by Caitlin – A Year and a Day

And Like That, We’re Back

–by Caitlin

A quiet dawn turned into a brilliant and windy afternoon as we sailed through Canadian waters toward the border with Washington State. The enormous ferries that move people through the waterways of British Columbia crossed Debonair’s bow or overtook us. A mile from the border a Royal Canadian Mounted Police boat buzzed us.

We’d spent the last 18 days sailing from Alaska through British Columbia. We sailed through fjords, across straits, and through narrows that boiled with fast moving water, swirled into whirlpools, and rose into standing waves. While we’d anchored up each night, we weren’t allowed ashore due to Covid restrictions. We felt alone, but we also felt our completeness, our wholeness as a crew as we pushed south through the remote watery world of British Columbia.

So much fog.

So many logs.

“How you folks doing?” The Canadian police boat cruised alongside us as we shouted names and passport numbers into the wind. After ascertaining that we weren’t trying to sneak into Canada and offering us info about places we need to return to see, the police sped off, and we barreled across the border, sailing against a wicked current, but with the wind.

Just outside of Washington State’s Roche Harbor, we lowered our sails. We motored into the harbor to anchor among gleaming yachts. Sportfishing boats zipped by, and float planes took off and landed every hour. Ashore, we stretched our legs and tried to keep up with ice cream cones melting in the heat. We hadn’t been in contact with anyone while we were in Canada, so this busy vacation town felt overwhelming. I thought about posting a blog entry, but there was too much going on, too much still to process.

A few days and a few anchorages later we put Arlo on a bus in Anacortes—he was flying back to the Bay Area for pre-season cross country training. Before Arlo left, he asked me, “Mom, we had a five-year plan for our voyage, and we pretty much stuck to it, right?”

“Yeah, pretty much,” I said. “We always planned to end the voyage here in the Pacific Northwest.”

“So now what?” he said. “What’s next?” I don’t remember how I answered, but I know how we felt as Jason and Alma and I walked away from the bus depot without Arlo, back to the marina where Debonair was waiting. For so long we’d been a voyaging family, a crew of four, and now, as the three of us walked back to Debonair, we weren’t. We were aware that next time Arlo returned to Debonair, he would have graduated from high school, and the time he spent on board would become provisional.

A crew of four.

Our melancholy mood stemmed from more than an awareness of our shifting family dynamics. We were also coming closer and closer to the last days of this multi-year odyssey. Alma and Jason and I were about to bring Debonair home to her last port. For so long we’d been a voyaging family, and soon we’d be a family that had completed a voyage and returned.

Alma and Jason and I sailed to a little cove on the south side of Lopez Island where we hiked and picked blackberries and rode out a windy night. Another day’s sail brought us into a marina in Port Townsend where we spent a busy week preparing Debonair for winter. Then Alma and I flew home to join Arlo and to start school and work, while Jason stayed behind to haul Debonair out and do long-postponed maintenance work.

After sailing from Hawaii to Alaska in 2019, Debonair spent two years in harsh Alaska conditions. This fall, Jason spent almost a month on long overdue maintenance.

New topside paint and Debonair’s looking good!

In her winter berth, cover partly on.

Back in California now, one of us will sometimes look up from whatever we’re doing and pause. “You remember when?” we’ll say, and everyone else will look up too. Remember when we raised the staysail off the mizzen mast? Remember when Christian gave us the boeuf sauvage? And lobster hunting and freediving in Toau? Remember the huge seas in the Alenuihaha channel? Remember saving Pepita in the williwaws of the Kenai peninsula? And from this summer: remember floating Debonair free when we ran aground, remember hauling the big halibut aboard, remember anchoring among log booms. Remember the grizzlies and the crazy call of the sandhill cranes and that wolf on the beach and the whales. Remember how good it feels to be just us sailing, to be a crew, to be out in the weather all the time, to be out in the world.

When I think about what we’re taking with us from the voyage, I think about mountains and reefs and islands, about banyan trees and spruce trees and endless clouds. I think about how familiar anxiousness feels. And I think about newfound competence–and confidence. I think about desire and work and wonder. I think about Debonair, the beautiful vessel that kept us safe across oceans, the boat that sheltered us wherever we were and taught us to be voyaging sailors.

If we were to retrace our voyage, we’d probably do it differently. But we know there’s no perfect voyage, for the unknowns and our imperfect responses to them are the essence of any voyage, and we feel so lucky to have been able to draw our imperfect wiggly wake across the ocean. We were scared sometimes, but we found we felt connected—to those we met, to the natural world, to Debonair, and to each other. We got to add this wiggly line to the beautiful tangle of our life.

I didn’t write a blog entry when we re-entered the US in Roche Harbor or when we tied Debonair up in Port Townsend or even when we came back to Alameda. I’ve postponed writing, I think, because it’s hard to acknowledge the end. We set out from San Francisco in January 2018. We sailed south to Mexico, then west for 26 days across the ocean to the Marquesas Islands in the South Pacific, and on to the Tuamotu Islands and to the Society Islands. Sailing north from French Polynesia back across the equator to Hawaii, we encountered heavy weather. Completing the circle, we sailed North from Hawaii to Kodiak, Alaska. We’ve spent the last two summers working our way south from Kodiak. Our arrival in Washington two months ago marked the end of our planned 16,000 mile voyage.

While we’ll return to Debonair next summer to sail back into British Columbia and visit some of the places recommended by our friends from the Mounted Police, the trip will feel different, somehow–more summer expedition than a continuation of the longer voyage.

That longer voyage–that sometimes frightening, often exhilarating voyage–has come to an end. As is probably true for so many voyages, it was hard to go out and hard to come back. And we’re so glad for all of it.

Thank you all for your generosity along the way—for reading our words, for sharing yours with us, for your help and your enthusiasm and kindness. We’ll keep you posted.

A few more pictures from this last summer:

In the last village we visited in Alaska, we met the maker of this beautiful cedar bentwood box

O Canada!

“We’re in Canadian waters,” Jason said. Arlo had just come up from below, hair still tousled. Moving from handhold to handhold as the boat rolled, he paused and looked through the mist to a gray island covered in charcoal gray trees.

“Looks like Alaskan waters,” Arlo said.

Each day of our life on board Debonair consists of whatever tasks are required to move us forward. We raise an anchor, we set sail, we lower the anchor again in the evening. We cook and clean and paint and varnish and study the chart, and this morning, after I turned the key to start the engine at 4am and nothing happened, Jason replaced the starter relay switch.

When the sun comes out, we dry our foul weather gear.

Two years ago we arrived in Kodiak, Alaska from Hawaii. None of us had been in Alaska before, and we fell in love with the place—read Alma’s and Jason’s recent posts on whales and wolves and wood and water to see why. And so, despite our relief when the engine turned over this morning, we were sad as we motored out of Kelp Bay between dark rocks, as we watched the sky and the sea and the distant land in all their gray glory.

Alaska? British Columbia? (It’s our view this morning as we left our last Alaskan anchorage.)

Canada’s borders are not yet fully open, but as long as we remain quarantined on board, we’re allowed to transit the inside passage. While we’ll meet fewer folks than we’d like to, we’re looking forward to seeing this beautiful place. We won’t have cell phone service until we arrive in Washington State. We’ll post then as we bring the circle of our 16,000 mile Pacific crossing full circle, back to the continental United States and toward home.

Looks Like Rain

Jason flew into Petersburg, Alaska two weeks ago, and five days ago he met Arlo and Alma and I on the wet tarmac at the Petersburg airport. The transition from our lives on land to our lives on Debonair happens physically the moment we step aboard, but it takes more time to make the mental and emotional shifts. And it takes work.

Although it’s been raining almost continuously since we arrived, we’ve been working in our foul weather gear and under tarps, and now Debonair’s systems are up and running, the electronics are functioning, her rig is up, and her lockers and tanks are full.

Alma, who got her first Covid vaccine shot in California, finished the job here in Alaska.

Arlo got away from the work on *Debonair* to check shrimp pots with new friends.

We’re getting used to the rhythms of living aboard again and we’re itching to get away. We leave Petersburg tomorrow, heading south through Wrangell Narrows toward Prince of Wales and Kuiu Islands., and, eventually, to British Columbia.

Thanks so much for reading! We’ll post more in the coming weeks. Do send any questions you have (about the boat or the place or anything else) our way.

We’ll leave you with a final image of fishermen repairing nets–a multiday process. Nobody stops for rain here.

This is a salmon seiner. You can see the nets cascading from the hydraulic winch on the boat and down the length of the dock. The near corner of the dock is weighted down by the lead weights on the nets. Each of the men on the dock is using a big net needle to repair the net.

Summer Close Out

–posted by Caitlin + Jason, with photos from the whole crew

Our little dog Moby is glad to have us home again, and we are adjusting well enough to life back ashore. But at first it has seemed odd to have so much space and strange to be around so many people.

Since we posted in Seward, a couple of months ago, we’ve only been to a few towns: first, there was Whittier (population 400, stay of 6 hours), then Yakutat (population 600, stay of 2 days), and Pelican (population 100, stay of 1 hour). Finally , we arrived in Sitka (population 8,000, stay a few days), where we’d planned to leave Debonair for the winter. On finding that the available slips wouldn’t work for Debonair, we pushed on to Petersburg (population 4,000, stay, for Debonair, all winter long). Here she is, covered in her slip in Petersburg, awaiting our return.

So if our last couple months were less town, they were certainly more ice, sky, and mountain, more sea, wood and rock. Back in smoky Alameda (population 80,000, stay for us is all winter), we are feeling thankful for the abundance of those elements in our lives this summer.

We leave you with a few more photos to close out the summer. Thank you for reading and connecting over the past few months of our voyage. We hope you are well wherever you are.

–with love, Caitlin, Jason, Arlo & Alma

In the South Pacific we learned to swim with sharks, and this summer we learned to hike with bears.

We loved hiking–and talking and fishing and eating and adventuring and so much more–with the crew of S/V Dogbark, whom we first met way back in Hawaii.

We swam only a couple of times, here in the coldest, most perfect swimming hole we found up an unnamed creek.

The bears were swimming too. We were surprised enough seeing a couple black bear cruising past Debonair where we lay at anchor in Prince William Sound.

But then we saw this grizzly bear. In this picture Griz pauses, a mile from shore, to check us out as we motor along down a fjord.

Here’s the requisite dead fish picture–a halibut Arlo caught right after we arrived in Southeast Alaska.

And then there’s this lake outside of Yakutat, where it was too foggy to even see the glacier that spills into it.

The glacial lake empties into a river that empties into the sea.

The coast of the Gulf of Alaska is all mountain and glacier. In fact the second and third highest mountains in North America (behind only Denali) rise here from the sea.

There’s not always a lot of wind in Southeast Alaska (although sometimes there’s too much). Here we are fueling up in Pelican.

We sail whenever there is wind.

And when we do sail, it is glorious.

But no matter how good the sailing, standing watch is always better with homemade pizza.

Alaska, Again.

–Caitlin + Jason

Face-masked and carrying duffels of food, the four of us flew from Oakland to Kodiak on June 1. As much as we were looking forward to reuniting with Debonair and to resuming our voyage as a family, it was hard to leave California as the protests were gaining powerful momentum. We haven’t had access to any news in two weeks, and we wonder how you and the world around you are.

In the meantime, we are plunged in other worlds and states of being here. The winter in Kodiak, one of the snowiest in years, was hard on Debonair. We arrived at the head of her dock by taxi on a rainy evening and set to unearthing our bunks from under piles of sails. Water had found its way into every crevice on deck and ice had opened some of those crevices into leaks. Our bunk was far too wet to sleep on that first night.

Clear late evening skies across St Paul’s boat harbor in Kodiak.

After a week of long work days for all four of us, and after being screened for Covid, we came out of quarantine to fill our lockers with provisions and pick up tools and supplies.

A leak in the galley left our ancient propane stove rusted beyond recognition. Caitlin rows a new stove home to Debonair. Alma assists.

Jason installs the new stove. Alma gets the assist again.

Alma’s back on deck, using a block plane to shape a cutting board for the galley.

We didn’t manage to repair our electric windlass (still hauling the chain by hand), but it was time to go. We said good bye to kind friends we made in Kodiak and sailed for Afognak, the island just to the north. It was a relief to be underway again, the boat moving through and over the water in the way that’s become so familiar to us.

Sailing toward our final Afognak anchorage, the breeze began to die. We ghosted along. Then, in the quiet, we started to hear a great distant roar, which resolved, as we approached the shore, into the barking and groaning of hundreds of sea lions. Humpback whales surfaced ahead of us, and then all around us–gliding, feeding, releasing great sighing breaths, and then diving. Behind us, they started spyhopping and slapping the water with their fins. As if it were one big party, bald eagles soared onto the scene, and tufted puffins skittered off the water ahead of us. Arctic terns dove again and again as the sun, still high in the sky, fell a little lower. We felt like we were being given a great welcome back to this wild place after our time away, after the challenges of this year, after the work to get Debonair sailing again.

After most of an hour drifting under the sheer cliffs among the whales, we started the engine, motored into Tonki Bay, and dropped the hook to sleep before the next day’s long trip across to the Kenai Peninsula.

Leaving Afognak bound for the Kenai Peninsula. Sunrise at 0400.

This coast of the Kenai is true wilderness. We are so far from anybody here. Snow-capped peaks and spruce-covered islets slide by as we sail through fjords. We spent one day motoring up to the head of a fjord to meet the Aialik Glacier, a very active glacier flowing into Aialik Bay from the Harding Ice Field. We drifted for an hour in the slush ice and listened in awe to the booming and cracking of the glacier.

Arlo fending off larger “bergy bits” (Bergy bits not pictured here. Some were hazards.)

Due to Covid concerns, we aren’t using the showers at the boat harbors this year, so we took advantage of a windless and relatively warm day in Tonsina Bay, our first anchorage in the Kenai, and set up a bit of a spa in the sun on the foredeck. You might disagree with our use of the term, but to us it was a spa, and we took turns with pots of hot water and soap and thick dry towels, and all was good.

Catching this King Salmon did even more for Arlo’s sense of well-being.

When a low pressure system was forecast to come through a few days ago, we took cover in one of the few anchorages on this part of the coast—the depths are generally too great for anchoring. We were glad to turn a sharp corner just past the entrance into Crater Bay and find almost 360 degree protection from the wind and, as a stunning bonus, two 500’ waterfalls spilling down steep walls. We learned pretty quickly, though, that the geography of this particular cove, instead of protecting us from the easterly wind, increased that wind and directed it at us from different directions in a meteorological phenomena called a williwaw.

Through the night and the next morning, as we strained at our anchor, the wind alternately gusted from the north, driving against our starboard bow and healing us hard to port, and from the west, pummeling our port bow. In the strongest gusts, we would hear a seething roar as we watched whitecaps race toward us ahead of the wind; as the gust increased to 50 knots and more, it blew the tops of the waves up in great, white, wedge-shaped spumes of spray. Wearing exposure suits against the wind and horizontal rain, we went on deck to secure halyards and lash down flogging sail covers. The wind was powerful on deck—you couldn’t look into it–but it was reassuring to see that, despite the forces, Debonair and her anchor tackle were keeping us safe.

In the morning the wind flipped our little dinghy, Pepita. She was mostly submerged, and it would take concerted teamwork to bring her aboard safely in these conditions. As the gusts allowed, Caitlin and Alma brought Pepita alongside, Jason used a brief lull to climb into the dinghy to attach a lifting rig, and Arlo handled the halyard at the winch. After she was secured on deck, we felt as if someone had been looking out for us. We were lucky that the oars were still wedged in under the thwarts where we’d left them.

There’s some recovery after 18 hours like that. Exposure suits need to dry, sail covers need to be resewn, hearts need to return to their normal resting state. Though the wind was down today, we stayed put, running the diesel heater to dry out, eating pancakes to start the day and baking cookies to end it, reading, writing and appreciating the quiet and the stillness.

We’re looking forward to sailing into Seward soon, where we’ll get news of the outside world and post this news of ours. We are thankful for our boat, for each other, for this beautiful place and the opportunity to see it, for the welcome we’ve received from Alaskans, and for you all–wherever you are–and for the good work you are doing.

A few days ago we were all lying on a great granite erratic on the shore of Midnight Cove, soaking in the sun, thinking our own thoughts. Arlo moved his head from Jason’s boot, which he’d been using as a pillow. “I like thinking,” he said, “that there’s nothing but earth between me and the center of the earth, and there’s nothing but sky between me and the ends of the universe.” It’s useful to be away from some of the distractions, the noise of life ashore, to remember our place in the world.

We made it to Seward! Here you can see Debonair here at the transient wharf among the commercial fishing boats. It’s quiet in a town that’s usually full of summer tourists.Despite the rain, we’re enjoying this little Alaska town, and especially the chance to wash our clothes and run on trails in the woods

Sheltering in Place

Jason and Arlo Reading-in-Place in the backyard.

Today is Day 11 of California’s Shelter in Place order as the result of the Covid-19 pandemic, and we’re doing just that. We’re healthy and, most of the time, in good spirits. In some ways our time on the boat prepared us well for this sequestration. We can stock a galley and make do with what we have in our lockers, we’re used to filling large chunks of unstructured time, and spending a lot of time together–and away from others–in a confined space isn’t new to us. If you want to skip our thoughts about this strange time and hear more about sailing, scroll to the end on this post to see the link to the cool podcast about our voyage. Otherwise keep reading.

In a lot of ways sheltering in place is easier than going to sea. Ashore we can visit Costco, go online, and walk through the house without bracing ourselves for a big sea. In other ways, though, it’s harder. Navigating grocery store aisles and consuming the internet’s incessant bad news bring their own challenges. Screens are connecting us, but they’re not making us feel good. The way forward often isn’t as clear here as it is at sea, and there’s the added difficulty that none of us chose this particular voyage.

But there are real similarities between life here and ocean voyaging beyond what’s obvious, beyond the alone-ness, the boredom, beyond the underlying threat that something could go mortally wrong. Both ways of living offer the pleasures of moving more slowly and of being with family. In both settings, we are continually adjusting to changing context, finding that fears and anxieties walk alongside opportunities for making do and ingenuity. In each setting there is the good in focusing on food and shelter and health and the safety of the people you love, of focusing on what matters. We’re all feeling the pain of this pandemic differently of course, and some folks are under the greatest of stresses. Our hearts go out to everyone who is struggling now.

Then of course, there’s school at home. If our year of school at sea offers us anything here, it is a reminder that the education we offer our children is so much bigger than the classes we call school, and that how we are in these strange times is part of a powerful education. Talking together as a family about where we are getting our news or about who we need to reach out to, we are learning. Talking about how to stay connected and how not to, about opportunities for creativity and political action, about caring for our bodies is an education. When we think about what feels most important, daily schedules and schoolwork can feel less stressful.

As we settle into this, we are finding our way. Arlo’s been making his own arrows with materials he finds around the house, learning to drive, and running every day. Alma’s been reading as much as she can, memorizing lines for a play she hopes will be staged this spring, and taking bike rides. We, Jason and Caitlin, have each lost some work, but we’re also both lucky to be able to continue to do the rest of our work from home. We’re working to focus our scattered brains so we can get back to the woodblock printing we haven’t been doing. And we’re all still hoping in spite of the odds that in a couple of months it will be possible to return to Alaska, where, under a layer of snow and with newly blistered paint, Debonair is waiting for us in her berth in the Kodiak boat harbor.

We’re keeping our fingers crossed. We’re hoping for so many reasons for the crazy political seas to calm, for the curves to flatten, for healthy folks to stay healthy, for the sick to recover quickly, for all who are struggling emotionally and financially and physically to find ways forward, for everybody, for all of us, to be as connected as we want to be, and above all to be well.

Although there seems to be no dearth of media to entertain us in our seclusion, we offer this episode of the Out the Gate Sailing podcast–an interview Ben Shaw recorded with the four of us in January. It’s long, and our voices sure sound funny, but we think it captures a lot of what’s important to us about our voyages. Enjoy.

Sending you love in these crazy times.

Alaska Photo Bomb

With limited internet access since we left Hawaii, we’ve been collecting a few photos to share. They are below in roughly chronological order.

Summer ends early in Alaska and school is not far away, but we’ll post a couple times again before we head home. Enjoy the pics (the formatting might be easier to see on a computer than on a phone) and be in touch!

Offerings to Neptune as we leave Kauai. Jason on conch shell.

First fish–a wahoo! Don’t let that get away, cowboy.

The little red boat is DEBONAIR. The blue triangles are very big ships. Big, like a quarter-mile long. While some parts of this ocean feel empty, there’s lots of traffic in this part of the North Pacific as we cross shipping routes to the West Coast.

Poised to catch a Japanese glass fishing float.
Glass ball ecosystem!
Perfect.

Sailing north and it’s getting colder.
And colder.

Ready for dinner.
We never missed a dinner on deck, regardless of the weather.

…and then 18 days after we lost sight of Kauai, the sun came out, the fog lifted and we saw Kodiak, Alaska (visible here at left) . . . .

. . . on Caitlin’s birthday.
Happy Birthday, Sailor.

We anchored in the dark on our 19th day out of Kauai and woke up to this.
And this.

The fifth-largest city in Alaska, the town of Kodiak has something under 10,000 residents. And everyone is connected to the water. As I write, we are the only cruising sailboat in the harbor–our excellent neighbors are purse seiners (pictured here with its aluminum skiff), the seiners’ tenders, long-liners, and trawlers. We’re loving learning about Alaskan fishing, Alaskan lives and Alaskan generosity.

While in Kodiak, Arlo and Alma teamed up with friends on S/V Dogbark to spend a night on an island in Chiniak Bay. Here, the list of supplies they’d need.
They rowed two miles to Puffin Island, set up a lean-to shelter, caught and filleted five fish, cooked them over a beach campfire, fended off nesting seagulls, oyster catchers, terns, and bald eagles all night . . .
. . . and rowed home the next morning.

After a few days of re-provisioning and a few hot showers in Kodiak, we set off to explore Kodiak Island. Here we are coming in to a nearby cove.

Way up one gorge-like bay we shed our boots and we swam!

This cannery was shuttered fifteen years ago, but when our friends on Dogbark and we tied up to the dock, the caretaker, Lance, invited us in to look around. So many lives were lived out in this handful of buildings on the side of this island, so far from everyone else. Evidence of their days remains in bits of graffiti, their tools, the machinery they handled, the signs in three languages that set the rules that governed their movements, the scratches on the floor from their boots. More images below.

Dogbark and Debonair from the cannery deck.
Arlo and the boilers.
Alma scooping up the last of the salmon berries we picked for pie.

The next cannery was 50 miles further south–more remote, 109 years old, but still very much a going operation. The cannery is a real community built from itinerant workers, largely from Eastern Europe, Japan and the Philippines, as well as Alaskans who have been working in the cannery for a generation or more, and the fisherfolk who bring their catch daily. We visited at the cannery and with fishermen on DEBONAIR and there was more visiting even as we transited the bay. We were moved by the warmth and humanity that clearly sustains this community.

Beautiful Larsen Bay Cannery.
Where there are fish there are birds.

Here a couple of aluminium set net skiffs tie up to DEBONAIR for a gam while we are underway in Uyak Bay. This family gave us fish, sweets, and books for the kids as well as invitations to their fishing camp. We’ve also been given smoked fish, halibut, venison and elk meet. In great quantity. Sometimes we feel like we need to anchor far away from generous Alaskans while we catch up on the eating. As our biggest eater, Arlo is in heaven.

We’ve been given many salmon. These are sockeye. Good eatin’.
Arlo has cleaned many salmon. These are a silver and a pink. Also good eatin.’
When Arlo finds fish eggs when he’s cleaning a salmon, he process the roe. Yup, good eatin’.

Arlo and Alma and friends mapped an island in Uyak Bay. So far from the last island they mapped in the Tuamotu.
Sometimes mapping an island requires getting wet. Even in Alaska.

On a beautiful breezy day we sailed from Kodiak Island across Shelikof Strait to Geographic Harbor, a deep cove in the Katmai National Park and Preserve.

Alma rows around Geographic Harbor looking for Grizzly Bears.

This guy is a very big male. We also saw mamas and cubs and bears we think are teens. We got to watch these mythic animals go about their business–climbing hills, swimming, clamming and lying on the beach holding clams in their paws to eat them, berry-picking, wrestling, nuzzling, pooping.

Sow and cub.
They climb so fast!
Two cubs.

We’ve left the tundra of southern Kodiak Island. Spruce dominates the farther north we get and moss is a close second.

We celebrated Arlo’s 16th birthday on Spruce Island. . .
He really seems to like his new beach cruiser.

We are sad to leave every island we’ve been to, and sailing from Kodiak Island is no different. By the end of the week, we’ll set sail bound for Afognak Island and then we’ll go on to the Kenai Peninsula on the mainland, where we’ll look for a place to secure DEBONAIR for the winter.

We have a few more thoughts we’ll be sharing soon. Thank you again for reading–we love thinking of all of you.

Hawaii to Alaska, the last installment

Alma checks for “targets,” or ships, in the fog.

6/25

Day 15
From the log:
Grey, cold. Grey, cloud blanket, cold. Overcast and cold.
Maddy climbs the ratlines and notes, No whales. Some birds.

6/26
Day 16
Caitlin
We’re eating all our meals on deck again. Three days of cold north headwinds had been keeping everyone but the watch stander below decks for breakfast and lunch. But even now that it’s a bit warmer with southerly winds from astern, we still need about 10 minutes to dress for dinner. And I’m not talking about powdering noses and slipping into something lovely.

Going on deck in the evening and, especially for night watch, is time consuming. By the time I’m on deck I’m wearing wool long underwear, and extra base layer top, a fleece sweatshirt—hood up to protect my ears, fleece pants, an insulated jacket, a fleece neck gaiter, a wool hat, and insulated gloves. Then the exposure suit. As Jason has pointed out, the exposure suits—basically full-body float suits—render us about as nimble as toddlers bundled in snowsuits. And what would a watch standing kit be without two pairs of wool socks, Xtra Tuff rubber boots and a harness?

We’re sailing–toes cold despite being all bundled up—on a broad reach toward Kodiak and all is well.

6/27
Day 17
Caitlin
Woo hoo! Wing and wing downwind at 7-8 knots! And for a moment we saw blue sky! Longing for hot showers.

Alma
Tomorrow is mom’s birthday! If we go at least seven knots, then we could get in to Kodiak Town tomorrow, but that probably won’t happen, so we will probably go into a cove further south or heave to and wait to go in till morning. Either way, we are making linzer torte for mom’s birthday!

Arlo looking at land for the first time in 18 days!

6/28
Day 18
Caitlin
Jason woke me for my watch at 0245 and told me to listen. Whale songs and whale squeaks. There was nothing else it could be. The sounds were with us for an hour or two, but we never saw whales—were they nearby or dozens of miles away?

It’s my birthday today. We celebrated at lunch on deck with a linzertorte, lovely cards and handmade items—necklaces, lanyards, poems—and the promise of a drink ashore soon. We were sailing 6 knots in a thick fog and over the course of the afternoon the fog just got thicker. We posted a bow watch. Finally, as dinnertime approached and blue sky appeared and slowly bled down to the misty horizon, we all saw it at once – the outline of Kodiak Island.

A little over 30 years ago, after a 17-day passage across the Atlantic, I sighted the island of Flores in the Azores on my 14th birthday. We’re in Alaskan waters now, being escorted toward safe harbor by albatross, a variety of storm petrels, shearwaters, auklets and puffins. There’s something perfect happening today.

Dinner saw us all on deck again as we glided at 6 knots wing and wing toward Kodiak. And then the humpabacks joined us, playing, waving their long pectoral fins to welcome us, breaching, breaching again and bigger, over and over.
The sun set at 2200. Maddy sailed us into Chiniak Bay. Midnight came and went with sunset colors still in the sky. Jason and I took Debonair into an open cove, waking up some sleeping otters (I kid you not) at 0120, which brings us to . . .

6/29
Day 19
All
We dropped anchor in still water at 0130. For each of us, this our first time in Alaska. It’s so perfectly quiet.

Thanks for following us on our passage. We’ll post pictures from Kodiak Town soon.

Hawaii to Alaska, Part 3

6/18
Day 8

ALMA
This afternoon a tanker came into view. My mom saw it pop up on the AIS screen, and then we saw it on the horizon. The tanker was called “Shergar,” or something like that. We got them on the radio, and they altered their course to leave just over a mile between them and us. Later, I called them on the radio and found out that they are coming from China, bound for the U.S., via the Panama Canal, and they’re carrying gas.

I used to be really nervous using the VHF radio—I didn’t even want to talk with our friends over the radio because I was worried about using proper marine radio etiquette. Now I’m still nervous, but I can get over it.

Editor’s note: Not only did Alma handle the radio beautifully, the officer on the Shergar also complimented her on her courage, telling her, “You are very brave to be out in this ocean on such a little boat.” I can only imagine how small 43’ Debonair looked from the bridge of a 1000’ tanker.

6/19
Day 9

JASON
Once in a while everything comes together and the boat just goes. It almost doesn’t seem to matter what we do, she just goes and goes. Today was one of those days. We were beam reaching and broad reaching and the breeze was up a bit, but not especially so. It built gradually through the day, and as it did, we gradually reduced sail. We switched the bigger jib for the smaller. Later we took a reef in the main. Eventually we took in the staysail. Finally we took another reef in the main. By sunset we were sailing with the smaller jib, the double reefed main and the mizzen, and Debonair just kept flying along. The sea wasn’t up, so we weren’t surfing or pounding, we were just driving along on a rail. We did eight knots regularly, nine often, and we even saw ten a few times. That’s wicked fast for Debonair. It makes us feel a little giddy.

This is a long passage. We have to string together so many days of keeping the boat moving to get there. Sometimes it’s hard. The wind is light and flukey, or stronger but on the nose. This one day, any one day, doesn’t get us there. This day moves us closer though. More importantly maybe, it’s the spirit of a good day like this that we can hold onto and remember when we’re slogging into a headwind, or flogging around in the calms.

Editor’s note: in the 24 hour period from 6AM, 6/19 to 6AM, 6/20 we averaged seven and a half knots, and sailed 180 nautical miles. As far as we know it’s our fastest day ever.

6/20
Day 10

MADDY
Sailing during the day is everything that I am used to, and it is exciting, especially with days like yesterday when we are cruisin’ at top speed. But sailing at night! That is new and different from what I am used to, and new and different each time I come up for watch. In random and unorganized fashion, here are some of my musings from various recent night watches (warning, I get all poetical…):
-The stars populated the sky with surprising density as the bioluminescence glowed in the wake. As above, so below. The horizon warmed with the promise of moonlight, but as the near-full moon rose and shimmered off the water’s surface, so faded the glimmering specks of heaven and water, only visible under the blanketed darkness of the moonless sky.

-The full moon was bright and glorious, the clouds drifted in and out, the waves and wind whispered gently, and the night was content.

-The night wrapped its grip around the already gray swampy air that we clawed our way through. Unseen birds sang eerie tunes and foghorns from nearby ships pulsated through the thick air.

-Sail Maneuvers! Jumping and hopping around the deck and cockpit keeps the blood warm and the time passing. Now a puff, now a lift, now 5 knots in the right direction! Next a big lull and the chatter of birds, laughing at my misfortune. Now the waves lapping gently, now the soft hush of the vessel slipping forward, now a heavy silence while I wait, thousands of miles from anything, for the next something to come along.

CAITLIN
Less trash, more tankers and a lot more fog.

6/21
Day 11

ALMA
It’s the summer solstice today! But it’s not the day on which we’ll see the most sunlight. Because we are going north, we will keep getting longer days even after the solstice. I think that’s really cool! Our days have already gotten noticeably longer—when we left Hawaii the sun was rising at 6 a.m.
and now it’s rising at 4:40 a.m.

It’s also getting noticeably colder! Right now I’m down below in wool socks, fleece slippers, fleece pants, a wool shirt and a fleece sweatshirt.

ARLO
As the days have gotten longer, the weather has gotten colder. I did not fish for the past two days because of the cold—the prospect of cleaning a fish in the cold is immensely unappealing. I suppose it’s just something to get used to though.

According to the weather files, there is a front coming through in several days, which may contain some bad weather. But it’s alright—today we had some good sailing and if we keep up our current rate of progress we should be in Kodiak about a week from now. Knock on wood.

6/22
Day 12

JASON
Yesterday we saw seven ships. We only saw one in person actually, because it was so foggy. Six ships showed up on our AIS receiver. Some of them we wouldn’t have known were there if not for the AIS. They’d have passed by out in the murk and we’d have been unaware. Others though had their foghorns going, and we heard them from miles away. These loud deep tones carry over the water and penetrate through the sounds of wind and waves and even the engine. Yes, it’s spooky. The shroud of fog reduces our world to a small little circle of water around us and the low moaning horns come from some unknown ship somewhere out there.

This evening just in time for dinner, we sailed out of the fog and out from under a huge ocean of clouds. We sat in the cockpit with bowls of hot risotto. It was cold out, but we were all happy. The blue of the sky was shocking after so long without it. The sun didn’t appear much, but it’s light shone through and brought color to the clouds and sky. The pinks and oranges were sweet after the days of monochromatic gray.

6/23
Day 13

CAITLIN
Water temperature is 53 degrees, air temperature during the day is the same. It’s colder at night and almost always damp.
Anything you see at in this immense sea feels so unlikely, feels like such crazy chance. This morning two almost impossibly unlikely events occurred. First, Jason looked out at the waves to decide if we could raise sail and there, floating a hundred yards away was a perfect green blown-glass Japanese fishing float. When we maneuvered closer, Alma leaned way over the side and snagged the line knotted around the glass and pulled it aboard. It’s a big one, probably older than anyone on this boat. Jason and Arlo spent an hour cleaning it, scraping away many pounds of gooseneck barnacles and translucent tunicates.
The second random event actually happened first: sometime during the night while we were motoring across a glassy sea with all three head sails furled on deck, we were inked. Really, it’s the only explanation we can come up with for the dried splats and pools of grey-brown ink splashed across all three headsails, and especially on our spankin’ new working jib. So while Jason and Arlo scrubbed the glass fishing float, Maddy unhanked the jib and then she and I tackled it with bleach water and scrub brushes.
I know, scrubbing squid ink from sails? We’re imagining an albatross scooping up a squid, the ink falling across our bowsprit and sails as the albatross flies away. Or a squid leaping across the bowsprit and inking on its way. We have found squid on our deck along with flying fish, so it’s not as far-fetched as it sounds. Either way, it must have been a very big squid, given the amount of ink. If you have another explanation, let us know. And come see our green glass trophy sometime in Alameda next winter.

6/24
Day 14

JASON
A high pressure system has finally developed here. The trouble is it’s developed right over us, leaving us in the middle of a broad windless stretch in the middle. We managed to sail through the night last night–slowly, and not always in the right direction. Now we’re motorsailing a little faster, and in the right direction. We only have so much fuel though, and it’s still quite a ways to Kodiak, and this big broad calm spot is, well . . . broad. We’ve looked at the forecast and calculated our fuel remaining and our fuel needed, and while it’s tight, it’s OK. We’ve got to just settle in and keep going, motoring when we have to, sailing when we can, and waiting a day or two for the high to pass over us and the favorable winds on the other side to start helping us on our way again. It’s days like this we can think back on the faster days (and the warmer days!) and remember that exhilarating feeling of the boat really sailing hard, and remember that it takes all these days, faster and slower, warmer and colder, to get us where we’re going.

Current position update: 6/24 1600 hours 48* 40’N, 152* 05’W

Hawaii to Alaska, Part 2

DAY 3 6/13/19

-- Maddy, Guest blogger
The first time I went out so sea, it took 3 days. The first day I was so enamored of the shrinking coastline in the wake of our ship that I didn’t even feel it come on. I just suddenly went running for the rail, then sank sheepishly down amidships beside my fellow seasick shipmates. Day two, I was good for nothing, and dragged myself about my meager business, and by day three I could not only contemplate but actually consume food. That was 20 years and thousands of miles ago, yet I have not rid myself of the condition, and in the same way that one anticipates the initial plunge into icy-cold water during a polar swim, I had been simultaneously excited for my voyage and dreading the first 3 days.

Day one went about as expected. We set off in a glorious breeze with the northernmost island of Hawaii fading to a speck on the horizon behind us. No sooner were all the sails set when I began to feel the familiar churn in my belly. I had opted not to take any meds and promptly employed the universal cure: sleep. I woke. I ate part of a meal. I stood watch. I sat watch. I slapped myself awake. I poured myself into my bunk. Day two I awoke feeling better, but not quite with my legs beneath me. Below decks was still a struggle and as the vessel lurched my mind lurched with regret. Why am I doing this? 3 meals today. Long nap. No dishes. Watch. One more day gone, how many left?

Today I woke with more of a spring in my step and for the first time since Hawaii, humor in my heart. Day three, the first day of the rest of my voyage. I’m not quite 100%, but I’m past the worst and ready to be both a pleasant companion and a more functional member of the crew. Somewhere between the depths of yesterday and the beaming dawn of my new horizon, I questioned most everything in my world, not least of all my decision to be out here. But when I reflect on that decision, I notice that it was the easiest one I have made in a long time. The rolling of the vessel is eased by the steadiness of the crew, and I feel at home as a welcome, if temporary, part of the Debonair family. Today we are motoring, tomorrow we may find wind. Who knows what each new dawn will bring. Laissez les bons temps rouler.

DAY 4 6/15/19

--Alma
We came very close to Malie Ka Kai, a sailboat whose crew we met in Kauai!! We were so close we could shout across to them. That is the first time we have ever seen another sailboat at sea, and it was very exciting! We offered them fish, but they already had Mahi Mahi aboard. Arlo just caught a huge Ono (Wahoo), maybe 3.5’ long. Sadly, my mom had already made dinner, but we’ll be eating a lot of fish over the next few days.

DAY 5 6/16/19
Current position: 32 43 N, 156 48 W

--Caitlin
We are seeing more evidence of humans on this passage than we have on others. In our first couple of days at sea we passed two or three fishing boats and many plastic fishing buoys, presumably connected to nets. And while we haven’t seen fish boats in the last three days, we did cross paths with that sailboat and yesterday we saw a lone airplane move across the sky. But what has been most remarkable—and disheartening—is the trash we’ve been sailing through. We started seeing trash our second day out and each day we sailed by more. Yesterday it was everywhere—you couldn’t look out across the water without seeing several hunks of plastic—there was lots of netting and other detritus from fishing vessels, a few large fish aggregating devices that had gotten loose, bits of polypropylene rope, a blue plastic barrel with a whole ecosystem growing around it. Sometimes there was something recognizable from our land life, like the handle of an umbrella ora toothbrush, but most of the flotsam was unrecognizable bits of pale plastic, lots of fingernail sized pieces, lots of palm sized pieces, many bigger chunks too. We don’t know how this garbage patch relates to the much talked of Pacific Garbage Patch, reported to be the size of Texas, but we can report that there’s a whole mess of plastic in this part of our ocean. Luckily by first light this morning, it seemed like we might be out of the worst of that particular mess. Dawn is coming earlier as we travel north, and by 4:30 a.m. I could see masses of By the Wind Sailors, which look like little plastic bubbles of sails—half an inch to three inches tall—but which are really a colony of tiny organisms that live, feed and sail together. And then at our Father’s Day breakfast celebration—Arlo made poisson cru and biscuits and cut pomelos--a pod of dolphins started leaping about.

DAY 6 6/17/19

--Caitlin & Jason
In the week since we left Hawaii, the changing season combined with our steady progress nearly straight North has added about an hour to the time between sunrise and sunset. Sunset comes later now and after dinner in the cockpit we sit in the low light a while reading Margaret Murie’s Two in the Far North before doing dishes. By the time we get to Alaska there will be no complete darkness at night, sunset and sunrise will be just a few hours apart. That change in light comes with a recent drop in temperature, especially at night. Scooting along at 6 knots in a 10 knot breeze this afternoon, the cold damp air, our fleece jackets and the late low light reminded us that we are indeed heading for Alaska. Caitlin says to Jason, Isn’t it kind of surreal? Isn’t it sort of preposterous that we hoisted sails on this little wooden boat and decided we could sail to Alaska? What makes us think we could do that? Sail across this big North Pacific with its Albatross and turtles and dolphins and big winds and big calms all the way to this place called Alaska where we’ve never been and which sounds so wild? And Jason agrees.

Day 7 6/18/19
Still trying to get this blog posted!
Current position: 36 51N, 155 03W