As the tallest person in the family, I thought that I would write about living in small spaces. One of the biggest differences, between life at home and life on the boat is how all of our living spaces are are so much smaller on the boat.
My sister’s and my cabin, looking foreward
The place where I notice this the most is in the cabin that Alma and I share, the forepeak, at the very front of the boat. Compared to my room at home it is very small, and the floor is only 10 feet square so only one person can do anything at at time. My sister and I have to take turns being in it, and
The same cabin, looking in the other direction
because there is no room for a dresser, all of our clothes are stored in cubbies. But small isn’t all bad—my bunk is not too small, and it is the only place on the boat besides the head (bathroom), that has some privacy. I brought my blanket from home, which is also nice.
Me with a fish that I caught and cooked, you can see the sink in the front and the two kettles in the back, one for saltwater, one for freshwater
Another place where you really notice the size difference is in the kitchen, or galley. In the galley there is a three burner gimbaled stove with an oven, a sink with salt and freshwater pumps, and meager counter space. Under the counter, there are lots of racks of baskets for storing food. Compared to our kitchen at home, it is tiny.
The head, you can see the toilet, sink, and cabinets
The head is the smallest room aboard, maybe an eighth of the size of our bathroom at home. It has a sink, two cupboards, and toilet, which you have to pump to flush. The head is pretty much just a downsized regular bathroom, without a bathtub or shower. All in all, you get used to living in these small spaces, more quickly than one might expect, although I wont be sad to have my bedroom back when we get home.
Our three-day passage from Baja California to mainland Mexico was another turning point: from the cool of the West Coast of Baja, to the deep and humid heat of this coast, from the tans and yellows and reds of the desert peaks, to the green lushness of these high ridges, from longer, harder passages along a remote exposed shore, to smaller hops from anchorage to anchorage, from the megafauna of the Baja Coast, the whales and dolphins, to a teeming sea full of fish and sky full of birds here on the mainland. On the passage across the Sea of Cortez and on down the way to this broad and sandy anchorage at Punta de Mita, we’ve been given light and favorable wind that’s just enough to keep us gliding along comfortably.
Isla Isabel fish camp
We delayed our arrival on the mainland with a stop at the offshore Isla Isabel where hundreds of thousands of Frigate Birds, Blue Footed Boobies, Brown Boobies and Heerman’s Gulls nest on a rugged volcanic rock. The swirling swarm of birds there was overwhelming. The island was a nice transition. It had the rugged remoteness of Baja, with a little of the green of the mainland. (Check out Alma’s post on marine wildlife.)
Today was a rare rest day. A short trip ashore to dip in the surf, a couple of easy fixit projects around the boat here at anchor, some down time in a hammock on deck, in bunks reading and writing below.
Hammock time
An interesting thing about living and traveling on Debonair is the feeling of reassurance we get from the boat in these new and foreign places. In every new place, whether it’s comfortable or more challenging, we have this, our home, to work from, and as we get to know her better, that reassurance grows.
From Punta de Mita we’ll go into La Cruz and a marina to provision and work on some maintenance projects dockside. Then, the coming weeks will bring a handful of new anchorages on the way to Manzanillo. We’ll swim a lot now. The water has gotten warm so even the parents are swimming regularly (Arlo & Alma will swim in anything!). We’ll keep an eye out for new birds wherever we go.
We ate breakfast in the cockpit yesterday morning as we rounded Cabo San Lucas’ famous rock arches. After seeing only pangas and the odd tanker for a couple of weeks, we were struck by the hubub of sportfishing boats and other tour boats around us. We rounded the Cape, put our dishes in the sink and trimmed sails to beat the final 10 miles to San Jose del Cabo where we are tied up now. We’ve sailed about 850 miles since we left the US. The boat is as still as a house.
We were glad to have our friend JT aboard for much of the trip down the coast, and it was exciting that Alma and Arlo stood their first watches without us! We anchored in the beautiful Bahia San Quintin, Bahia Tortuga and Bahia Magdalena—in each place we got ashore to to stretch our legs and see the place after nights at sea. Here in San Jose, we were so glad to connect with a former owner of DEBONAIR who rebuilt her in the 90’s after she was hit by a barge. We also been taken out on the town by a former colleague of Jason’s whom we ran into on a few days ago on a beach in the remote Bahia Magdalena.
Arlo and Alma will likely each post over the next couple of days, but for now, I leave you with a few pictures from our voyage south along the coast of Baja California. We’re looking forward to heading to mainland Mexico in a couple days. Thank you all for your kind, funny, thoughtful, encouraging messages, here and by email.
Alma at dawn
Debonair anchored at Bahia Tortuga
Clamming at San Quintin. So many clams! An hour after this picture we swamped the dinghy in the surf, but saved all the clams for the pot.A few of the dozens of clams we dug at San QuintinAnticipationA view of the Pacific from a hilltop at Bahia MagdalenaJason’s working on the dinghy mast step here. We’ve repaired a lot of the things in the last couple weeks: the engine gear shift cable (underway), the catches for two cabinets and a drawer, the windvane steering hub mount (underway—Jason had the jigsaw and grinder going while we rolled down 7-8’ seas), the stove fiddles (thank you, JT!), and the dinghy oar leathers, among other things.So long! JT left us in Bahia Magdalena.
Arlo’s first fish, a bonito! So much better than the seagull he caught next on the line 🙁 I promise we won’t post pictures of every fish.
We moved onto Debonair four weeks ago, and we are starting to develop and settle into the new way of life. But it is still a world away from riding my bike in Alameda. One of the biggest differences from life in Alameda has been school. School on the boat is so different from ACLC. We only have one teacher and only do an hour or so of school a day, but our education is happening all the time. Our curriculum varies in every
A pod of bottlenose dolphins swimming under our bow
way from what is taught in ACLC in every class but math, in which we just follow along in our textbooks. We also learn some stuff that is not taught at ACLC, like oceanography, in which we see stuff from the text book in all parts of our life, from kelp beds to gray whale migration patterns, to being bullied by 4,500 pound bull elephant seals, and we get extra practice on subjects like Spanish, that we can go ashore and listen to and speak.
Another big difference is getting around. To go to the grocery store, we have to get in the dinghy, row ashore, either to a dock or to the beach, and if we land on the beach, we might have to make a surf landing. When there is a lot of surf on the beach, and you need to get ashore, you have to position the dinghy just right, and wait for the smallest wave that you can find, and then time it just right so that you surf in on the back of it. Once you hit the beach, you hop out into the ankle deep water and haul the dinghy up the beach, while waves break over you and go into the dinghy. You had better hope you put your phone in a dry bag. When you return from your trip to the store on foot, you have to launch the dinghy through the surf. You put the person rowing in the boat, and then the other people wait for a the smallest wave that you’ll get, and then push the dinghy out until you are knee deep, and then jump in, and yell at the person rowing to row like hell. We also have a two person inflatable kayak that we can use for smaller expeditions.
Once we return from shore, if we wanted to make lunch, we could either use the fresh food that we just picked up at the store, or use some of the five minivans full of non-perishable food that we jammed into every nook and cranny on the boat. For breakfast, we usually have cereal, either oatmeal or cold cereal. Dinner is the meal that is most like what it was at home. My mom will make something tasty, like soups, or pizza, and occasionally we will go out for dinner. All in all, the eating is much better than one might expect on a boat.
Alma waking up in the morning
As for sleep on the boat, that is one of the few things that is pretty much the same. I have learned to like waking up at six in the morning, to the engine running, and hearing the boat leaving port, with my parents driving the boat up on deck, and then going back to sleep for another hour or two. When you finally do come up on deck in the morning in your pajamas, looking out at the coastline 5 or 10 miles away, with you bowl of cereal in your hand, you might sit around for a while, and then have to tend the main sheet, or rig a fishing line. This is all just part of life on the boat.
One of the only downsides of life on a boat as a kid is the lack of people your age. I haven’t talked to anyone under 35 in a month! But in the end, there are many more upsides than downsides, and living on a boat for a year is definitely worth it.
Dad and me at the end of an uphill hike on Santa Catalina IslandI’m sitting on the main boom over the water to heel the boat over so my dad can make repairs near the waterline. I am sanding a wood fitting while I am out there.
About a week and a half ago, we were in the Channel Islands. We were all rowing back from a hike on San Miguel Island when Arlo and I saw some seaweed float by. We collected it and decided to cook it. We have the book Sea Vegetables, which identifies lots of edibile seaweeds and ways to cook them. We used this book to identify the seaweed that we had collected! We identified it as Perennial Kelp, or the scientific name Macrocystis (Mac-row-sis-tus), and in California, it can grow up to 200 feet or more!
Arlo took the blades (leaves) and the floats and fried them. I took the floats and fried them. Then I stuffed them with cream cheese. It was all very good. My favorites were the fried blades and the stuffed floats. The leaves tasted like seaweed that you get at the store! We didn’t salt the seaweed at all, the saltiness came from the salt in the sea. I hope to cook more seaweed in the future!
We sailed into Mexico this morning in the dark. Lots of vessel traffic in these waters—fishing boats of various sizes, a cruise ship, merchant vessels, and naval ships—kept us watchful. Ashore, a string of yellow lights, which we presume marked a border fence, crept up the hill and followed the contours of several hills beyond as far as we could see. And then the sun rose over Mexican mountains and the breeze began to fill in. After 6 days in San Diego, it was good to be underway again!
Sailing (and reading) wing-and-wing in Southern California. The windvane is steering.
The seal weighs about 4,000 lbs more than the dinghy.
Some of our favorite spots so far have been in the Northern Channel Islands. At San Miguel Island we anchored in a cove with about 3,000 elephant seals declaring all sorts of things loudly all day and through the night. I appreciate our friend Glenn pointing out the humor of the scene as we rowed up
and down the least populated section of beach looking for some real estate to land on that hadn’t been claimed by an elephant seal bull. On one end of the beach we realize that the gap between bulls at the other end of the beach is just a little bit bigger. Once we row back to the other end, we are certain that the gap we’d just left behind offered a little more space. But when we look again, it seems very tight and we think about trying the other end again Somehow we do get ashore alive—through the surf and beyond the bull seals. Of course, following a hike, we return to find one of the seals has up and moved his 4,000 lb bulk directly between our path and the dinghy. I appreciate Arlo for pointing out the humor in this moment.
Santa Rosa Island tidepools
Other highlights of these three uninhabited islands: tiny anchorages, whales and dolphins, tide pools and more tide pools, and several types of kelp, which Arlo and Alma identify and cook in a variety of ways. On the downside, it turns out that California has a mylar balloon problem—over the course of about 120 miles we spotted 14 mylar balloons floating in the waters between Los Angeles, the Channel Islands and San Diego.
Catching crabs.
Lamp polishing meditation.
San Diego was a world away from the Channel Islands, but we felt right at home thanks to friends of friends who hosted us and lent us their car and generally supported our week of logistics.
Water, diesel, propane, laundry, groceries, marine hardware, a dodger repaired, new foam for our bunk, miscellaneous galley items, and, maybe most importantly, Jason’s first pair of flip flops in years.
Our Mexican courtesy flag and the Q flag fluttering beneath it still have creases from being stored for so long. Tomorrow we’ll head into Ensenada to check in with customs and immigration and the Port Captain, we’ll find an ATM, some showers and I’m sure, as it turns out that we arrived during the week-long Carnival celebration, some music and tacos.
We all loved reading your kind words on our first blog posts. Thank you! Do feel free to send any questions you have—large or small—our way. And we’ll keep you posted.
Family and friends cast off our lines in Alameda on a Wednesday, as we hurriedly installed and stowed gear of every sort, and at the 13th hour we were off!
Leaving the Golden Gate Bridge in our wake.
The twenty-foot seas outside the Golden Gate kept us in the Bay a few more days and we enjoyed the hospitality of friends at Hyde Street Pier, Angel Island and the Dolphin Club. And then, just under a week later, we sailed under the Golden Gate Bridge, poured some rum into the water for Poseidon, and headed south to Half Moon Bay.
In the days that have followed, we’ve bashed through 12-foot seas under rainy skies, motored through calms, and sailed a glorious broad reach along the Point Sur coast, sometimes at 10 knots.
Arlo and Alma and friend Glenn have been excellent crew. And the seas and skies—in good weather and bad—have surrounded us with so much beauty. And so many birds!
Check out a few pix from our first days below:
Sailing away from Alameda.
Early morning departure out of Santa Cruz.
Already so many beautiful sunrises and sunsets.
Looking ahead . . .we leave tomorrow morning at 4 am to round Point Conception bound for the Channel Islands.
A & A exploring Pillar Point in the dinghy.
After night watch.
Arlo, suited up. Note the harness and tether, attached to the boat. We all wear harnesses when things are boisterous and at night.
In this pic, you can see our white dinghy upside down on the deck–it has a tan canvas cover. You can also see two of the yellow “jack lines” that we clip into when we go forward to handle sails.
Alma, suited up.
Smaller boat, taller boat.
To Arlo’s right, you can see tan canvas “weather cloths,” which help to keep spray out of the cockpit.
When Jason’s taking the pictures, you gotta end with more beautiful sky photos. Especially if there are birds in the pictures.
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.
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.
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.
