for its first use.

Though I missed her, I was glad Irish wasn’t here to see the mess. It would have left a lasting impression, and I wanted her to think highly of the boat. I was also glad this macerator only removed water collected from sinks and the shower.

I sucked up the puddle, used doubled plastic bags from grocery store turned inside out to pick up the sponge-like mass, whatever it was, then sprayed the cavity with bleach, dried it all out with paper towels. There! Problem solved!

It wasn’t that hard!

Except for one, very small, nearly inconsequential detail: When I turned on the pump, a few drops of water leaked out. Maybe it wasn’t enough to worry about! Just put the board back! It’ll be okay!

Not a chance. I’m not built that way. Tracing the drips to the pump itself was tricky, then it took a half hour to find a wrench that would fit the nut on the pump under the stuck floor board that started all this. I couldn’t get the wrench where the pump was wedged against the hull, so I had to take the pump all the way out. Four screws and two hose fittings. Maybe half a turn on the nut would fix it.

How hard could it be?

Before I could disconnect the hose fittings, I needed to turn off the line from the shower drains because I’d filled the shower pan with water trying to get the stateroom sink to drain.

Fortunately, I knew where that valve was, I’d found it  when I had to shut it off the night the washer overflowed two hours before guests arrived for the night.

When the nut wouldn’t tighten, I disassembled the pump. Good thing I did. After seeing a gap in a microscopically thin paper gasket, I pulled pump section off the motor and saw a ruined impeller, one vane completely missing and a second one torn nearly off.

Time for a trip to the store. Hopefully it wouldn’t take too many days for a replacement rebuild kit to arrive.

WestMarine not only had repair kits, they had whole new pumps on the shelf, for only twice the cost of the repair kit! A new pump would save me hours of assembly, and I’d have a new motor. That was an easy decision to make, so I dropped a couple of hundred dollars for pump and electrical connectors and a couple of other knick knacks. I was shopping, after all.

Back at the boat, I plumbed pump back together. It drained the bathroom sink and stayed dry. Success! Filled with a feeling of deep personal accomplishment, I went to turn on the valve from the shower stall. There I found out that turning off the valve had allowed water to sit in the shower, water that found some way to escape into another hole under the floor.

Not tonight! That had do be done when everything was dry, Foxy was a mess with tools scattered all about the salon (living room) and the galley (kitchen), water everywhere, and I was a sweaty, dirty mess to match. I sanded the boards, dropped them into place. They fit, to my relief.

Tools put away, everything cleaned up, I finally took a shower. It was six p.m., ten hours after I started a job I thought would take an hour, maybe two, and I was tired and sore from the contortions of working most of the day on my belly or on my knees.

But everything (almost) stayed dry, and there was some satisfaction in that.

Tomorrow I’ll tackle the shower drain with a little plumber’s putty or silicone, and might even tackle that seal beneath the toilet bowl. It’s held on with just four bolts. Maybe I can just tighten them up and that leak will be fixed, too.

How hard can it be?

Fire

By | | Out My Writer's Window, Uncategorized
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“Give him some slack!” Roy said, his voice rising.

Joe was struggling to clip spinnaker pole to mast as the boat heaved, and Roy wanted the spinnaker out about a minute ago. There were seven lines feeding through the clutches on the deckhouse, and I didn’t have a clue which one would give Joe the slack he needed.

“Pull the downhaul!”

Crap. I don’t know the downhaul from the outhaul, and barely from a haul-out. I sure as hell don’t know which of the lines coming through the clutches was which.

“Second from the outside!” Roy said.

I reached up and tightened the line second from the outside.

“The other side! Port side outside!”

We’d done well enough on the first leg of the race, though with boats races are called “regattas.” I’d never thought of myself as a “regatta” sorta guy, but racing is racing and I’ll try to beat you to the register in side-by-side checkout lines at Trader Joe’s.

That may be a character defect, but it’s my character, defective or not here I come. I’ve learned to live with it.

We weren’t first or second, but we’d gained on those that were, maybe a little. But when we turned downwind, our inexperience showed.

“Okay, that’s my mistake,” said Roy. “I didn’t say it was the port side.”

After the stiffening wind ripped the spinnaker out of Joe’s hands for the third time, Roy told Irish to take the helm and went up on the bow of his small race-boat/cruiser to helpt Joe stuff  that big parachute of sail in its bag. We weren’t going to catch them with or without it and Roy could tell we were losing concentration instead of gathering it up.

Irish was great. I knew how petrified she was when Rachel heeled over and dipped the sheer line of her hull into the water. Irish didn’t let out a peep, though I could tell from the way her blue eyes looked about she was sure the boat would go right on over and we all would be tossed into the bay to drown in icy gray water.

“You can go below and hook up the lee cloth on the bunk,” Roy told her.

“I’d rather stay up here,” Irish said.

What she meant was, “I’m going to die up here, swimming, and not trapped down there in the dark!”

I was busy at that moment, trying to grab a winch with which to climb up a deck slanting at 45 degrees, just so I could dangle over the rail as “meat ballast.”

The gusts died as quickly as they’d come up, and we headed back in. I took the helm and guided Rachel into her berth as Roy and Joe pulled down the sails and readied the lines.

What a difference from two days before, when Roy and I delivered a boat from here to a small marina down past Port Townsend, where we’d stopped for lunch. Then it was calm, glassy at times in Rosario Straight for almost the entire length of Whidbey Island.

He and I talked for almost 12 hours, motoring down off the islands, through the canals. Waiting for the bus to take us back north to catch the ferry to where Roy parked his car to drive me back to Irish just at dark. It was a long day, but great conversation.

Allowed to choose anybody to teach Irish and me about sailing, and navigation, I’d choose Roy. Sometimes it seems he and I lived parallel lives, offset by a few years and different opportunities, but similar in how we wring what we can out of what life offers.

After he drove off, Irish and I started to head out for a bluecheeseburger at the Brown Lantern.

“Crap!” I said, as we got to parking lot after a chilly walk up the dock from where Foxy gently pulled at her mooring lines.

“What?”

“The car’s back at the service center where I parked it this morning.”

“Let’s get a salad and a cup of chowder,” she said, nodding at the restaurant we’d just passed.

Two days later, after the regatta, we sat on the deck of Foxy with Roy in the waning sun of early April. They had a glass of wine, I had my lemonade. The bruises Irish had suffered as she clambered about hadn’t yet shown up. The tendons I’d stretched past easy elasticity hadn’t either. It would be a four ibuprofen night.

“You guys did great today,” said Roy.

“The start was good, the end was good, the middle was all f*#^ed up,” said Irish.

“No, you did fine,” said Roy. “You’re getting it, and faster than most people.”

Getting it, but just enough to know how little we know. And getting to know just how addictive this life could be.

2016-04-05

Water

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Water dripped from the valve behind the engine at the bottom of the boat. It wasn’t that hard to get to because “Foxy” has more room to move around in than most boats, but the valve was behind other hoses, and contortions were required to even get down into the hold.

It was raining like stink outside. Tarps I bought to cover the leaky hatches should stop water from dripping onto rugs in the main salon, tiny splashes that woke us up the night before. The dinghy that lay partially deflated over the forward hatch, air leak still not found, should keep rain water off the sheets in the stateroom.

Some said I had no business buying this boat. By any rational standard, they’re right for many reasons. I don’t know anything about boats like this, even less about sailing. But I love the water, and figure I have one grand adventure in me. I had a chance to acquire Foxy and I took it, depending on my general mechanical knowledge (mediocre), ability to acquire new information (pretty good) and my desire for adventure (excessive, nearly pathological) to keep me safe.

Being in the bowels of a gently rocking boat was the result of ten years dreaming about it. Hopefully it would not become a nightmare.

It didn’t matter if the valve was on or off, water dripped and added to the inch or two washing about as Foxy swayed gently at her dock lines. I reached down and flipped up the float on what I thought was the bilge pump. Nothing. If the water continued to drip for the week I expected to be gone, I could come back to find a flooded engine room, or worse.

I’d promised Irish weeks ago I would attend the gathering that evening at the school where she was getting her MBA. It’s a four hour drive to Portland — and that assumed no delays going through Seattle, not usually a good assumption.  I should have been on the road a half hour ago.

Irish would understand completely if I called and told her the boat was leaking and I couldn’t make it. She’s really good like that. She would also be disappointed, and in the short while we’d been together, absurdly short considering the bond we felt for each other, seeing her smile had become a major priority for me.

Besides, I have a nearly Obsessive/Compulsive need to do what I’ve said I’ll do, and I’d said I’d be there.

Turning the valve off seemed to make the leak a little worse, adding an extra drip in between the steady “drip, drip, drip” I’d noticed when I pointed the flashlight into the engine room before closing the hatch one last time. Now it went “drip drop, drip drop, drip drop.” I turned the valve back on, the cadence  didn’t change. I flipped the float again  on what I thought was the bilge pump, again the pump didn’t come on.

With a bit of reluctance I turned traitor to my life-time habit of stubborn self-sufficiency and called the boat yard. No answer. It was Saturday, and everyone was working the boat show down in Seattle. I finally called the owner of the yard on his cell phone, feeling more than a little foolish in again putting the massive mountain of my ignorance on display.

“I’ll have Curtis go check it out. I’ll call as soon as I know something,” Jim said. There’s something reassuring about people who will “just take care of it,” whatever “it” is. Jim is one of those. I’m looking forward to following him up to Alaska a year from now as part of a small flotilla. By then, all the little leaks, cracked hoses, dead electrical connections should be taken care of.

But she’s a boat. Which means “there’s always something,” as I’ve heard and read, even about this boat, “my” boat,” in a story written long before I knew her. My friend Jaime says there’s something to the theory you should always leave something undone, because as soon as you think everything is all taken care of, a boat will break something else, usually at the worst possible moment.

Like now. Drip drop, drip drop.

I had to go, and hit the road south toward Portland. This was not good, not good.

Curtis from the yard called an hour later. He got the leak to stop by turning the valve off. Maybe I hadn’t turned it quite far enough, not wanting to break it off. He said the bilge pump worked just fine, maybe I was trying to trip the alarm float switch, which he’ll look at on Monday.

Jim calls later to say the same thing. “Happy to do it,” he replies to my thanks. Worry begins to lift.

When I show up to change from dirty, bilge-tainted boat clothes into a suit and tie for the celebration with Irish, she greets me with a hug, and a smile that makes everything seem like it’s going to be okay.

Full sail