I am a regular chatty cathy
Ivy in LaPush, wating and waiting and waiting!
Thursday 9/17
I have been waiting in LaPush a few days, mostly being lazy, but looking for some weather to make the next leg down the coast. Throughout the week I had my sites set on leaving tonight at around 5pm, but as has become typical, the closer I get to an ETD the more the conditions deteriorate. I did get out and about the town a little, and took care of two very important details. As insignificant as this may seem to some, ‘where and when am I going to shower and do laundry next?’ is a real concern amongst cruisers. Most bigger marinas have facilities, but LaPush is small, and one has to hike south down highway 101 a fair bit to the Lonesome Creek RV Park and convenience store.
I have had a lot of feedback from people, writing how great the weather has been, wondering why I seem unwilling to use it, and the reason is; I probably have a very different criteria for ‘good weather’. It’s easy to see that most would assume a sunny day would be great on a boat in the ocean; blue skies, a little sun tan lotion, a baseball cap and an ice cold beverage of your choice, sounds good to me! Though the truth is wind and seas are the key, and while the sun can be very good for one’s optimism, rain in fact can be just as advantageous if for instance motoring into unfavorable weather, as it tends to beat down the seas. It all becomes a balancing act, and after balancing out all the weather aspects, I am finding I have yet another scale to balance, and that is time. While I did leave Port Townsend at a good time in the season, some hold-ups I encountered set me back a bit, and I am now feeling a little behind the eight ball. Every day I do not get out and risk marginal conditions, maybe a day I am kicking myself in the butt later, for taking too much time getting down the coast. Let me be clear, the conditions that I am avoiding are not necessarily dangerous or stormy; for all who have seen the movie Master and Commander when the HMS Surprise is rounding Cape Horn? That is not what we are talking about, if it were I would be not sailing nor motoring much more then I am already not sailing nor motoring.
I do not know if this is offering a bit too much on my personal process, but I have a imaginary counsel of trusted friends and family, who I ask to vote yay or nay before heading out. I think I know them all well enough to know how they’d vote. Just thought I’d mention so you can take responsibility if I do something rash because you voted incorrectly. Having reread this all, I wonder if it is wise to state I am having conversations with imaginary people, but heck I did that all the time when I was four or five years old; and as most of you know, I really haven’t grown up much since, so there you go.
Also a number of people have written me stating “this bit or that was over my head” or that I am using “too technical of terms”; strangely I had thought I was being quite lubberly (‘lubber’ or ‘landlubber’ is to sailing, what muggle is to Harry Potter, can be used derogatorily, but often not) in my writing; so from now on, I will define a term parenthetically like I just did, if I sense it may be a term or situation that most will find unfamiliar. Also I had a request that I stop using military time, so you might have noticed I have gone to standard time these last few posts.
South Jetty and James Island at LaPush on a calm day.
Monday 9/21
I woke up Saturday 9/19 at 4am with the intent of leaving for Westport, but as I did my route planning two problems became glaring. First, no way around it, it was going to take me sixteen hours to make the leg, which meant some of it was going to be in the dark, and if I did leave right then, it would have put me at Westport at 8pm at an ebb tide (ebb tide is an outgoing tide; flood tide is an incoming tide; and slack tide occurs between the two where there is no current either way) which is the worst of the four states of tide to cross a river bar. I decided to hold off leaving until 6pm, which would put me at Westport at 10am Sunday morning, a few hours into the flood tide.
I putz about a bit, had breakfast at the little restaurant of blueberry pancake.. very yummy! I walked down to the store to buy quick-grab-it snacks, and then tried to get some rest, but my mind was too active. I did leave LaPush at 6pm, but failed to look at the tide situation I was leaving in (bad Randy), as it turned out it was maximum ebb, and as I pulled out, and turned on my Chartplotter/Depth Finder, it showed I had just one foot clearance under my boat. Randy goes where angels fear to tread, but by the time I knew all this, I was already a bit committed. I crossed the bar no issues, but as turned the corner and headed west out to sea, I was facing some strong willed waves, all stacked up waiting for their chance to break on the beach of LaPush. If given the chance, I think after about half hour of this I would have turned back to LaPush, but that avenue of escape was closed to me, with the ebb tide. At some point in all of this, the sea claimed one of the bungy cords I had been using as a make shift autopilot, and a few other assorted things in the cockpit… o well the boat needed lightening up a bit I guess!
After I made the course change south at about 8pm, the situation settled a great deal, and the seas lost some of their height, if not all of their will. It was quite sloppy (sloppy is in fact a technical sailing term, but I figure if you know me, you already know what that means), and while I was in little danger or distress, I was empathetic to the pounding Ivy was receiving. I was able to break away from the cockpit long enough to raise the main (main or mainsail pronounced ‘mainsil’ NOT ‘main sail’, that would be lubberly: is the typically larger sail, hoisted most aft on a modern sailboat) which was still reefed (reef is a process of making a sail smaller), and that quieted down things much more.
The winds were too light to sail unassisted by the motor (also called the ‘iron genny’, I will explain what a genny is later ..if it in ever in fact becomes applicable), though they were coming from a favourable direction, so with that combination I was able to make a good speed of 5.5kts (kts is short for knots which is a tad faster then a mph, kind of like how a mph is a tad faster then a kph; funny how we seem to be making the measurements slower and slower, I think that is because we all like to think we are going faster and faster). Unfortunately I was going at about the same speed as the wind, so as I sped up surfing down the back of a wave, I would lose all the wind in my sail, and as I slowed down again, it would refill with a slam. Ivy did not like this a great deal, and each time it happened I winced in shared pain; in fact there was much consoling from me to Ivy; yep I talk to my boat too, I am a regular chatty cathy.
As the sun set and the night came on, the stars took my breath away. I remember on Galatea how beautiful it was as night, but I thought some of that might have been romanticizing the past, it wasn’t. There was a new moon, so the stars had no competition, I even saw seven shooting stars. At midnight I started to see a lot of fishing boats, or their lights anyway. It did make me feel a little less alone, and I thought about their crews labouring away in the wee hours; being crew on a fishing boat is no picnic. The winds started to veer north, so they became directly behind me. This added a new twist to the issue of the sail slamming away. Every few dozen times it happened, I would accidentally gybe (to gybe is to bring the sails to the other side of the boat, having the wind cross behind you, the opposite of tack having the wind cross in front of you. Gybing can be very dangerous, and probably where the stick that holds the mainsail down horizontally, got it’s name ‘boom’).
I had worried that I might fall asleep as it had been a long time back in my rock and roll days, since I had pulled an all-nighter. Well, out in the muck there was precious little chance of that. The two pots of coffee I had thought to brew helped as well, but I realized I was going through it pretty fast, so at about 1am I had to start rationing it. Though I couldn’t see how much I was pouring, I limited myself to what I thought to be a half cup an hour. It’s these silly little games one sets up, that allow the passing of time, without them time literally stands still; I know for a fact that it was 2:33am for about two hours.
At dawn It was starting to get a tad nippy, and I kept thinking just a little longer the sun will be up and it will be nice and toasty. Well, the heat from the sun doesn’t happen at the exact moment the light does I found out, and I didn’t actually start warming until I made the course change east at 9am.
When I got to the entrance of Westport there was an endless line of boats coming out. At first I thought perhaps this was just because the tide had turned and was normal for Westport. As I got closer to the bar, I started having quite a rollercoaster of a ride, and my already great respect for the fishing boats I was passing grew considerably, as they were all heading into the waves I was surfing down. The actual crossing of the bar was bracing, I felt a bit like Major Kong riding the bomb in the movie Dr Strangelove, but it was soon passed and once through I contacted the Westport Marina on VHF channel 71 for slip assignment, to tie up my boat. As I slowed down to take down the main, the boat slew through a bunch of algae-ish grass, and immediately the motor started running rough, so I guess I sucked some of it up into the water intake for the cooling system of the motor, and plugged it. I tried to think what to do in that circumstance and the only think I could think of was shrug and say ‘o well’, and try to make it to the slip as quickly as possible.
After tying up, I went to the marina office to pay and was told there that the bar had in fact just opened up, which is why every boat in the marina was either out or going out soon. So the conditions of the bar I had were not exactly typical.
With all the shaking, rolling and pitching I have now put Ivy through, I am finally able to declare the fuel issue that so plagued me last year as fixed. I guess I am so mono-task oriented, I can only have one problem at a time with my motor, so that probably more then anything else is why I am promoting the previous fuel issue to a none-issue.
After getting back to the boat, I slept. I slept pretty much all the way until 5am this morning Monday 9/21. Being singlehanded does have it’s drawbacks as all work, is my work, and there is not another person to egg you on when you are feeling sluggardly. I have taken today as personal holiday to finish out this post, and see a bit of the town. I think I may get completely schnockered tonight, at least that is my plan. As I grow older, I am finding I am becoming a cheap date, and one or two drinks can set me on my tail, but only if I do not fall asleep first, but I hope this celebration is not denied me by slumber.
So I have done my first night crossing, and am safe and sound in Westport. One problem with Westport is moorage is cheap, so I am not going to be able to use that as a reason for moving on, the finally good weather we are getting will probably be enough, as I already feel concern for not making hay while the sun shines.
Westport Marina
Randy
S/V Ivy
P.S. Larry from Yang Shi got me hooked on Werther’s butterscotch candies, as if I need yet another addiction.
