Since we were in boat transit, we missed the news of Captain Phil Harris' death until a week later. Yesterday the Discovery Channel had a Deadliest Catch marathon in his honor. I found it a perfect tribute to this salty man. Captain Phil stood out to me on the show in his closeness to his sons, Josh and Jake. Mike Rowe (the voice-over for Deadliest Catch) captured Phil's spirit in his own way here.
In another genre completely, in the movie The Hours, there is a line by Virginia Woolf:
Someone has to die in order that the rest of us should value life more. It's contrast.
Virginia is telling her husband why she must kill off one of the main characters in her novel, Mrs. Dalloway. To me, that line is the epitome of the entire movie. The Hours has a dark feeling to me, yet it is one of my favorite movies in its portrayal of life via death.
Death, at first glance, always appears to be a morbid topic. The Hours artfully captured the sentience of life through the exploration of death. Those who know me know that death has touched me closely. I wouldn't be the person I am without experiencing the death of people I loved. I am grateful for whatever understanding of death I have gleaned from saying goodbye to first my brother in 1998, then my father in 2007, then my dear life-loving and joyful grandmother in 2009.
When my dad was diagnosed with cancer in 2006, he told my mom that he had no regrets, and that he'd lived a full life. He was 54 years old. I took his statement to heart. He had lived a full life. He knew how to have fun with his life. He worked damn hard (I mean really, REALLY hard), but he also was an expert at seizing opportunities. His death hit me profoundly.
It was not long after Dad died in early 2007 that Scott and I began planning our sailing trip to Alaska. To me that trip was somewhat in honor of Dad and the risks he had taken, the full life he had lived, and the dignity he held in death. 55 years is not much time to have on this Earth. 55 years does not leave time for retirement. 55 years does not allow time for "later." And none of us is even guaranteed 55 years to fit in as much life as possible. Captain Phil died last week when he was 53. No one could accuse him of doing anything less than living every moment he had as well.
I honor those who have gone before me for the gift of perspective and the lessons in living. It is tragic that others must die in order for the rest of us to value life more. It would be a greater tragedy if the value of death were lost on us.
Why isn't everyone in the world out on boats? In a word - comfort. We humans have spent centuries making life more comfortable for ourselves. When Scott and I are out on the boat, much of the time is spent making ourselves more comfortable there as well. It will never, however, be as comfortable as a land-lubbing house. It may be more fun and adventurous, but never as comfortable.
This morning, back in Hadlock, after having a proper cup of tea and lounging with a purring cat on my lap, I am certainly feeling comfortable. And it is nice.
I also took a few minutes to see what the heck the obscure 2010 Olympic mascots are, and what they represent. I found the following here:
Quatchi the Sasquatch Quatchi is a young sasquatch, also known as the legendary bigfoot, who comes from the Pacific Northwest's forests. Although shy, Quatchi enjoys making new friends and exploring new places. He loves hockey and hopes to some day became a goalie, but his large size and general clumsiness make it difficult for him.
Miga the Sea Bear Miga is a sea bear who lives off the British Columbia coast with her family pod. Based on a First Nation's legend, Orca whales are thought to transform into bears when they reach land. Miga is a blend of Orca and Kermode bear, a cream colored sub-species of black bear found only on the Western British Columbia coast.
Miga is full of energy and enjoys surfing big waves during the summer. When she reached land, she discovered that people could actually surf during the winter on snow. Miga immediately fell in love with snowboarding.
Sumi the Thunderbird Sumi is an animal spirit who displays several legendary traits. His hat represents the Orca whale while he has the wings of a Thunderbird and the furry legs of a black bear. His name is based on the native phrase for guardian spirit.
Sumi is the official mascot of the 2010 Winter Paralymic Games. He protects both land and water, while taking an interest in learning more about each of the Olympic sports.
My mother always claimed I was a spoiled child (thanks Dad). On this trip, thanks to the genius who thought up reciprocal moorage, I'm feeling a little spoiled. Last night's retreat was at a reciprocal with the San Juan Island Yacht Club in a marina in Friday Harbor. Here we have heat with a 30 amp power connection. (30 amp power seems more difficult to come by in reciprocals, but who's complaining.) With 30 amp power we can have the heat running and cook with the electric burner at the same time. In fact, we can also charge the batteries and get the water heater hot as well. With 15 amp power, which we've found more of, we only have heat, and just a little heat at that. Anything more than level 2 on our heater and it blows breakers. Level 2 heat is still much better than no heat! Spoiled indeed.
This time of year we've found buoys are largely open, and thought they feel more secure than anchoring, hearing them pound the bow during night when the tide is flowing one way and the wind pushing the boat another is no way to get a good night's rest... not good for the fiberglass on the bow, either.
Anchoring is my least favorite way to spend the night. I'm leery of any sound meaning that we've drifted and are tapping the keel on a rock on shore. Plus, there is a the routine of setting the anchor and pulling it up again the next day. Neither of those activities rank high on my favorite sailing activities list.
This trip we haven't had to anchor even once. Yep, spoiled.
Friday Harbor, by the way, is a very lovely little town. Thank you again, San Juan Island Yacht Club! If anyone out there is looking for an affordable and fun yacht club with excellent reciprocals, check out the West Seattle Yacht Club.
So, much is being made, particularly in Seattle, over the decision by NBC to tape-delay events that are happening in real-time, and show others late in the evening even on the West Coast, where as we all know, they are actually already over and the athletes safe abed.
We've been insulated from this since, as long as we were in Canada, our computer network addresses would allow us to watch CTV's excellent online coverage, which delivered events in real or near-real time. Down here south of the border, we are (at least ostensibly) restricted to NBC's paltry online offerings, which are hardly worthy of the name. In fact, since we don't have cable, we're not even able to see what they do offer. Their actual TV coverage seems to be even worse, and having just seen the glorious alternative not three hours north, it seems outrageous to me that some commentators are actually attempting to justify NBC's decision in terms of profits and ratings.
It's true that the ratings are stellar, but that's hardly telling in a monopolized market. CTV's ratings are also exploding, despite their quite different coverage style, so I don't think you can attribute it to that. There is also the fact that CBC, which is available in many cable and satellite markets in the northern tier states, isn't carrying the Olympics at all, having been outbid by CTV. We've always preferred the less histrionic Canadian coverage, and if others did as well, but find it unavailable this year, then they are also forced into improving NBC's ratings even if reluctantly.
The truth is that we can argue until we are blue in the face over whether or not this is a good move for NBC, but as long as it holds a video monopoly, we'll never really know; monopolists always justify their successes in terms of the tactics they have used, when it's the fact of the monopoly that really deserves the credit.
Along with many others, I decided to register my objections to the coverage, using an online feedback form linked to at NBC by Ron Judd, a Seattle Times commentator who has served as a focal point for coverage of viewer displeasure. Apparently I was not alone; NBC either decided to disable the feedback feature, or it blew up on them:
In the spirit of providing a little competition to NBC, here is a link to a list of some alternative ways to watch the real Olympics online.
EDIT:
I should also mention that it's not the case, though many of the supporters seem to insinuate it is, that NBC has only a single channel to work with an to use to accommodate both sports and non-sports fans alike. There are at least six channels available to the NBC empire to show Olympics programming on (and potentially more), some of which live way down at the south end of the cable ghetto and could be loaded up with live, no-commentator coverage of any number of events without any non-sports fan giving a hoot. NBC could make everybody happy; they just don't have to.
For a long time, whenever anyone said "ferry" I pictured not that hulking green and white apartment building-sized ships that cruise powerfully back and forth across Puget Sound with a backdrop of fog, green pine forests, and towering snow-capped peaks, but instead a little cabin-less thing shaped more or less like a dinner-plate with a few up-ended cubes of butter stuck around the periphery. This vessel, surrounded not by the verdant mountains of Western Washington but by the sage and sand hills of Eastern Washington, was the only thing I knew in my childhood that was ever called a ferry, and everyone always just called it "Keller Ferry."
We called it that because that's how you got to Keller, obviously, or the popular Sanpoil campground almost as far away. It's only today via a blog post by Captain Richard Rodriguez over at Bitter End that I find out that Keller Ferry has a real name: the Martha S. Even more incredibly, she's been on that run in more or less continuous service for more than sixty years, having begun in 1948.
I had always assumed, as a child, that this was the ferry, an assumption reinforced by the fact that the county it connected to the north was Ferry county (named, I also find this afternoon, not after Keller Ferry, but instead Washington's first governor, Elisha P. Ferry). I grew up not far from it and spent many a summer swimming and playing in Lake Roosevelt at a Park Service campground just downstream from the landing. If you waited until it got close the the landing and then dove under water and were still, you could hear the throbbing of the engines, a much different sound than the high-pitched whine of propellers from every other craft on the river.
I think about that now as I hear the throb of the Evergreen State through the hull as I sit moored near the periphery of the docks at Friday Harbor.
It was a great sail to Sidney, BC today. For the first time ever we had porpoises jumping our bow wave and playing alongside us! I've read plenty of blogs that talk about these playful creatures following along, jumping, then darting under the bow of a boat here in the Salish Sea - but it is always power vessels that seem to generate enough wave. The pod of about 10 porpoises stayed with us for at least 15 minutes, nearly close enough to reach out and touch. Agile as they are, I still thought they were dangerously close to our boat coming down on top of them. It's fascinating to watch, and it makes a person feel just a little extra special for a few minutes, like you've been invited to the exclusive Nature Club. Then, just like that, they are gone again.
Unfortunately I couldn't get pictures or video of them. The camera was stowed below, and when traveling at that speed in those waves, it is a good idea to be up top, not getting sick. To attempt going below could easily make for a very horrible rest of the trip. So the memory will need to live in our minds and your imaginations for as long as it can stay there.
Today during my watch I thought about how few activities we have in our lives that we must stay present with. Crossing a straight at hull speed is one of those endeavors. You don't have time to worry about a looming work deadline, you can't return that phone call, you can't make a mental to-do list. You must sail, and only sail. It takes all my attention to keep everything as it should be. Somehow it seems like there is a pure simplicity to it. When sailing, all one can do is sail.
Certainly is isn't always like that. We spend plenty of time putting along at a couple of knots. Then there is time to daydream. Lately, my daydreams have taken me across the Atlantic to the Mediterranean. However, none of those abstraction get me from the Pacific Ocean to the Atlantic... I'll need more slow-paced sailing to figure that out.
Wow! We knew we had to leave Vancouver today, but we didn't realize we'd be doing so at top speed.
We're tied up in Sidney right now at a friendly yacht club dock, but we had expected to be somewhere up in the Gulf Islands right now, even considering the favorable forecast of northwesterly winds (which puts them at our back, just as the southeasterlies were behind us on the way up here). The winds and our destination lined up perfectly and we crossed the Strait of Georgia in some moderately rough seas at speeds up to and over eight knots. Yes, that includes a little bit of a following current in places. But it meant we were routinely at hull speed, which is around seven knots in this boat.
Considering the progress we were making, we decided not to stop in the islands and anchor out, but come all the way on into Sidney and moor up again. I'm not sure why exactly, but it does allow one to sleep more easily when one is firmly attached to a dock and behind a solid rock breakwater, and hey, there is Internet and electric heat. The primary motivation is to put us as close as possible to the border, so we can make a fast crossing into the US in the morning and clear Customs. After that, much depends on the weather; we might strike for Deception Pass again, or try to cross the Strait of Juan de Fuca for Port Townsend. Or, though unlikely, we might get trapped in the islands for the night.
Right now, the forecast is still favorable though; more northerlies, fairly brisk, and the clear skies and sunshine that comes with them. We made good time on the way up with the southerlies at our back, but southerlies bring rain and gloom, while the fresh northwest wind brings blue sky and lovely sunsets (such as the one we're experiencing now in Tsehum Harbour... sorry, no picture, I'm too tired to dig out the camera).
I have this problem, though, where when it comes time to head home, all I want to do is get home. I don't see the point of being on the trip anymore, and I rush. It's silly; there is no real reason we shouldn't hang out here and explore a couple of days (well, there is the cat; we have people looking in on her, but we don't like taking extra time imposing on them or to leave her mostly by herself for too long) but I'm all in a hurry to get back to Seattle before the weekend. I have work to do, but I could plug in and do most of it in any marina. Maybe it's just the cost; I spent what I budgeted, now we're done, time to go. But a lot of what we might do doesn't really cost anything extra.
Whatever it is, I need to figure out some way to get over it; half of any trip is the homeward leg, it's a shame to think I am wasting by exhausting myself to get back a little faster.
I've uploaded our pictures taken so far on our Flickr site. There's nothing particularly great but I'll put the highlights into this post.
This is a group of volunteers near the bus departure point for the mountain venues (we waited in line right next to that Starbucks when we went up on Saturday). Mandy calls them "Martians" because she thought that Martians were typically portrayed in science fiction as "little blue men." I told her it was little green men, but the name has stuck. Actually, their outfits, complete with snowpants, hats, and backpacks, are quite nice.
This picture is more by way of asking a question; what the heck are those florescent yellow piles of stuff there? I saw them a couple days ago from a greater distance and thought maybe it was just grain, being lit at night by sodium lights, but they are even more bright during the day... if it's grain it's radioactive. Mandy things road salt; maybe they were stockpiling in case the road to Whistler was particularly bad?
The Olympic flame, of course. But then you have... the rest of the story.
That's right... you can't get anywhere near it. It's fenced off and well-guarded. The only way to get pictures of the sort shown at left is to stick the lens of your camera through the fence, or get someone to boost you up so you can see over it. And there is only about a twenty foot stretch of fenceline where even this is possible, which I imagine makes for some pretty hellacious crowds of sightseers later in the day. We were lucky to be there pretty early.
We talked to one of the officers there and she said they would probably be moving the fences back a little closer to the pillars tomorrow. It is a little ridiculous the way it is, although I understand why they have done it.
Well, those are the interesting shots... all the rest you can catch over on Flickr if you are interested.
We invested in bus passes today, got up early, and explored the town.
We didn't have anything else on the agenda today, and it was supposed to rain (which it did, earlier, but has since cleared up nicely) so we thought taking transit rather than walking might be a good idea. Also, I walked Mandy around last night through downtown and that probably wasn't a good idea considering she already has been feeling cruddy, so I didn't want to make her walk much today. In fact, we came back a bit early because she was feeling pretty poorly this afternoon, so we may hole up here and watch hockey the rest of the evening anyway.
But we started out pretty early to beat some of the crowds (although, to be honest, no where we have been has been outrageously crowded... there is always a seat somewhere, always an alternative to standing in a line, and things are always moving along pretty quickly), walking over to the near terminus of the Olympic streetcar line, which runs between Granville Island and the Olympic Village. There were long lines for it last night, but this morning there were only five or so other people on board.
From the Village, we got on the Canada line skytrain and took it over to the Coal Harbour waterfront. We did do some walking then, hitting all the tourist traps in Gastown, before doubling back and catching the Sea Bus back to Lonsdale Quay. We passed through there fairly quickly the other day on our way to Whistler and I wanted to explore a bit more. It's sort of a miniature Granville Island, a lot of shops and stands with trinkets, food, and produce. We had lunch there; I'd never had a breakfast calzone before, but it was quite good.
We headed back across the harbour again and caught the Skytrain out to East Vancouver, which runs you right past the downtown venues. We caught a bus on Broadway up to the University of British Columbia, which is where the secondary hockey venue is at. We were with the crowd headed for the US/Russia women's hockey game, a big one for us (still in progress as I write this, but if I am reading the website right, we're up 13-0... sweet) which was fun because everyone was in good spirits. The girl behind us was talking about being on the Sea Bus earlier in the day with the Bronze medal winner of the women's freestyle, who let her wear the medal and have their picture taken together. The bus driver, and indeed all the bus drivers we have met, was in good cheer and talking to everyone about where they were from and acquaintances he had near those places.
Mandy started crashing after we got out there, though, so we grabbed another bus back that let us off very near the Harbour Authority docks. We picked up some ice at the local mini-mart and now we're here, watching the Canada/Norway game. If she starts to feel better, we may head out again, if not, we'll stay in; no big deal. We'll head out sometime tomorrow, with a forecast that looks providential so far... hopefully a quick trip home. We're having a lot of fun, but we're also ready for a return to a regular, and hopefully more restful, schedule!
Regarding my grounding the other day, Mandy had this to say: "I think hitting a rock (and this time, not causing serious damage to the boat) is a message to him to lighten up on his shipmate...."
I knew there was going to be some sort of smug response coming there (although I will remind her that we're basically tied; it's not like she wasn't on deck or participating last time around, and she has run aground before all by herself), which must be satisfying in some regard, but to me, just seems to illustrate that perhaps neither of us should be out doing this together. If I'm not careful enough (obviously, I'm not) and she is less careful than I am, then that's sort of a bad combination, isn't it? It would be nice to have someone competent on board. This is at the very least, after all, our home we're talking about here.
It's also far too early to assert, as she did, that there is no significant damage. That sort of collision can cause significant damage to the keel, weakening it or straining to bolts in ways that don't cause leaks, but which can lead to catastrophic failure later on (there is a somewhat well-known incident that happened in the Gulf of Mexico of this sort where most of the crew was lost). Or, the keel can be bent or twisted out of true, costing tens of thousands to repair. Until the boat comes out of the water (which we were, fortunately, planning to do this spring anyway) there's no way of knowing.
This, no doubt, will be added to the "overkill" list of severe lectures on safety and caution that I give.
So most people have probably at least heard of Twitter, the micro-blogging site that started the trend of putting out short, quick updates on where you are or what you are doing or thinking about at any particular time. But unless you are a geeky sort of person, you probably haven't yet heard about Google's recently released answer to Twitter, Buzz.
Buzz is actually a part of Gmail, the company's free e-mail service, so if you have a Gmail account, you already are automatically in Buzz. It shows up as an icon on the left menu panel near the inbox. It works pretty much exactly like Twitter; you just have a box, where you type in whatever you want (although Buzz doesn't have the sometimes annoying 140 character limit that Twitter is either saddled with or blessed by, depending on who you ask) and click post and it puts it out there. You can also make posts public or private, restricting it to just your allowed Gmail contacts, or showing them to everyone.
Why does anyone need another micro-blogging service? Well, you might not. But Buzz has snared me in a way that Twitter never managed to. A lot of features that Twitter either should have or could benefit from are already in Buzz. With Twitter, you can get those things, but either only through third-party services, through some geeky hacking, or by waiting a long time for Twitter itself to slowly add them, frequently messing them up in the process. Buzz gets a lot of this stuff out of the box because it is so tightly tied with other products and services Google already offers.
You can comment on or "like" posts from others, which provides a more complete conversational tool than Twitter's homegrown @ or # adaptations. It's similar to Google Reader in that way, and in fact broadcasts items you share from Reader when you share them. You can go back and edit posts, or choose to e-mail them to others who don't have or use Buzz.
One of the neat things is that public posts can be viewed by location. So, I can choose to see updates from my contacts most of the time, but other times, such as when we are up here at a big event like the Olympics, I can switch to see what people nearby are buzzing about... and find out what fun stuff is happening nearby. A killer part of this feature is that it also integrates with Google Maps; so I can pull up a map that shows me exactly where people were when they made those posts. If I want, I can have it give me directions (by car, public transit, or on foot) right to that location.
You can also embed a picture in a Buzz post, or, Google's Picasa photo-sharing service automatically adds your recently posted pictures to the service.
Or, if you like, you can also set it up to add your activities from other popular sites like Flickr, Youtube, or Blogger (where this blog lives) automatically. Another site you can add to automatically update Buzz: Twitter.
I've always thought that is a great way to eat another company's lunch, and what it means is that it's easy for Tweeters to make the transition. With all the other features available, the personalization seems to me to be much more amenable to the sorts of friendly conversations that this sort of social networking tool should be about. In some ways, it's more like a Facebook feed in that way, but even more flexible.
This has all been a long way of saying, if you want moment by moment updates (oh, did I forget to mention that Buzz works perfectly on my Android-based MyTouch 3G for posts on the go?) on what we're up to here, get a Gmail account and get on my Buzz list!
I'm going to try to do better about posting alongside Scott this year. Generally, while we are out, work piles up for me. My weekly routines must be met, and inquiries must be answered, and all of it almost always require an Internet connection and a few hours of power. Sometimes we get one or the other, and sometimes we are lucky enough to have both at the same time, and I usually jump on the opportunity to get caught up with work during those moments. However, I also feel like I'm missing a bit of the whole experience by not working through my thoughts in the way that writing down them forces one to do.
So I'll try to do that.
I actually had what I thought were quite low expectations for this trip. I expected to be cold and tired and wet for three full days before reaching Vancouver and having a chance to warm up and dry out again. And, indeed, I was cold and tired and wet, but not any colder or more tired or more wet than I expected. I dressed well, thanks to past Christmas gifts of silk long underwear as well as still having held on to Wisconsin Winter garb. All told, at any point when I was outside I was wearing two pairs of socks under my rubber boots, silk long underwear plus cotton long underwear plus fleece pants plus foulie bottoms, then a tank top plus long underwear top plus a turtle-neck plus a sweatshirt plus foulie tops, then a scarf (tied as to fall off if it got snagged on anything), then a fleece hat plus my foulie hood up, on my hands were gloves AND mittens.
I set myself up to suck it up and bear being uncomfortable for this awesome opportunity to go to the Olympic games, see an event, and then get to continue to stay in the city for a few days afterward just to see what the spirit and energy of the place would be.
I must say, however, I actually wasn't miserable on the way up. Maybe my expectations weren't low, but just realistic. Getting my mind prepped for what would be difficult seemed to have made it less difficult overall. Only once did I get so cold that it took quite a lot of effort to get warmed up again.
One reward, it seems, for being out in the Pacific Northwest in February, when nobody else is out and about, is that we have the place pretty much to ourselves.
Scott and I have been to some pretty far-off places, many of them quite beautiful. It has been a number of years since we actually ducked into and slipped through the San Juan Islands, and I had forgotten how entranced I was by them that first time we went there. It was probably in 2006, but I'm not exactly certain. I remember being scared out of my wits when Scott went below to rest and let me sail by myself. This time, the trippy winds added kind of a fun challenge. And, this time, I did not have to sail through wakes of power boats. It is amazing how much even a relatively small wake can wreak havoc on sail shape in low winds. Dodging other sailboats was another challenge we didn't face last week. Keeping out of the way of another sailboat in a tight area laden with rocks in swirling island wind patterns can make one miss the beauty of the place. This trip, however, none of that beauty was lost, and I felt lucky indeed to be there on watch.
I was grateful for all of Scott's careful planning of where-by-when to get us through necessary tide gates and keep us out of the brunt of the Straight of Juan de Fuca. I wasn't looking forward to the Straight of Georgia much, and set equally low expectations of comfort during the crossing there. I knew I'd be up early to help navigate out of Silva Bay, and that I probably wouldn't be able to sleep afterward before my watch. All was again true. During crossings of any kind of significant wind waves, I'll rest in the saloon on the setee instead of up in the v-berth. I get rocked around less in the saloon which is good for one as likely to develop motion sickness as I am. Plus the day's forecast began with "Gale Warning in Effect," so I wasn't actually expecting to be able to remain below at all. The gales weren't forecast to pick up until after noon, by which time we'd hopefully be to Vancouver, but the winds were obviously already quite strong.
As soon as we were safely out of Silva Bay and got the mainsail up, I went below to rest as well as I could. Based on sounds, I tried to predict how fast we were going. I guessed it was at least 5 knots. Sailing is so often thought of as this peaceful, graceful, glide through the water. Crossing the straights of the Pacific Northwest, however, is nothing of the like. From below, the violence of sailing is amplified. Today, we'd be sailing mostly upwind. The wind grabs the sails, and pulls, pull, pulls, passing air along both sides of both sails, and sending a vibration down the mast, through the cabin, and into the keel. The whole boat vibrates at the same time as it heels over to one side and you hear the waves slap and crash into the upper side of the hull, next to your head on on the setee. At the same time as being pulled forward, leaning, over, the wind waves send the boat sharply lurching up and down. Wind wave of the straights are not like ocean swells, where the boat lifts and falls over many seconds. Wind waves of the straights are a quick up and down. The boat seems to skip over the first couple, then rides a larger up higher then the previous smaller waves. Suddenly that wave disappears from below it and the boat crashes back down unto the water again. Then everything slows for a few seconds. The force of the hull hitting the water in a downward motion saps the energy from the forward motion and the boat slows. The wind grabs the sails again, and the waves slap into the hull a little softer until the speed builds again.
Thanks to the magic of modern medicine and motion sickness medicine, I could experience this below-deck expedition with wonder instead of worry of growing heat and sickness in my stomach. Luckily, too, this crossing was not so rough as some we've had.
This boat, a Hunter '78, is often said to be a good boat, overbuilt actually. With every crash down onto water which seems rock-solid, I am grateful for every extra ounce of fiberglass in her hull and any extra strength specified for her keel bolts. How, really, can this vessel handle the brute force of sailing?
That brings me back to Scott's very unfortunate encounter with another BC rock a few days back. I find it not just surprising that he ran her aground, but actually baffling. It has, once again, shaken his confidence, and I can't blame him for that. But, truly, he is the most careful, cautious, and watchful sailor I can imagine. If I look for similarities between this instance and the '07 incident, the only similarities are a shallow passage to get through in which actively avoiding one thing (in '07 it was another rock, and this time another boat) caused him to steer into another. Being an English teacher, I've found that something happening twice does not make it a pattern if I can find ample counter-examples. So, the fact that he and I have entered and exited unfamiliar anchorages hundreds of times while passing other boats or avoiding other obstructions tells me that this is no pattern. So, I call it as one of two things: bad luck, or bad karma. I'm not trying to overly lighten a potentially very dangerous situation, but I think it's bad karma for the many, many, many, many lectures I've gotten on safely managing the boat. He sees them all as necessary, and generally doesn't agree that there is a bit of overkill in their frequency or severity, but I think hitting a rock (and this time, not causing serious damage to the boat) is a message to him to lighten up on his shipmate (and himself) for some things.
Or maybe not. I do have to admit, he has reasons for all the weird little things he does, and it is always to keep us safe. Having sunk this boat once, I see his point for keeping things "ship-shape," but it sure doesn't come naturally to me! And yes, all rocks have catastrophic potential. I get that.
One last funny thing about this trip so far. We expected to get hailed by the frigates outside of Vancouver on our way in. And indeed, we did. The conversation that followed actually made me laugh aloud.
"Sailing vessel five nautical miles south of Bowman Island, this is Canadian Warship 710. Do you copy?"
(Or something like that)
Scott was ready for the question, and answers,
"Canadian Warship 710, this is sailing vessel Insegrevious." "Insegrevious, would you mind if we asked you a few questions?" "Happy to oblige, Warship."
Yes, that was his exact answer, "Happy to oblige, Warship." And he sounded so cheerful and happy, too. Somehow I thought we'd be much further from home when we needed to talk to a warship.
Then he impressed me with his absolute fluency in phonetic spellings and didn't miss a beat when they asked for the spelling of our vessel:
"Canadian Warship 710, phonetic spelling of our vessel is: India, November, Sierra..."
Crap, I would've gotten stuck at "November" and given up on phonetic spelling right there. And even if I could easily remember phonetic spellings (as we've practiced), I'm still sure I would've tripped up somewhere along the very long name: Insegrevious. I'm going to practice it now, which should be buckets of fun for Scott ;)
All told, I'm having a lot of fun on this trip. Seeing the Olympics has been fantastic, and staying right down on the water in the middle of it all is a dream. If you have a chance, watch this amazing time-lapse video of the lights of Vancouver. It shows the amazing beauty of this city as I've never seen before.
So although it's cloudy again this morning, Vancouver is putting that natural resource to good use by pointing robotically controlled spotlights in the air and waving them about in various artistic fashions. The picture you see is a view of the beams we have yet to enjoy, but we can see the spots playing on the overcast; when we first noticed them on Saturday night, Mandy said, "Look! The Martians are sending messages home!"
Turns out it's nothing to do with the Olympic volunteers, though, it's an art installation along the shores of English Bay for the Olympics called "Vectorial Elevation." I had imagined they just ran it during the festivities, but when we woke up ungodly early this morning, we could see the spots playing across the clouds out the hatch over our heads in the v-berth. It's a slightly trippy way to wake up.
You can watch it live online (after dark, I presume) at the link above.
Picture Copyright Van Felt, Licensed under Creative Commons
I might have mentioned that we ran into a guy on the way to the luge event yesterday who had been at the opening ceremony the night before. Mandy and I just pulled it up on the Internet and watched it... pretty impressive! Actually, the best thing about watching it here might have been that CTV presented it complete and without commentary... no bland, annoying, ingratiating announcers trying to interpret every artistic aspect for me or giving me the biography of the Ethiopian flag bearer (though no doubt that would make for an interesting story).
What they didn't seem to pick up or portray well was the spontaneous standing ovation the Georgian team was given when they entered the arena. Apparently that was a tremendously powerful and emotional moment in the stadium, but they didn't really capture it well, in my opinion.
The floor and fabric ceiling structure that showed video were both very impressive, moreso because the floor had people tromping all over it all night, so it had to be tough as well as being a massive video display.
Along with a lot of Canadians, from what I read in the local editorials, I wasn't a fan of the interpretation of the national anthem that was used. I really liked Sarah McLachlan's performance and the accompanying dance routine, and I liked how they integrated the video floor and clouds with performances throughout. Bu then they lost me at the tap-dancing Viking fiddling logger-punks, or whatever they were supposed to be.
I thought it was interesting that they threw in a performer (probably famous, but as with most Canadian celebrities, I didn't recognize him. I recognized Brian Adams and Sarah McLachlan and The Great One of course, and wasn't that Donald Sutherland's voice? and that was about it) who sort of replicated the "I am Joe" Molson commercial guy. It's still sort of a defensive, if good-natured, reaction to the perceived perception of Canadians to the rest of the world. There's nothing wrong with being proud of who you are and where you are from, of course, but it says something about the nature of that pride that it is presented as a response to the mild aspersions of others. It may be time to get over it, if indeed it was ever important what anyone else thought in the first place.
We'd heard about the flame lighting malfunction and I had hoped that everyone was simply making a big deal out of a small glitch, but no, it was pretty excruciating to watch. Nothing to be done about it, of course, and it didn't detract from the lighting being pretty impressive.
It's a whopping 12° out right now, and sunny, if you can credit such a thing! That's open hatches weather here in Vancouver, and open the hatches we did, airing and drying various compartments, berths, equipment, and clothing that had not seen sunshine since fall. We've got a load of laundry in, the floors scrubbed, the head cleaned, and our bedding and sails airing out. It's beautiful out and we have no idea how long it will last... it was supposed to rain today, as much as it did yesterday, which was quite a lot. But apparently we got a break between systems. Today is gorgeous and we took full advantage of it.
Neither of us slept in as late as we had imagined we might, so we headed over to Granville Island for coffee around 0900. Mandy, perhaps unsurprisingly, has picked up a bit of a head cold (we're back at the boat and she is napping now) so we didn't push ourselves trying to do or see too much. Instead, we walked around Granville Island, saw the hourly Chinese New Year celebration (hourly? The dragon was only two kids long, so I guess they had to do it frequently to make up for the shortage. No firecrackers either, in a place so security conscious right now), and then headed across the bridge into downtown, which had looked pretty intriguing last night.
We found both the LiveCity venues over there but there were crazy long lines to get in. I hadn't realized they would be cordoned off, since they are, I believe, free to the public. But there are big blue fences around them both and metal detectors to pass through to get in. I suppose there is no way around that these days, although the whole city is basically a spill-over party from the games... I'm not sure that scanning one crowd of people inside the fence is going to do anything to prevent bad things happening in the as-large or larger crowd of people just outside it. Anyway, we didn't feel like doing a line today, so we skipped it (although the dance thing we could see up on the big screen inside the perimeter looked kinda interesting).
We had a great lunch at the Cafe Vancouver, which is just a little place across the street from the will-call office that I noticed yesterday. Free wifi, good food, big soft chairs. I am surprised that in a city obviously bustling with people, no place we have been yet has felt particularly crowded. We've always been able to find places to sit and eat or drink. Maybe everyone else is inside the LiveCity stalag.
This seems particularly true for Starbucks. If there is anyplace on the planet that rivals Seattle for Starbucks location density, this has got to be it. It's starting to surprise me to not see them anywhere. They are handing out free mini-maps of the city, which are pretty handy themselves, but which of course feature the location of every Starbucks store in town. Usually you look at such a thing and think to yourself, "Oh, interesting, I didn't know there was one just around the corner here." It's to help you find stores you didn't know about, but in this case, it has backfired: I look at it and think, "Jeez, I could have swore there were three of them on that street when we were there last night, the place is practically a coffee desert."
Of course it's not really possible in the Pacific Northwest to have such a thing as a coffee desert; we are blessed with deluges of both rain and coffee, and there are two or three other chains that are sure to be anywhere that Starbucks is not. Benz, Tim Horton's, and another outfit I don't recall. It's amazing there is any room left for cheap teriyaki joints and creperies, but there must be as we've seen plenty of those as well.
I suppose the density of the city feeds those small shops in ways that we don't really see in Seattle. Here there are block after block of small mom and pop shops and restaurants beneath tower after tower of condos. Downtown Seattle, despite recent efforts, is mostly office towers, whereas a large chunk of Vancouver is condo or apartment towers. I don't know what the density is exactly, but I have to imagine it fuels those sort of small service businesses in ways that an office district, de-populated after 1800, cannot.
I should have some pictures to upload tomorrow. It's supposed to rain, so that will give me something to do. Of course, I don't know how much to trust the weather report now, either. But tonight is probably dedicated to catching up on Olympic coverage and maybe watching some cheesy romantic comedy that Mandy likes... it is, after all, Valentines Day.
In some senses, we were early, in others, we barely snuck in under the wire. It's hard to say in retrospect. Either way, it was a very long day and we're still laying in our bunk in the v-berth right now recovering.
We got up and out of Silva Bay at about 0500 yesterday and the wind was about 20 knots out of the south, just as forecast. I was able to immediately lay on a course of 060T which was exactly what I needed to end up in the mouth of English Bay, and even with a reef in the mainsail we were moving along at five and a half knots or better, more than enough to put us in town by 1000 as I had planned.
There was very little vessel traffic but the seas were confused and choppy which made for a pretty rough ride. I stood watch for a couple hours, during which the wind, unfortunately, started to back into the southeast, and as Mandy came up and took her turn it moved further and further toward our nose, pushing our course further and further north of the lay line for the Spanish Bank.
We ended up off Bowen Island at around 0900, where, as predicted, our pals in Warship 710 found us and chatted us up over the VHF. We didn't get stopped though, which was fortunate as the wind was now right on the bow between us and the entrance to False Creek. We started beating our way south but it became apparent we weren't going to make it on time. The seas were still so choppy that motoring wasn't likely to do much better, however. We cut into English Bay as far as we could and the chop was reduced, and we dropped sail and fired up the engine to head straight toward the entrance.
We had to dodge a few freighters: one coming in behind us, and six or so moored in English Bay. We got looked over again by an RCMP launch, but fortunately again, they didn't stop us. We ended up getting in to False Creek right about 1130. There was the usual drama trying to contact the Harbour Authority but they had a slip all ready for us when we did get hold of them, with the right kind of power, and toward the base of the dock, natch. So we were able to slide right in, tie up, and head out.
Unfortunately, I had neglected to print off directions to the will-call office. I used my phone's web browser (a very expensive web browser up here, to the tune of $10 per megabyte) to find a phone number and gave them a call, and managed to get the nearest cross streets through the staticky connection. It was just across the Granville Street bridge and up a few blocks, and there was no line at all when we got there (although Mandy contrived to delay us by launching into a conversation with the ticketing agent) and we were in and out in no time. Up a block to a bus line leading to the Sea Bus terminal, and one of a veritable cab rank of buses available swept us right up to the terminal.
There was a Sea Bus departure three minutes later, and so we were just about able to step right on board and steam smartly across the bay. The whole Vancouver transit experience was superlative. There were a lot of buses, running frequently, traffic was extremely manageable (I don't know if this was just luck or due to the traffic shaping efforts of the Games organizers), and directions were always clear and informative. The Sea Bus, a water taxi, is a purpose-built double-ender with a special terminal at each end that allows extremely fast loading and unloading for rapid turn around. I didn't really measure the trip time across Vancouver Harbour but it couldn't have been more than fifteen minutes. The boats were full; the buses were generally at a comfortable 3/4 capacity (although, later in the day, we passed one that was standing room only, stuck at a stop because the relief driver had not yet appeared).
The north SeaBus terminus, Lonsday Quay, is also the departure point for the remote venue buses... and we were there by one o'clock, an hour early after all the rushing!
It was an hour well-spent, however, as we had an opportunity to hit a cash machine and get some food, beverages, and snacks to replenish us after a taxing morning. We were the first ones in line for our scheduled departure time. The Olympic bus system was the only thing we saw in the whole day that seemed to have any glitches in it. People were given different directions, some of them kept off buses that were not full, but which departed before the time on their tickets, while others were allowed on. At the other end, coming back, vast ranks of empty buses stood ready to take us back, but all were being held to depart at the same time, even though many people were already ready to go. The kinks were worked out, eventually, but they were a little irritating and seemingly obvious.
The ride up to Whistler was about two hours. We passed some sort of motorcade coming back the other way; the bus driver made a crack over the PA system that it was President Obama but it clearly wasn't (he sent a delegation); a clue as to the identity of the eminences came later in the day as we overheard a volunteer talking about escorting members of the royal family around the venues. Even without the motorcade escort, it looks like they must have pulled in Mounties from all over the country. RCMP presence was heavy all along the route and at the venue. Good time to stage a bank robbery in Saskatoon, I'll bet.
It was raining when we got there and we had to wade through some slush to get to the security checkpoint. They were reasonably thorough but not intrusive and everyone was in good spirits despite the damp.
The drawback of watching the luge is the serpentine nature of the track, which makes it hard to get a sense of where you are, where the athletes are, or what exactly is going on. You could only see a hundred meters or so of track from any particular observation point. What we did see looked very nice, however. We picked a spot at the final turn, near the finish line, and a large TV screen was set up to show you what was happening elsewhere. I timed a few of the competitors going through, and if you didn't count the TV screen, we saw them live and in person for just under three seconds each. But it was an exciting three seconds... they were right in the "Death Curve" at that point and headed to the finish line. We saw a few of them bump the sides but no one wrecked, fortunately.
The Germans took an early lead and held on to it. At some point, the rain changed to snow, and then it really started to feel like the Winter Olympics. Actually, it got downright cold. I for some reason hadn't expected that. All that talk about lack of snow, unseasonable temperatures, and the like, had me more ready for rain than snow. So I froze a little bit; but a not unreasonably priced hot chocolate got me thawed out, and after they told us at the bus embarkation point that none would be leaving until almost 2100, we went and wandered around Whistler Village a bit. We'd never been there before, so I'm not sure what upgrades were done for the games and what was just that way before, but it's a lovely and inviting place, worth returning for a visit another time. Not during the games; no one goes up there that doesn't have a ticket or residency past the checkpoints on the Sea to Sky Highway.
The organization of the whole vast array of events is mind-boggling and has been extremely impressive so far. As I mentioned before, the only glitch we have seen is with the buses. But it's so complex, so immense, and so unpredictable (several other events were cancelled at Whistler that day due to fog) that it's an amazing tribute to the organizers that it is running so smoothly. The organizers, and the thousands of blue-clad volunteers who Mandy keeps calling "The Martians" (this absolutely befuddled me until I asked for an explanation; she said, "Aren't Martians always blue?" and I had to explain, from my vast background of science-fiction knowledge, that Martians were almost always little green men, not blue. But the name stuck) who are everywhere holding signs, radios, and clipboards, and doing all the grunt work of directing the hordes of lost spectators where they need to be in time to see their next event. We stood in line next to another guy from Seattle whose girlfriend is volunteering here; apparently all they get is the coat, hat, and pants, but the work they are doing is amazing.
The guy and his girlfriend seem to have the right idea. They found a cheap room at a hostel and have been scarfing up tickets wherever they can get them. They got tickets to the opening ceremonies, which apparently were amazing (we haven't seen them yet; we'll watch online later in the week). He liked luge, so he was going up to see that while his girlfriend had a shift volunteering.
If our accommodations hadn't been so up in the air and times weren't otherwise tight, it would have been fun to do that and play it more by ear here. I imagine they will have an amazing time. We're having fun ourselves already, and I'm looking forward to getting out and seeing what else is going on in the city over the next few days (protests aside; we missed yesterday's since we were up the mountain when it was happening for the most part). It is vibrant out in the streets. We got back in town around 2300 or so from the mountain, and it was as busy as when we left. Anyway, we made it to what we had hoped, and enjoyed it, and are looking forward to the rest of our stay.
I'm already awake earlier today that I had planned, so it's almost like a free day, although we have to devote some time to housekeeping and boat work so we can be ready to leave again next week.
We made it to Silva Bay this afternoon as planned, and caught a spare guest slip at the Silva Bay Yacht Club at Pages Resort and Marina. We're taking the opportunity to charge up, warm up, and dry out a bit. If I had more energy, I would go up and browse through the books in the marina office... it's also a book store! It's been wet, but we have been generally warm enough despite the sometimes balky diesel stove, and we've been making good time and hitting most of our stops according to plan. The weather has been lucky; it was only brisk during our crossing of Rosario Strait, and downright calm coming across Haro (although wicked rollers spoke of mightier winds somewhere south of us).
We cleared customs in Sidney and spent the night last night in Montague Harbour. Had a bit of drama coming out again... I put her aground rounding Gray's Point. A rising tide, liberal use of reverse, and (mostly) a halyard to a passing BC Hydro crew boat got us off quickly. Actually, I had been veering further inshore than I had planned to make way for the crew boat, who was coming up from astern; I can't figure out if that was bad karma, in that I ran aground trying to be nice, or good karma, in that the boat I was being nice to stopped and helped us off again. Anyway, I am sure the leading edge of the keel is a mess but no other damage, and the worst part is that this puts Mandy and I at 1-1-1 in the running aground department. I'm really sweating who hits bottom next. I'm also calling out everyone who told me I shouldn't feel dumb about having done it last time; clearly you are all wrong, I really am that stupid, and apparently this is going to be an annual event. Once may be a learning experience, twice is just dumb.
Anyway, I actually had a fairly nice sail after that, wind almost right astern... I shook the genoa out and rocketed up Trincomali Channel, one of the best places in the world for a dead downwind sleigh ride. Last time we caught it coming down from the north, but the place is just like a funnel, and it's laid out like a drag strip: only one way to go, as fast as you can.
Unfortunately, like last time, the wind dropped off the further we got, so I ended up firing up the engine eventually and then battling my way out of Gabriola Pass and into Silva Bay. The southerly whipping up the Strait of Georgia against the flood coming out of the pass had us on a roller coaster ride, and the entrance to Silva Bay is moderately intricate even if you hadn't already run aground once that day. The interior is clogged with moored derelicts. I'm more worried about trying to get out past them tomorrow morning, though, in the dark.
Right now, the forecast is about perfect; the winds in the Strait are supposed to drop from 15-25 to 10-20 overnight and veer south, which will put us on a sweet beam reach right for Vancouver. They aren't forecast to pick up again until late morning, by which time we should be well within English Bay.
Speaking of which, the kid at the gas dock in Sidney next to the custom's float told me there were three frigates standing guard off Vancouver during the games. He wasn't kidding. I heard them hailing and stopping sailboats on the VHF all day long today. I expect we will receive similar attention as we approach tomorrow... hopefully not too much of delay.
For all that, it may not matter ultimately. When we went to register at the marina office, the lady at the desk asked where we were headed, and when we told her, asked if we had tickets for anything. We told her that, too, and she gasped and said, "Oh, had you heard the news?" We hadn't. It will cast a pall over the event tomorrow, if in fact they decide to have the event at all... there hasn't been any decision so far. And it certainly puts grounding a boat into perspective in the scheme of things.
I'm just sitting around here right now watching the sun setting, cooling my heels until Mandy gets home. As soon as she does, we're off! Everything is looking good so far except the forecast... and that, at least, comes with the consolation prize of southerly winds later in the week, which should help speed us north. As for the clouds and rain... well, it's the Winter Olympics, isn't it? Could be worse... could be a lot colder than fifty!
This morning was when we would have been heading north if Mandy's work had not intervened at the last minute. I got up early to help her load some stuff for her presentation into the car. It was surprisingly warm out, cloudy, but dead calm and quiet out on the water. The floats were damp but it wasn't raining at all, and the tide was up, higher than normal, which makes for a nice ebb current to ride out north. All in all, it would have been a perfect time to head out, even without wind. In fact, sometimes I like to start out without any, to get out on the water and see the glassy calm stretching off into the distance, broken only by our own wake.
All in all, it would have been just about a perfect time to get going. We'll see how things are looking Tuesday night.
Which represents success, or partial success, at least, in the saga of the mystery leak in the stern section.
The folks at HunterOwners.com came through once again, providing better pictures, diagrams, instructions, and tool recommendations than I came up with anywhere else on the Internet. Turns out that everyone hates that fiberglass rudder support shelf... you can't see what you are doing, and you can barely feel it when you are squeezed in back there with one hand.
At any rate, they filled me in on exactly how the system works. The top nut is the packing nut; it is actually larger than it appears, extending up the post further than one can see, so that it has room to contain the packing material that is pressed against the shaft to seal it. You rotate it counter-clockwise, looking down, to loosen it up (if one were re-packing it, all the way up, when one would then futilely attempt to pick out the old packing with a toothpick or something and force the new flax into the gland), and clockwise to tighten it. The bottom nut is the locking nut, and rotates the opposite direction to secure the packing nut once you have it tight.
The folks in the forum recommended something called spoonbill vicegrips for the job, and from the picture they provided, those would have been about perfect. Unfortunately, when I got into town last night, I couldn't find any. I settle for a massive crescent wrench (which turned out to still be too small) and a large pair of channel lock pliers. In the event, only the channel locks were of any use, and they were damned awkward, as I had to try to use one hand to both keep them clamped tightly and to try to turn the nut. Toward the end as it got tight, that was very difficult indeed.
I first backed the locking nut off quite a way. As noted before, both were only hand-tight, so that wasn't difficult. I then tightened the packing nut down by hand as far as it would go, then went at it with the channel locks. A half hour later, I had it what seemed to be reasonably tight, and reduced the influx of water to a series of occasional drips only. I crossed my fingers and tightened up the locking nut against it, hoping that the rotation wouldn't loosen it, since I had nothing to hold it with, and for whatever reason my luck held and the two locked together tightly with no apparent backing of the packing nut. I went up and tried the helm, and the rudder still turned freely, so it isn't too tight. And hopefully, the bilge will start to dry out a bit.
I went and took a well-earned shower (it's super-grimy back in that space; I found loose nuts, washers, random bits of wood and plastic, and a tube of solder that all must have fallen in back there over the years) and now I am off to gorge myself at Dave's annual Superbowl party while I cheer the Saints on toward victory.
So our timeline for getting into Canada for the Olympics has been severely constricted by Mandy's big corporate client eating up the first two days of next week with workshops. The soonest we can leave will be Tuesday night. That leaves a lot of water to cover and not a lot of time to do it in. I had originally planned to leave on Monday morning, take a leisurely amount of time, as the wind dictated, to get up there, and settle in a bit before getting to our event.
Now, there is virtually no margin for weather, and we may in fact wind up motoring much of the way, if travel is possible at all. Fortunately, the forecast looks fairly benign, but a storm covering the Strait of Georgia, or a missed current gate at Deception or Gabriola passes, could put us seriously off our game.
My plan right now is to head out on Tuesday night and take advantage of what ebb current is left to get as far as Everett. We might get there very late, but as there is practically nowhere to anchor, we can just tie up at Everett Yacht Club for the night and use our reciprocal moorage agreement to catch a few hours sleep.
I say a few because I figure, wind or no wind, we have to be underway at 0400 the next morning to make a 1300 slack at Deception Pass (lord help us if I have looked up the wrong dates for any of these tide or current tables). It will be a long day as we get through the pass and well into the San Juans, hopefully to Reid Harbor or thereabouts by 1800.
From the northern tip of the San Juans, we'll jump across to clear Canadian customs at Bedwell at a time of our choosing. It's a short crossing, so if we need to recover from the long day before, or if we lose a day for some reason, it's easy to absorb into the schedule. We have the remainder of that day to rest up.
The next day, we work our way north in the protected waters of the Gulf Islands, passing out through either Porlier or Gabriola passes to get a hopefully early evening anchorage in Silva Bay. The latest word from Waggoner's is that the bay is so crowded with derelicts and other permanent moorings that anchorage can be hard to find, similar to Eagle Harbor on Bainbridge Island, so there is some chance we won't be able to stay there, at the closest Gulf Island anchorage to the lower mainland. If that's the case, there are almost no safe alternatives on the east side of the islands, and we'll almost certainly have to duck back in and anchor somewhere inside and be forced to deal with another current gate the next morning (not to mention a correspondingly earlier departure, on a day that's going to be plenty long enough already).
Assuming all is well in Silva Bay, we'll get up around 0300 and head for Vancouver, a five to six hour crossing. That will put us into False Creek around 1000, and we should be able to slide right in to our reserved slip at the Harbour Authority. Then it's off to find the ticket office and pick up our will-call tickets, because the luge is the same day! Straight from the ticket office to the Sea Bus terminal on the south shore of Coal Harbour, across Vancouver Harbour to the Sea Bus/Olympic Bus Network terminus in North Vancouver, then onto a bus for the three hour ride to Whistler. Watch Olympics, get back on bus and do it all in reverse, save the sailing bit. If we're lucky, we'll be in bed by 0030.
If things go wrong further south, and we don't get out until Wednesday, or some other evil befalls us before crossing into Canada, our backup plan is to pull an all-nighter on the 12th (after resting up, hopefully, somewhere in the San Juans). We've gone from the San Juans straight to Vancouver before, and it's not a super-fun trip, particularly if we have to motor the whole way, but it is possible, and we can clear Customs at the marina in False Creek. Somebody is bound to be super-crabby if this turns out to be the case, however, because that's a lot of long night watch to stand. Particularly if the radar isn't working. Double-particularly in the debris outflow from the Fraser River. So, we're very much hoping against having to take that option.
After all that, I am very much looking forward to the remainder of our stay in Vancouver. We have a few days after the event, and it's going to be nice to just wander around and soak up the atmosphere in the city. We couldn't ask for a better location, and in fact most people staying around False Creek, so close to the Olympic Village, the GM Place ice hockey and BC Place opening and closing event venues, will be paying outrageous sums to be there. As is often the case on the water, we feel as if we're just sneaking in to the best part of the city, right in the heart of all the action, way out of our league. I'm excited at the opportunity... even if we get there late, and flush all the money spent on tickets and bus transport to Whistler, I'll still hopefully enjoy something of the trip just by being there.
So, just to get it out of the way, we did go to the boat show, and I was pretty severely unimpressed. Very few boats (very, very few sailboats) to look at, morose salesmen who looked as if their next step might be off the edge of the dock seeking the comfort of a watery grave, and nothing particularly new or interesting to hold our attention. I very much regret having bought tickets for two days, as both turned out to basically be a waste of time and money (well, except I got a cool light-up yo-yo from the Greater Victoria Harbour Authority booth).
So anyway, I put Mandy on a bus for Hadlock this morning and got down to the business of preparing the boat for the trip to Canada next week. If that doesn't sound like a lot of time to prepare to you, well, it doesn't to me either.
But it was sunny out today, and warm, and reasonably dry, and things went pretty well. I cranked the engine over and it started up on the first shot and ran solidly despite some really cruddy fuel coming in to the separator. I changed the primary fuel filter, and we'll fuel up before we head out, which should dilute the remaining crud and hopefully filter it all out. I checked and topped off the transmission fluid, and checked the transmission itself... it shifted smoothly in and out of forward and reverse. I lubed the steering gear and the transmission cable, and stowed our spare mainsail in some unused space under the helm lazarette.
The oil change went smoothly, too, and without much mess. Since everything was going so well, I decided to take a crack at tightening up the leaking rudder post, and that's where I hit a wall.
Apparently the thing seals with two very large (2"? I can't really see them) counter-rotating nuts atop the shaft. They are, however, right beneath a fiberglass shelf which apparently provides support for the entire rudder assembly, so they are the very devil to get at. This all happens, I should mention, at that point in the hull where it is sweeping up toward the transom, so the closer one gets, the more squeezed one becomes.
Anyway, I didn't have a wrench large enough to get on the nuts, let alone two, and if I had two, and they were big enough, I doubt I could fit them both into the space at the same time, and if by some miracle of modern industry all that could happen, I don't think I could spare enough arms to turn them.
This wasn't what I had expected to find at all. I had done some research when I first discovered the leak and the few references I could find to my model of boat talked only about a single packing nut; or maybe the whole assembly is referred to as the "packing nut" even though there are two components. I found someone discussing another model of boat talking about holding the top nut in place and rotating the bottom to tighten, which I suppose is basically what I would try anyway... but it's the sort of thing (hole in boat) where I would like to have a little confirmation before I go messing with it.
I would take a picture but it's dark out now and I don't have my flash camera with me. Anyway, I'm posting the question to HunterOwners.com and there is probably someone there who can clear me up on the matter, hopefully before I am back next weekend to finish all this up.
As far as finishing goes, the big thing I would like to have done is radar troubleshooting. I am pretty much resigned to having to send Mandy up to look at it again. She can't lift me, and even if she could, I'm really the only one who can operate the controls on the console to test it adequately (and safely) with someone up there. Bizarrely, it's easier to talk her through tracing wiring connections and measuring impedance and voltage values than the display console controls. Either way, I am pretty well resigned to the thing still not working, which is bad considering much of the trip will be happening at night and quite possibly in marginal visibility.
Fueling up and pumping out are really the only other things, and assuming the engine doesn't quit on us, that should all be done next weekend.
Since we were in boat transit, we missed the news of Captain Phil Harris' death until a week later. Yesterday the Discovery Channel had a Deadliest Catch marathon in his honor. I found it a perfect tribute to this salty man. Captain Phil stood out to me on the show in his closeness to his sons, Josh and Jake. Mike Rowe (the voice-over for Deadliest Catch) captured Phil's spirit in his own way here.
Virginia is telling her husband why she must kill off one of the main characters in her novel, Mrs. Dalloway. To me, that line is the epitome of the entire movie. The Hours has a dark feeling to me, yet it is one of my favorite movies in its portrayal of life via death.
When my dad was diagnosed with cancer in 2006, he told my mom that he had no regrets, and that he'd lived a full life. He was 54 years old. I took his statement to heart. He had lived a full life. He knew how to have fun with his life. He worked damn hard (I mean really, REALLY hard), but he also was an expert at seizing opportunities. His death hit me profoundly.
