Sailing Through the Night

I’m happy to be sailing under the Golden Gate!

From Alma:

Although today is our 6th day out of San Francisco Bay, last night was the first time we sailed though the night. And I liked it. Sailing through the night felt slightly mysterious. The moon was really bright and the stars were really clear because we were away from city lights.

In the beginning of the night, I was on deck with my dad for a little bit and then came down below to sleep. At about midnight I woke up when big waves were causing the boat to lurch wildly. I had a lee cloth, which is a rectangular piece of webbing that you tie up at the edge of your bunk to keep you from falling out, but we hadn’t tested out our lee cloths yet, and when I woke up in the middle of the night, I felt like mine was in the wrong place and that I might fall out. On top of which I felt seasick. That was scary. So I got out of my bunk and came out on deck. It was my mom’s watch, so I hung out with her for a while, until I felt I could go back down below. This morning we anchored in San Luis Obispo Bay.

Arlo’s working on math

We’re starting homeschooling slowly, as we get used to the boat. We’ve been doing math and art and we’ll add English next. After I take a swim this afternoon, we’ll do some more lessons. Tomorrow will be a no school day because we’re getting underway at 4:00 a.m., bound for the Channel Islands.

 

Welcome!

Thanks for checking out this blog!

Remember the poem about the Owl and the Pussycat who went to sea “in a beautiful pea green boat?”  Our boat is white, but we plan to “sail away for a year and a day,” just as they did.  At this point we’re still hoping to set sail in January, so we’re busy getting the boat ready, closing out our shoreside lives, and packing to go. You should find a button at the bottom of the sidebar at right that allows you to enter your email to subscribe–this means, I think, that you’ll be notified when we do start posting.

For now, a few of the drifts of gear filling our house:

The yellow bag contains a sea anchor for stormy situations, the orange bag is filled with flares to be used to signal for help, and the Nutella at the far left of this picture should cover most other situations.
A few items for our first aid kit.
Where will we keep all the books?

 

 

 

 

More soon!

 

Getting Ready

As I write, Jason is out in our shop shaping fir which will become our cabin-top water catchment system.  I’m looking at piles of gear lining our front hall–sea boots, piles of books, water jugs, line waiting for me to splice to make headsail tack pennants.  My computer has way too many tabs open.  At some level we’ve been working toward this adventure for 20 years, but now we’re really getting ready.  We’re hoping to leave from Alameda mid January 2018.