From Seattle to San Francisco
By Emily Whistler
Shouldn’t you plan for this kind of thing?
I subscribe to the theory that once you are “bitten by the travel bug” you will spend the rest of your life hunting for the cure. The residual itch engenders a need for something bigger and better than the last travel experience. Many people spend a great deal of time planning and saving for the next great escape. They understand opportunities to travel may be few and far between, so each adventure must be carefully crafted to offer the best possible chance of success.
Or, throwing caution to the wind, they can quit their four jobs, put all their belongings in storage, and take advantage of opportunities as they come. This is how I ended up on my last adventure. After a year of hard work, I was finally making it in Seattle. I was on my way to a successful adulthood and, in a flash, I gave it all up.
In the beginning of April, as I came out of hibernation after my first winter in the dampest place on earth, I was offered a chance to go sailing. This wasn’t going to be some pleasure cruise around Lake Union, as had been the case the previous summer. It would be a long trip, maybe 4 weeks, from Seattle to San Francisco.
The real catch was that we were to set sail in the beginning of May. This gave me approximately 3 weeks to tie up loose ends and be ready to leave land, possibly for good. Open-ocean sailing can be a very dangerous undertaking and I was no seasoned veteran of the sport.
My boyfriend at the time, Smith, was to be my companion in this crazy adventure. He had previously put some thought toward long distance sailing, but the truth was we had no idea what to expect.
We decided that asking some genuine salty dogs would be the best crash course time could offer. As we watched the eyes of each sailor grow wide with the details of our plans, we began to realize this was no easy undertaking. They told us stories of shipwrecks and storms. They warned us of the unpredictability of early summer weather. They basically told us we were going to die.
Terrified, we diligently began to over-prepare. We bought month’s worth of canned goods and hundreds of dollars in gear and first aid. Picturing Davy Jones waiting in the depths of the icy ocean, nothing was left to chance.
When the day to set sail finally came, we were as ready as we were ever going to be. Smith and I walked out of an empty house, locked the door, and left the key under the mat. As we walked up the street toward the bus stop carrying what felt like 100 pounds of gear each, we simultaneously walked away from our lives in Seattle, leaving without even so much as a second thought.
After one bus, two trams, and a ferry we finally arrived in Anacortes, a port town only about an hour and a half north of Seattle. This is where our trusty vessel, The Fresh Aire, and our captain Craig along with his new bride Vanessa were waiting for us to come aboard. As far as crew was concerned, it was just the four of us. The boat was 34 feet in length and barely sea-worthy, but there was no turning back. We were going to sail the Pacific Ocean.
The ocean is not a toy!
Getting to the might Pacific was half the battle. We had to make the 100-mile journey out of the Pudget Sound through the Strait of Juan de Fuca. Comprised of about 450 islands, navigating the San Juan Archipelago proved to be a great way to learn to use the highly technical GPS system and get our sea legs.
Many people are unaware of the untainted wilderness that exists on the northwestern most corner of mainland United States. It is pristine and full of wildlife. As we sailed we spotted hundreds of small porpoises and at least two whales. We also had ringside seats to a battle between a Golden Eagle and a Bald Eagle. I was under the impression that both birds were a myth, so you can imagine my feelings of exuberance and tantamount horror to see them dueling to the death. It was like watching a Griffin consume a Unicorn.
On the first night, we set anchor on the smallest state park I had ever seen, Blind Island, measuring 1,280 feet in circumference. After a dinner cooked over a campfire and a breathtaking sunset we attempted to make the trip back to the boat. Since we had to anchor about 200 feet off the island we needed to use the dinghy to take us to and fro. The dingy only holds two people comfortably (leading me to believe that it would probably not be a lifesaving device should the worst come to pass) so we had to use it in shifts.
After taking Vanessa to the boat Craig came back for Smith and me. About 100 feet from shore the dinghy ran out of gas leaving Craig to row the rest of the way. After pedantically demonstrating how to fill the tank, Craig spun the motor around but forgot to put on the gas cap. So there, in the most idyllic place I’ve been, gasoline began to pour into the ocean. After realizing his foul, we all piled into the boat and started up the engine. Having left it at full throttle when the gas ran out, the dinghy immediately began spinning in circles.
While seemingly minor, the incident with the dinghy proved to be a valuable lesson for the rest of the trip. The ocean is not meant for humans. We don’t belong, so every action must be carefully thought out. If not methodical, our actions can be detrimental to our surrounding and our safety.
Oh the emptiness!
While sailing through the Strait of Juan de Fuca, days were spent lying in the sun playing the guitar or reading. Nights were spent at safe harbors peacefully watching movies and cruising the Internet. Once we reached the open ocean, life on the boat was entirely different. We began to live on six-hour cycles where night and day were indistinguishable. At six in the morning a shot of bourbon was often useful for inducing sleep.
While on a boat in the middle of the ocean, someone always has to be on watch. Most of the time the only other sign of life is the occasional albatross. However, should there be another vessel, chances are good it’s either a monstrous cargo barge, a military ship, or a trawler dropping hundreds of crab traps with lines perfectly designed for getting tangled in a propeller. So as I said, someone always has to be on watch.
Watches were done in six-hour shifts, covered alternately by the two couples. Typically shifts ran from 6:00 to 12:00 around the clock. Early on Vanessa realized that the life of a sailor was not for her. Apparently the freezing cold Pacific fell far short of the Internet compatible Mediterranean cruise she had imagined and thus she retired to her cabin only to be seen when she wanted a cigarette. This left Craig to cover his shifts alone while Smith and I split ours into 3-hour stints.
At about 20 miles out to sea one looses sight of land. At about 100 miles out to sea one looses sight of any hang-ups or insecurities. With 10,000 feet of water beneath you and not even a chance of help if you need it, everything seems to pass in slow motion. Whole days are spent watching swells rise up behind the boat where at the last moment, when it seems sure they will swallow her, she catches ‘em and surfs down at 20 knots. It is mesmerizing and is really only topped at sunset when the ocean becomes a dancing bed of warm colors.
The best days were when shifts worked out so that after watching the sun set, Craig would take the first 6 hour shift, Smith would take the first 3 hours of our sift and at three in the morning I would begin my shift. Bundling up in my warmest clothes and armed with only a life vest and a headlamp I would crawl out into pitch black.
Sitting completely alone in the damp vastness of the ocean, I would eagerly await the first signs of light. In the dark that greedily consumed everything around me, death seemed imminent. But the subtle, soft glow of dawn gradually grew into a cool purple sunrise. Realizing I had lived to see another day, anything seemed possible. I had never before seen the sun come up over an empty horizon and to my surprise the emptiness left me feeling satiated and alive.
I’m just glad it wasn’t me.
Not believing in providence, I assume the pleasant weather, which characterized the trip, was due purely to luck. We were certainly novices and I know for a fact that other vessels sailing at the same time were not so fortunate. I met the captain of one sailboat who had to call mayday while sailing northbound because he was caught in 80-knot winds that instantly ripped his sails to shreds.
I suppose I should take a moment to explain how winds are classified in sailing lingo. One knot is approximately equivalent to one mile per hour. For a boat the size of The Fresh Aire, and really most sailing vessels, good winds for sailing range between 15-25 knots. Below 15 knots it’s difficult to move efficiently on wind power alone. Above 30 knots is considered gale force winds. Most sources suggest heading for land when wind speed reaches gale force, but in the middle of the ocean this is obviously not an option.
Only once did we encounter gale force winds and fortunately they never really got much above 35 knots. It was enough, however, to make navigation tricky and moving about the boat hazardous. The strength of the wind tossed The Fresh Aire about in a frantic, disjointed manner. It frequently caused the main sail to jibe, which means that the incredibly heavy beam on the bottom edge of the sail swings violently from one side to the other causing the boat to bank hard in the minatory swells. If there is a person in the way when this happens, chances are if the impact of the beam doesn’t kill them, they will get lost at sea after being flung from the boat.
During the day, keeping control of the boat seemed manageable. As the dark set in, we knew we were in for a test of wits. No one slept that night. Down below we were often thrown from bed as the boat heaved to and fro. From inside the hollow belly of the boat the sounds of the wind howling and water churning made it seem certain that at any moment we would capsize and that would be the end.
On deck it was hectic. The men were both strapped onto the boat by tethers attached to their life vests. At a time when all they wanted to do was hole up inside and wait for it all to be over, it was never more crucial for them to be in constant motion fixing things here and there in the pitch black.
At some point in the wee hours of the morning a horrifying slapping sound began somewhere up the mast. In the dark we couldn’t determine the origin of this ominous sound. We could only guess that a batten was sliding out of the sail. A batten is long narrow piece of fiberglass that crosses a sail horizontally and provides the structure needed to create the bowing of the sail when filled with air. There are normally 4 or 5 in the average sail, and as morning approached we were able to see that at least one was almost fully liberated and two others were working their way out of the sail.
Now we certainly weighed our options at this point. If we lost more than one batten we would be in big trouble, but the winds were still too strong for all four of us to be on deck without a tether. There was no way we would make it to land before the other two wiggled their way out and by that time the third would have definitely become a casualty of the sea. So it was decided that at the very first opportunity for all four of us to be safely on deck we would hoist Craig up the mast.
After another full day of being tossed around, the winds finally dropped to around 25 knots. We immediately began to fashion a harness for Craig out of some spare rope and he attached himself to a halyard. Smith and Vanessa slowly hoisted him up the mast while I attempted to steady the boat.
Luckily for us, Craig often went headlong into situations that seemed dangerous. Perhaps he was just crazy, but time and time again his apparent recklessness proved to be calculated and invaluable. If he was afraid of swinging 50 feet in the air over the still rolling sea he sure masked it well. He carried a small video camera to the top with him. Once he had positioned himself atop a spreader he preceded to record the moment. While it was just one of many daring and dangerous situations we encountered, it was certainly the most extreme, and who could resist making footage of that?
What if…?
From top to bottom the trip was a lesson in simplicity. The towns all were anachronisms, existing as they had, for what I imagined was thousands of years. These were towns where fishing trawlers outnumbered our sailboat 100 to 1, and an unfamiliar face did not go unnoticed.
In each of these little towns I would imagine how my life would be different. What if I were the daughter of a fisherman? At the end of a hard day he would come home smelling like the salt and the sea. My mother, sisters, and I would have spent the day working in the local factory or restaurant. One day I would marry a fisherman. We would have children and begin the circle of sea life again.
Ok, perhaps I’ve romanticized it a bit, but I can honesty say I don’t think I’m that far off. The towns were different from any place I had ever been before and they were certainly not tourist destinations. I don’t know what I expected- hundreds of cruisers hanging out in little towns designed with easy public transportation and lots of restaurants?
In reality every little town was the quintessential embodiment of a small fishing town. To our surprise the marinas were typically on the outskirts of the towns. In a place where everyone worked on a boat, apparently no one wanted to live near them. There was generally a small café or restaurant near the marina where a jovial yet frank woman named Flow would serve coffee to the same salty sailors she had for 30 years.
To get anywhere else in town, for instance a grocery store or laundry mat, meant walking – and walk we did. We trekked all over Port Angeles, Neah Bay, Coos Bay, Humboldt Bay, Eureka, and Bodega Bay. In each we saw a much clearer picture of what a tough economy does to a small town. Many businesses had closed their doors for good and we often heard the phrase, “the layoffs at the factory.”
I realized that life on the ocean can be fun for a while, but she’s a fickle lady and we humans wield no power over her. She gives and takes on a whim and the life of a fisherman is all about trying to guess when and where she will be at her most merciful.
I loved each individual town and the idea of a life characterized by tradition and hard work. I pictured myself existing in a world of blue houses and grey skies where the ocean was your companion and your enemy. There was many a time where I thought, “I’m going to stay, get a job – maybe I’ll be the next Flow!”
Of course I didn’t stay. I kept moving with the boat. A month after we left Seattle, sailed the Pacific Ocean, and had a good dose of quaint simplicity, we cruised full sail under the Golden Gate Bridge and rejoined the rest of the bustling human race.
——
Emily Whistler lives in Reno, NV where she is giving adulthood a second chance. Maybe this time she’ll keep at it. She has been published in the North Seattle Herald-Outlook and otherwise spends her time freelance writing for advertising agencies.
Photograph appears courtesy and copyright of the author.
This entry was posted on Sunday, August 30th, 2009 at 2:00 am and is filed under Non-Fiction. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
