A milk run

I've got to get some milk at the corner store today.  We ran out last night and had our coffee black this morning.  There is a cold front passing over, so for almost the first time this season it feels like winter.  I am reluctant to leave the boat.  This bit of nastiness here in Alta California comes as Kristin and I prepare to fly to Baja California on March 2nd.  There we will meet our friends on S/V Wondertime in La Paz.  We sailed down the west coast of the U.S. at the same time as them last summer.  When we put down roots in San Francisco they kept going south, and are now preparing to take on the next logical portion of the compass: west.

I offered to crew on their trip from Baja to the Marquesas Islands, and they accepted.  Which is good of them, since I am resource intensive at 6'4" and 19 stone.  You really want Pygmy crew.  But I do have the undeniable merit that I can take a shift, so that the remaining 2 adults on board can have 8 hours off.  For my part, I gain tremendous experience for the crossing that lies a few years ahead for Kristin and me.  Although Kristin will get to do some sailing in Baja, she must return to San Francisco when I leave, to keep us fed and in the black.

The trip from Mexico to the Marquesas islands is the longest one that a reasonable person would contemplate.  Sure, you can go in circles, or skip land all-together... but if you are trying to get somewhere 3,000 miles is about as far apart as choice bits of land lie.  And land, as they say, is where the stuff is.

The route is blessed with trade-winds and few storms.  It starts with the NE trade-winds on the north side of the equator, passes through the doldrums over the equator and then finishes in the SE trade-winds.  The route is often called the "coconut milk run", for the easy sailing it often provides.  But few boats carry enough fuel to make it the whole way, and a boat disabled 1,500 miles from anywhere is not on a milk run.  These waters have hosted the worlds most well known castaway stories, from the life of Andrew Selkirk that inspired Defoe to write Robinson Crusoe, to the pitiful fate of the men of the whale-ship Essex.  What they wouldn't have given for an EPIRB.

The trip will be an odd one for me.  I've been sailing the bay frequently since we arrived, but it will be a double shock to first arrive in the tropics and shortly thereafter leave land behind entirely.  Others are eased into the prospect by the cruise down the coast.  But I also have little responsibility, not planning or captaining the trip, which is a relief.  I am trying to figure out simple things, like what to wear.  It doesn't make sense to bring bulky and unnecessary clothing aboard, but the issue is not addressed in the literature because every boat will have plenty of warm clothes stored away somewhere anyway.

To try to get into the mood I am reading the accounts of others.  It seems like the experience varies a lot, even in good weather.  Consider the logs of Maajhi-Ré and S/V Felicity.

I am excited to go to Baja and sail and swim in warm water.  I am super excited to see my friends.  I am not excited to sail the open ocean.  Not exactly.  The feeling is more one of inevitability.  And at the same time I don't know what it is that is inevitable.  I can't really imagine it, so I am just going to do it and see what it is.

Aries windvane repair

New windvanes cost a bunch.  I feel as though they should be cheaper than bicycles to produce, having fewer moving parts and similar or smaller loads placed on them.  But bikes cost 500$ and windvanes cost from $3000 to $6000.  I guess its a small market.

Trying to save a buck I got a used Aries windvane from craigslist.  Having never used a windvane before, I couldn't evaluate its condition, but though all parts moved freely it was a non-working item.  The key is that the parts that move from the "sail" to the "rudder" not only move but move very freely.  In the case of the Aries, age constricts the passages for these sensitive moving parts, adding friction.  The fix is to take it apart, replace or ream out the plastic bushings, and put it back together.  In many cases this is far far easier said than done.  In fact, if you are just shopping for a windvane, I recommend looking for a different used model.  I expect that most other models will provide less trouble.  The Aries used aluminum and stainless steel parts, which give a lot of trouble after 40 years.

If you already have a used Aries windvane in need of repair, I found these references useful: http://www.odyssee2.com/Windvane.htm,
http://sv-galena.livejournal.com/32673.html, and especially http://www.ariesvane.com/rebuild.html.

The main problem is to drive 2 stainless pins out of their aluminum brackets.  I used liquid wrench solvent, a butane torch, and a 12 pound sledge.  I was able to remove the main pin, though I cracked the frame in doing so, so be careful.  The crack went halfway through, just on one side of the hole, so the windvane is still strong.  The smaller pin would not budge and the frame is weaker up there so I couldn't convince it to move.  My attempts freed one side, but further whacks just crushed the frame together, and did not free the other side of the pin.

Do not spare the torch, get it good and hot.  Nothing budged unless it was very hot.

I had a surprisingly easy job getting the set screws out of the frame, thankfully.  One cracked once halfway out so it was no longer set, but also not removable.  Since the set screw was meant to hold the main pin in place, and the pin is impossible to move unless under the torch and hammer anyway, I didn't mind this failure :)

I had bushings 26 and 32 re-made at Tap Plastics.

I was able to scrape out bushing 53 to increase its diameter.

Despite the troubles I faced it is now back together, moving freely.

I've never used any other windvane but I feel the Aries has a unique and a desirable feature.  The course correction setting is by pull lever which rotates the "sail" 6 degrees per pull.  So even in the dark reliable course corrections are easy.  Other vanes use a friction clutch and free rotation allowing an infinite but less certain adjustment.

If you are thinking twice about getting a used vane, I suggest looking at the Cape Horn vane, I see lots of units around so you will be in good company.  Good luck!

A day of fishing

In Emery Cove where we are moored there are a few big fishing charters managed by Emeryville Sportfishing.  They go out almost daily.  With Thanksgiving looming I thought I would go out with them in hopes of getting lots of seafood at a good price.  Targets are seasonal, and my trip sought crab and rockfish.  Right now, the commercial crab fisherman are all on strike, holding out for a better wholesale price.  This means any Dungeness Crab in the area is imported and expensive.  To get your own crab would normally require lots of gear and a day of hard work.  But the charter boats are more like commercial crabbers.  They already have 10's of traps out there, and they haul them up with powered winches.  You don't set the traps, operate the winches, measure the crabs or store the crabs.  In fact, all you do is get a bag with your 6 crab limit in it at the end of the day.  It is fun to watch the expert hands haul in the traps though.  Hundreds of crabs are pulled up in 30 minutes.

The fishing wasn't as productive, unfortunately.  The weather out at the Farallon Islands was a little rough and to spare the customer's stomachs the Captain stayed close to shore.  We caught plenty of fish, sure, but they were all around 1 pound or less.  The limit of 10 rockfish doesn't seem as generous with such small samples.  Two lucky anglers caught huge Ling Cod.  I caught a ton of Black Rockfish.  

On the bright side their small size means that I will be able to cook them a few at a time until I get it right.  I've beheaded and de-gutted them, but left their bodies intact.  I expect to wrap them in foil with butter, lemon, herbs and wine, and bake them for a while.  Then serve them still wrapped.  The blast of heat and aroma when you unwrap the foil is part of the experience.  As is forking what little meat there is on their tiny bodies away from the bones.

The crabbing and fishing were fun, but it was fantastic to get back out on the ocean again.  When we came around Point Bonita the ocean was much calmer than when Kristin and I came into the bay.  Which is good, because we thought we timed it well and it was murderous.  Its good to know that while I am sure it can be rougher, it can also be calmer.  All in all the trip was a good deal.  If I ever need of a ton of seafood I will consider it again.

Bike Travel

I went on my first bike tour last week from Fort Bragg to Sausalito along Highway 1.  Kristin and I were driving south from Portland and I couldn't pass up the chance. She left me at the Fort Bragg Safeway, a place we had last been while travelling in Madrone and staying in Noyo Harbor.  By the time we got there it was almost dark.  It was a stressful time.  By accident I left my bike shoes in the car, leaving me with just flip flops and my clipless pedals.  When putting batteries in my front light a spring flung out onto the ground.  I put it back together and though flaky, it worked.  I went the back way to the campground to avoid town traffic on Highway 1, but got lost in dark pine forests twice.  When I finally got to the site and whispered to another biker in the dark "Is this the right spot?" I was glad the response was a friendly yes, and not a scream or a face full of mace.

The next morning I got myself sorted out.  I purchased plastic pedals to match my flip flops.  I had a good breakfast and I was on my way.  The weather was perfect.  Highway 1 must be the most scenic route in the US.  I enjoyed seeing the California coast from my boat but land really is where the action is.  The slow pace of travel allowed me to take in all the strange yard decorations, neat stores and restaurants, and notice changes in climate.  I even found edible mushrooms (Boletus edulis) while rolling.  Great fun.

But it was also hard work.  Highway 1 is a never ending succession of hills, small and large.  I couldn't go more than 40 miles in a day, even though that left several hours of daylight.  My knees and butt got sore and I started to depend on ibuprofen to get started in the morning.  In that way I certainly prefer travel by sailboat.  It does all the work, and you just have to steer it.

State parks offer a class of campsite called "hiker biker" sites.  These sites are not supposed to fill up and cost only 5$ a night.  A hiker icon in addition to the familiar brown tent icon will let you know the state park offers hiker biker sites.  The idea is that after a long days ride you need not worry that there will be a place for you when you arrive.  The hiker biker site is usually a single campsite.  This puts all the non-car travelers in the same place at night.  There are only so many campgrounds, so bikers often find themselves in the same company night after night.

I was surprised by how similar bike touring was to travelling by sailboat.  Campsites are like anchorages, and you need to have one in range towards the end of the day.  Travel planning revolves around the distance you can cover in a day, and what interesting waypoints are within that distance.  A major hazard is collision with truckers on the narrow roads, while boaters live in fear of tankers in the shipping lanes.  You really want a shower and may not get one.  If you do, it may require quarters or dollars.  Bikers even prefer the south-bound route down the coast for the same reason as sailors - the prevailing winds are best kept behind you.  You see the same people again and again, because you are headed the same way at the same speed and using the same guidebooks.

One notable difference between bike camping and sailing- in the bike crowd I felt old, while amongst sailors I felt quite young.  No matter their age or mode of transport, they are all awesome.  For instance, I met a couple who started in Nova Scotia, biked west across Canada and are now headed south with surfboards on their bikes, surfing every day.  Another couple from Montreal were taking breaks from their day jobs - leading adventure tours in South America and Africa - to bike from Portland to San Francisco.  Near the city I met a group of 5 who left San Francisco after work on Friday and biked 4 hours out of town to camp for the weekend.

Meeting people who have decided to "get away from it all" is addictive, they are all different from each other and all interesting.  But it is tragic that the nature of the meeting makes it impossible to stay friends.  Ships in the night, as they say.

Details of the trip, thoughts on equipment

The trip was approximately 2,331 miles long.  We didn't keep a running tally so I recreated the path to get that estimate.  It turns out that we were at 1,000 miles as we rounded Cape Scott, and 2,000 as we entered the Humboldt Bay bar.

I put together a Google Earth path that integrates some pictures from Flickr as a slideshow.  The idea is that I could use the combination of map and slideshows as a prop to talk about the trip with friends.  But I haven't used it that way yet.  The placemarks reveal Flickr slideshows that cover the trip up to the placemark.  They are sometimes unreliable and you may need to open and close the placemark more than once.  They can be "maximized" to fill the whole screen.

There is no correlation with how interesting or picturesque an area was and how many good pictures there are.  Sometimes we were too busy or scared to capture the scene.  The trip from Vancouver Island to southern Oregon featured incredible scenes of shooting stars, phosphorescent sharks and distant fishing fleets with strange and ominous lights that were too dark to capture.  The ocean itself can't be photographed well even in full light.

Some technology really helped out along the way.  I would not want to go out without my VHF radio with integrated AIS receiver.  Mine is the Standard Horizon GX2100.  When you see a big ship on the horizon, it tells you if you are heading the same way or not.  You could watch carefully to find that out, but you'd be nervous the whole time.  With AIS one glance tells you the thing is 8 miles away and not headed your way.  And then there are the times when you can't see anything, and the AIS alarm alerts you to a possible collision with far greater precision than RADAR can provide.  My one complaint is that the AIS alarm lacks the finer points of usability.  Once you are aware of the ship you don't want the beeping to continue (you will already be stressed, and the beeping doesn't help), but there is no way to acknowledge and dismiss the alarm.  As the waves slosh both boats around, you will sometimes be on a collision course and other times not be.  You can turn the alarm off, but only if you can operate the user interface fast enough between waves, as the new alarm interrupts the attempt to turn it off.  Very frustrating.  We will probably take the NMEA AIS data and use it with some form of chartplotter in the future, and hopefully that product will have a better UI/Alarm system.

Another huge hit was the Kindle.  There are several models of these now, and perhaps some are better suited, but we have the E-Ink 3g model.  The first obvious pro-boating feature of the Kindle is that compact way it stores books.  Real ones get dog eared and moldy, and you can only fit so many aboard.  But its the second feature, a cumbersome web browser that uses the Kindle's 3g cell data service, that really comes in handy.  It is slow, hard to use and frustrating, but it works for free in Canada, the US, Mexico, and worldwide.  It works on all compatible networks, so you don't need to know the difference between Roger's and T-Mobile, etc.  We used it to find our new starter motor when stranded in Effingham Bay.  We used it to email our friends from just about anywhere.  We used it to get weather when in Noyo, as our VHF reception in that canyon was poor.  It cost less than 200$, and has no monthly charge.  It is essentially free if you value remote internet access but have no working smartphone.

Our high efficiency DC fridge uses something like 15 amp hours a day.  I added 2" of insulation to the outside of the Coolmatic CB40.  In the cool sunny weather of British Columbia our meager 100 watt solar panel more than kept up with all our DC power needs.  Which is good, because our alternator worked about half of the time.  We always had milk for coffee and a place to keep all the fish we came by (we mostly ate what we caught that same day, but on several occasions got more free salmon than we could eat in a day from lucky fisherman).

We didn't leave town with a sea-anchor, but had one delivered while we were underway.  That cost more than it would have if we had just gotten it up front.  We never used it, but it is nice to know that if all else fails you have a plan D.  If the rig was down, the coast near, and the engine non-operable, we would have the ace-in-the-hole sea-anchor to keep us out of trouble for a while.  With a mizzen and a sea-anchor we should be able to get comfortable in nearly any conditions.  I'm glad we had it, and i'm glad we didn't have to use it.

I didn't get my wind-vane to work while we were underway and was surprised by how well the Autohelm-3000 worked for us.  I still plan to use the wind-vane long term, but the wind is consistent enough out there that steering by the compass is good enough.  It also used way less power than I thought, perhaps 20 amp hours a day.

The fishing pole did its job, the crab hawk wasn't great and I don't know how often I would use a big crab pot.  I didn't catch anything with my shrimp trap.  They stink and take up space, so I wouldn't take them again.

Our depth sounder broke just before we were due to leave so I installed a new one (Hummingbird 365i gps) that shoots through the hull rather than needing a thru-hull of its own.  It worked wonderfully, reading down a few hundred feet reliably, and sometimes as deep as 800-900 feet.  It got confused by motorboat wakes, and in deep water it would sometimes read very shallow because of different currents.  It has a gps and rudimentary charts.  It became our primary navigation tool.  A proper chartplotter would have been better, but because the charts are so simple it kept us honest and we always had a paper chart out as well.

We had no idea what we'd be in for and there was no way we could find out without actually doing it.  I expect planning for our next trip will be much easier given our experience.  Looking back I wish I had crewed on someone elses boat on a trip of at least a week in length.  It might be hard to get the chance but it would be most valuable.  I still plan to seek out chances to do offshore passages as crew, but the first time is when you learn the most, and we did it the hard way.  It was amazing and I could do it again and again and it would never get boring.  But that part of the world is upwind, up-current, and far from here so I likely wont.  But if I did, I would try to spend more time in the Broughtons, and just south of the Brooks Peninsula and in Kyuquot sound.