Realistic expectations met

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.



~Mandy