Mother’s Day begins when I drop the wife at Oakland Airport to fly to Portland to hang with her daughter.
I had imagined sailing out to Clipper Cove for a night on anchor. I thought I’d do a quick spray off undo the mooring lines and go. Once I started spraying the boat off the reality of an unrelenting winter of rain tossed a wrench into the works.
Little bits of dirt cling to the deck, there is this fiberglass feature called non-skid, little dappled sections of deck that traps tenaciously grippy dapples of dirt that are removed only by intense brushing with various kinds of brushes.
It’s a dirty job, someone has to do it, there are no “nasty” women within my global reality so instead the man-splainer did it, all the while I explained to myself how necessary cleanliness is to boat-li-ness.
Boating neighbor Will Smith dropped by to chat, not that Will Smith, but odd that you ask the Will Smith boating neighbor that did drop by enjoys my father’s name. My pop was Will Smith, sometimes earlier in life Willee Smith, properly pronounced Willard Smith, but few of us say the name Willard aloud in polite company, fearing the wrath of some unforeseen event.
You might ask how long does it take to scrub a boat to within an inch of its life or your life— scrubbing commenced at 11 and went on without letup until 4. The boat didn’t cry— Uncle— but after 5 hours of rigorous manual scrubbing with tough, thick, strong bristled brushes I had to raise the surrender flag.
A quick walk up to Gus’s to stock the boats empty cupboards and upon return a great layabout will be the grand agenda item for this now so much cleaner day.
The Lefty O’Doul Draw Bridge siren has just sounded. Halyards are clanking against their masts, and all that is right and good about sea lions barking blots the incoming fog.
You want a boat, you best be ready to scrub off the dirt trapped in the non-skid, ready or not it will test you.
Monsoonal weather swept up from the south passing over the San Francisco Bay Tuesday. Warnings of the potential for lightening storms had been downgraded as the center of the weather system passed further offshore than had been forecast.
Just west of Benicia’s harbor we sailed off our anchorage at Dillion Point. No two days are the same on the water, expectations are traps, best to keep an open mind and ready for anything attitude.
Still after Monday’s return from the delta and then our rites of passage through the Suisun Bay we didn’t have the stomach for another dog’s life sail.
Callouses on our hands were raw from pulling the lines the day before. Our overnight had been a boisterous feast whipped up by the sailboat’s chef. We drank good wine. A quick anchor check to be sure we were holding. Bedtime came early, the anchoring light was switched on, the rest of the lights were turned off.
After coffee and mush we hoisted sails and tacked out of the channel beyond C&H Sugar on the Crocket side of the Carquinez Strait. For a spell we had enough breeze to keep the boat moving. By 10:00 AM the wind dropped then vanished altogether only the ebbing tide kept us headed to home port.
Factory for Sugar
By 1:00 PM we beat bow to wind toward the San Rafael Bridge, the ebb was at its end and the flooding incoming tide began to push against us. We might have used the motor but since Monday we’d been cursed with an odd rattle, thinking it might be the vessel zincs on the propeller shaft, whatever the problem, it had been making an awful racket. The skipper and his crew discussed our options, deciding together that it safer to sail. Even if we would only get what the light winds and strong counter currents would give us, we calculated the snails pace a better bet than becoming impatient.
When we first hoisted sails, we’d thought if we could find the prevailing winds that we would be arriving at home port by now, but the westerly’s never filled in and the mysterious rattle kept us on edge. We continued sailing in mere whisps of breeze. Light air sailing is a much finer circumstance. Over the course of an hour zigzagging southward, the boat clawed its way through the water taking every extra effort and attention to make our way past the bridge, Red Rock and to the approach of the channel into Richmond’s harbor.
Setting up a mark on the global positioning system (GPS) I’d entered the final waypoint, the mark that would take us to our destination, the last leg of our trip. We needed to make good on 8-9 more miles. In a full breeze the last piece of our journey might take a bit more than an hour. Sailing at 2-3 knots these last miles according to the GPS were predicted to take at our current course and speed to require another 4 hours.
I told my first mate that we were due home by the end of this century—that there was plenty of food and water—that for reasons difficult to know these two days have worked according to powers higher than our own—that we were fated to return from the delta to Emeryville by some other set of schedules and expectations—that our well laid plans were not what Neptune had wanted for us—that if there was even one more adverse force unleashed upon our sorry souls—that together we would need to seek the help of a shaman—to cast off the curse that seems to have devoured our luck—our good fortunes had run plum out.
Sailors look for any ripple of wind on the surface of a still body of water. You steer away from the mirror like surface toward these ruffling patterns. We got hold of a better wisp of wind, then set a favorable angle and shaped our course for the end of the Berkeley Pier.
We had no reason to get cocky, the winds had come and gone all day, teasing us for a few minutes then vanishing, that’s how it had been. Another hour had crept by, we were still making some progress, perhaps one mile further by zigzagging two miles back and forth against the current.
Islands in the Stream
By 3:00 PM changes were afoot. Ahead it was sure there was plenty of wind, more than enough, we could see the winds, there were whitecaps, if we could get there before this hope for a shot at getting off the water was gone, if we could get out of this hole, these doldrums, this rare monsoonal depression that had toyed with us for the last two days.
Then, as if by practical joke we found plenty of wind and more and went tearing south screaming along as fast as the boat will sail. I was on the low side steering, Richard my crewman on the high side grabbing hold to the boat while we rocketed toward the Bay Bridge on the east side of Yerba Buena Island. Winds were blowing from the west at 30 knots.
Laughing we hid in the lee of the island and lowered the main and would finish in this teasing maelstrom on headsail alone. Once at the dock we made quick work of putting the boat away. Down below we shared a bit of whiskey and split one can of beer. We laughed about our two days out on the water, the weather fit no pattern, being surprised had cost us, we might have gone about all of this another way, for one thing we might have waited in Owl Harbor, that might be the first thing to have tried before we opened the door to tempt all these flying monkeys to come into our lives.
Fixer of Demons
Postscript… The following day the diver that cleans the boats bottom went over the side and reported he had to use his knife to remove seaweed, netting and fishing line that had gotten tangled around the propeller—there was a stinking mess below we had sailed with for two days—hard to know how we’d even made it back—prevailing as we did against all the stubbornness and expectations.
Avalon kept tugging at my wanting. How balmy tranquility tucked into a snug harbor on a mooring ball becomes a summer fling you cannot jilt. Before dinner we motor to the dinghy dock and walk Pebbly Beach Road out and back to Lovers Cove. We slip into the Lobster Trap for dinner and drinks. After we take the dink back to our sloop and dig into our bunk. This is how the want of a never ending summer on Santa Catalina Island ruins a good for nothing sailor.
Long range weather forecasts were pressing on my timeline. I had purchased the services of Passage Weather to route my 1997 Jeanneau Sun Odyssey 36.2 north to San Francisco Bay. The professional router advised moving north 100 miles to Santa Barbara to take advantage of a window that once closed he warned may not open again for weeks.
From Avalon our first leg was north to Marina del Rey. We dropped guests off. The following morning, we motored west to Channel Island Harbor. Late in the afternoon we hoisted sails and powered into steep chop, motoring would have been arduous. Pushing off from the guest slip after getting groceries we sailed to Santa Cruz Island taking a route south of Anacapa Island. Running out of sunlight we set our anchor in Prisoners Harbor. A rookie mistake by the way, I’d passed Smugglers Cove, while here there was a swell wrapping around the headlands making the night uncomfortable. For all that bit of hell on anchor at sunrise we aimed precisely magnetic north to Santa Barbara. Every mile north is hard earned.
Eileen returned to Los Angeles by train. That late afternoon a crewmate arrived to help bring the boat back to San Francisco. Provisioning as men without spouses are wanting to do is accomplished without the divine guidance of our better halves.
After dinner I was on the phone back to Passage Weather confirming forecasts remained unchanged and that I should depart at dawn and point west up the coast to Cojo Anchorage.
Afternoon breezes filled in, the last 8 miles the sloop beat into a raucous windblown whitecapped chop. A sunny blue sky brushed with brilliant white clouds aided morale, the pounding against the sea was met with good cheer.
Point Conception, fortress like, impermeable, impassable, almost impossible loomed in our worried minds. Banging into a blustery afternoon to anchor at her entrance acting out a dress rehearsal for the big show that was schedule to open at dawn tomorrow.
The weather router followed our progress tracking us with the AIS transponder aboard. Connectivity in Cojo is plenty good. That evening my router texted, “Sweet Seas, departing first light, no matter the conditions hoist anchor and be underway by 0600.”
The weather router had urged me in Santa Barbara while speaking on the telephone to put trust in his sailing instructions and depart as planned, to not freeze up and remain on anchor in the morning at Cojo. I remember his last words, “Conditions may seem extreme when you depart, but they are forecast to moderate before increasing in the afternoon when a small craft advisory is scheduled to go up. You must leave as planned. Is that understood?”
By this time in the trip, I had put 800 coastal miles under my keel. Near all had been sailed reaching and running. Ahead, the uphill challenge, saving the stoutest part of the voyage for the end, forced to confront the Pacific Ocean dead on the nose, addicted and softened by lulling about in Avalon I had time to imagine all manner of sailing catastrophe, seasickness and profound regret for having ever dared to believe I could get my moderate displacement sloop safely north to home port. “What were you thinking?” I could never quite shake off the bite of doubt.
Perspective
Former Emeryville Yacht Club commodore Linny Martinson and her husband Marty aboard Perspective had been on a mooring ball north of us in San Luis Rey Harbor. As we arrived in Cojo they departed south for Santa Barbara. Winds in our rigging were howling, the noise kept me awake, I was up and down in my bunk, I tracked Perspectives progress by AIS and when they arrived off Point Arguello radioed Linny about 0300 hours, to get an update on sea state and wind pressure. Marty was asleep below. Linny at the helm running downwind reported 30 knots with gusts even higher. Making good progress by 0500 hours I stood on deck spotting their navigation lights as they passed running downwind bound for Santa Barbara.
I ate a bowl of oatmeal, another cup of coffee, I swallowed more Dramamine. My routers voice ringing in my ears, “no matter the conditions, hoist anchor, you must leave as planned.”
At first light, 0600 hours we got the hook up, trimmed the shortened sails to close hauled heading west out like lambs into the teeth of Point Conception. Never tacking, sails drawn in tight, traveler eased. By 0830 hours we were eighteen miles offshore careful to stay away from the oil rigs. Chop was short and steep, swell was to 6’, winds had been easing all morning and now blew steady at 22 knots gusting enough to test my faith in what a clevis pin could withstand. Crew had found their sea legs, we were holding up, we remained tentative, on guard but in good spirits. Tacking over now we headed north for the first time since Santa Barbara close hauled the bow pointing high in the gusts, enough I could tell that we would clear Point Arguello. By noon we were making our way back to San Francisco in the firm hand of a fair blow and lively but manageable seaway.
Northbound with Crew at Helm
All the morning Sweet Seas had sped close hauled to her homeport at over 6 knots. Much of the afternoon was spent reaching toward the Bay of San Luis Obispo, sheets were eased by Lompoc, the boat rising and falling, a hefty steepening swell on the beam, the trim sloop plunging ahead romping, on this point of sail she was making good progress, a steady 8.5 knots.
Taking a mooring ball at San Luis Rey Harbor by 1600 hours we had completed the 60-mile passage in 10 hours. Exhausted but exhilarated, I recorded in my log that Sweet Seas had been generous to her crew providing us with an unforgettable day of high intensity sailing.
A weary but chatty crew spent the night drinking a bit of the Irish, making dinner, raving about our days sail, going over the charts, preparing for tomorrows 24 mile jump north.
As the most experienced sailor aboard, I had to be the skipper of record if my claim to bringing my boat north was to hold up, if I could prove by firsthand experience that I could muster the skill and stamina. I would need more time at sea with her to learn more, to grow my confidence, to test our relationship. The boat is a good one, this sloop wants the same as she gives—treat me with skill, pull on my lines, I will take you where you wish, I’m eager to go, I’m fresh and fast, today you made your boat happy, today something has changed, I won’t soon forget… (Pause)
By my 29th birthday I had reached an inflection point. Doors opened moving me closer to my goal. I wanted to be a street performer, to drift from place to place, spend my waking hours building the best of the best shows.
Every day, seven days a week I would practice my skills, rehearse routines, write jokes and work the phone building another tour.
Then a voice, a warning— you’re losing your balance, look at you, you’ve become dull and overworked, burnout is everywhere— Unpleasant, moody, preoccupied, I had no attention span, I was unavailable. As some said— I didn’t have a life.
Standing at a crosswalk I noticed a flyer stapled to a telephone pole. I tore one of the dangling shreds of paper with a telephone number and called. Staff answered my questions, offered to take my name, I had a spot reserved in the next class. I knew nothing about the sport, but now I was registered, I was going to learn how to sail.
First thing was to purchase Royce’s Sailing Illustrated, and a second pamphlet, it was a more rudimentary beginners guide to sailing. There was a short session in a classroom, the instructor went over the basics at a chalkboard. There was a break for lunch. In the afternoon, the class broke up into pairs and practiced setting up and putting away the 14’ sloop rigged keelboats. On the first day we never left the dock.
By the second week of class everything happened on the water.
Sailing broke the fever of my one-dimensional life. Smiling more, breathing remained a little forced, I was learning to get on a boat and go play with whatever the winds and tides would give me. Sailing was my teacher, the sailboat was showing me how to be comfortable in my own skin. After four weeks I was now an official beginner, free to charter the school’s keelboats and go play with the breeze.
Maestro, built 1959 restored by this sailor
I continued taking classes, by now I was reading about first aid, practicing man overboard drills, and how radar could help keep you safe. I completed a course in coastal navigation.
Another navigation student, ambitious and eager, asked if I’d like to take a day long celestial navigation workshop in Sausalito. Crossing oceans on a small sailboat seemed improbable, risky, farfetched. “It’s not that dangerous, if you took this celestial workshop, you’ll at least have the choice of whether to go or not.”
A reed thin Frenchman greeted us at the harbor. His steel ketch I would later learn had first departed Marseille in 1963 while I was still just a child. The lipstick red steel hull and white deck fit with purpose in its slip, standing out among the other vessels, appearing to have been sailed farther, the standing rigging stouter, the running rigging gauged for heavy weather, the vessel Joshua was an ocean boat, the first I had ever seen.
Running low of money Bernard Moitessier sailed from Tahiti to Sausalito in search of work. The famous sailor was soon engaged as a gardener, boat repairman, and celestial navigation instructor.
The lack of money vanished from the French circumnavigator’s life. Sausalito would offer a helping hand. Moitessier’s new fortunes he described as the dragons, hungry cows and holy trinity, self-fashioned expressions he used to identify his demons or allies. Moitessier understood that there were battles a dragon like soul must confront, or when the hungry cows of poverty move too close, or the sense of the Divine to be found while playing with the sun, the wind, and the water.
The thinking style of a boy growing up on the Mekong Delta had been tempered by experiences unavailable to a childhood spent sailing on the Chesapeake. Moitessier appeared to be all French, his Vietnamese mother’s influence was more visible in the way he used his mind, his perceptions, instincts blending the Eastern religion and philosophy he had absorbed coming of age in Southeast Asia.
Seated below deck in Joshua’s salon Moitessier rolled out the chart he had used to navigate from the South Pacific to California. Weather reports were received by shortwave radio. A threatening storm formed and had clocked toward Joshua, then for a few days followed coming close to overtaking his ketch. Moitessier tracked the storm’s movement by radio reports and with each change in its position marked the low-pressure system in pencil with a larger and larger X.
Crucially he could tune the radio to a station that transmitted tones that identified Greenwich Mean Time. Knowing down to the exact second in a minute what time it is as measured by atomic clock and then simultaneously capturing the angle of a celestial body, most often the sun, a navigator can with great accuracy calculate a line of position. To obtain an exact position the navigator uses the sextant to measure a second and third celestial body. The vessels position is fixed somewhere in the triangle formed by the three lines.
Empowering other sailors to navigate by the stars suited the gypsy spirited Moitessier. If a sailor could take accurate measurements with a sextant, they could safely cross oceans, find islands, arrive at a predetermined destination. With this skill the gentle Frenchman had given others the means of filling their sails with wind and setting off on a voyage.
In the era of the clipper ships sailing long distances was common. In 1965 Moitessier’s record breaking return sail from Tahiti back to France was the first and longest voyage of its kind for a small sailboat. The feat is often likened to climbing Mt. Everest. What the Frenchman described as The Logical Route daring to return by sailing around Cape Horn was a feat many times riskier than anything I had ever imagined, this was the first time I had considered that crossing oceans by small sailboat could make a sailor’s life more whole and fulfilled. I’d thought sailing to be a pastime, a watersport, something to do with an afternoon. Placing sailing into the center of my life wasn’t a consideration.
The clever Moitessier had let go the invisible lines I had been using to hold my imagination back, his astronavigation student had been set adrift. Imagine what changes you could go through by using the stars to help find your way through a world you had yet the courage to explore. Bernard Moitessier’s thinking was uncluttered, he had sailed his boat anywhere, taking voyages for the pleasure of knowing more about who he was while offshore at sea. Being in his presence, the distinctive quality of wit and whim, outnumbered by less experienced sailors, there was only one French-Vietnamese circumnavigator, only one of the many below deck was prepared to hoist sails and go now.
Even a simple afternoon sail in the estuary had new meaning. With the winds bit in the boats teeth, filling the sails, the sound of the hull rushing headlong through water became elixir and anthem. My time spent off the water had changed too. Sailing was amending my constitution. I had been guided back to a bigger sense of story, willing to entertain a more purposeful adventure, my fearing unknown horizons had been tempered by Moitessier. The possibilities of what a sailboat could do, how a passage could enable my life created a better version, a more resourceful self, I became someone who was more willing to strip down to the bone, a less guarded new sailor had learned how to unlock his mind, open his heart, and embrace the world of change.
Modern wonders of the world number seven, the Golden Gate Bridge is but one. Two more, Panama Canal and Empire State Building give some context to what company this bridge keeps.
Sailing in the presence of one of the great wonders towering above leaves one stunned. Tidal forces are at play beneath the bridge, incessant corrosive sea salts are blown upon the steel and concrete.
In a stout wind sailing beneath the bridge is not a nonchalant experience. Winds and currents are tricky and the sagest of sailor’s tinker upon this piece of water with a care rendered by squeezing so hard to sheet, tiller or wheel that there is no room for blood to flow. Sailing beneath the wonder is often a white knuckle affair.
North Tower
Most times with my course outbound luck has been bountiful. Not every time. I have in fool youth did not appreciate the wisdom of turning back and for that mistake then beaten by steep swell and high wind. Stubbornness retreats as motion sickness is threatened.
Here is a bridge our nation has stood up and by civilization’s collective agreement kept safe for transit. If the bridge were not constantly maintained the wild world would have long ago reclaimed this site.
Our forefathers, the people of the United States of America arranged by democracy to tax sufficiently, raise revenue by bridge toll, hire maintenance crew, keep in constant contact with expert engineers that by fact and science expertly keep the bridge in tip top shape.
Left Coast Sunset
Without such due-diligence there would remain nothing of use at the Golden Gate, this place of places. Our democracy to keep standing requires as much if not more care and guidance by empirical fact. A faith based belief system is not a mechanical engineering manual.
We are at the most delicate hour in the world’s longest surviving democracy. To keep one of the seven modern wonders of the world hail and whole seems beyond the talent or plans of the current gang of fascists circling about our vulnerable present moment.
With more people come more traffic lights, small towns need none. Order needs to be appreciated. An emptier world might suit a libertarian, this congested place demands further regulation. Imagining there would be a Golden Gate Bridge must have been a leap of faith in our country’s power. Our best educated, our most temperate people, reliable and self-sacrificing, possessing a sense of respect for our future, this is the kind that will help build upon what Joseph Strauss in 1917 first imagined.
Sailing beneath the Golden Gate Bridge reminds us of our souls, of mankind’s potential for greatness. Sending a man to the moon, circumnavigating the world, relishing the company of a wife or husband.
Capitalism is insufficient to the project of our governing this land. The means of advancing virtue and discouraging vice in our civic life is on the table and at risk. Turning away from the journey of being a free people would be to put all that we have done in peril. We stand on the shoulders and inherited much. I cannot imagine giving all that this nation has built to the tyrannical selfish and greedy few.
Departed San Diego on November 19th at 0830 hours. We arrived in San Jose del Cabo on the southern tip of the Baja peninsula on December 1st at 1030 hours. We made stops in Ensenada, Turtle and Magdalena Bay before arriving at the southernmost tip of Baja in San Jose del Cabo.
The length of the entire trip was somewhere near 750 miles. We were offshore overnight on four of our legs. Conditions between Turtle Bay and Magdalena Bay were the least agreeable. Wind was blowing us down the coast more often than not. The leg between Turtle and Magdalena Bay was sailed against the wind. Swell was coming both north and south with steep surface chop beating at us from the west. This made for an uncomfortable ride. That is probably accurate but not the whole story. Miserable is more like the fact of the matter. A real gut buster. Rotten and no good come to mind as well. Could have done without that leg, but that isn’t how sailing works.
From the bow
The two most experienced sailors had been in such uncomfortable sea states before. We kept a close eye on our two other less experienced crew. After a long day sailing south and the boat heeled to port pounding and yawing fatigue and motion sickness began to set in. Fatigue, lethargy, and the inevitable mental confusion. Winds increased overnight to 30 knots with gusts higher. Seas built but it wasn’t their size so much as their chaotic mixing that did the most to make matters uncomfortable.
Nobody was frightened by the rugged day offshore so much as feeling a bit discouraged. Making our way south in late November off Baja is generally expected to be a downhill run. Having to bash our Gulfstar 50 south against the wind in such conditions is an unpleasant motion. We would have avoided the entire mess had weather forecasting large swells expected to make Turtle Bay a mess. We picked what we thought was the least uncomfortable choice. In short we were cornered and did what we had to do.
Most of our way south was much less fraught. Beyond Mag Bay we had a fine warm breeze to set our asymmetrical chute and spent most of the daylight hours driving our boat at 6 knots upon a docile sea. Crew were busy snoozing, making meals or on watch for sea turtles. Attire was shorts and sunscreen, sunglasses and a good hat to fend off a bright sun. The motion of the boat only somewhat later in that long day ever tested our crews mettle. More wind foreword of the middle of the boat, the beam, began to cause mild concern among the now veteran crew. Best of all the two that had taken it the hardest hit on the worst days were now all the wiser more seasoned and capable sailors. Most crew do get their sea legs over time.
We are enjoying shore leave here in San Jose del Cabo. Our boat is being scrubbed clean in preparation for her crossing to Puerto Vallarta. Two of us will fly home to San Francisco to leave the skipper and first mate to negotiate the shorter distances and jumps from harbor to harbor.
In our longer passages we were three hours on during a watch. One watch came every nine hours. Between watches crew either napped, was eating, reading or observing the natural world we were surrounded by. Only the darkest and earliest morning watches were manned by a sole member of the crew. We made sure to keep our least experienced crew scheduled to stand watch on the earlier time slots. Checking the boats progress on her course, using radar to spot any approaching boats, or the AIS to see if more distant ships were closing was most of what a person standing watch was responsible for. Otherwise a quick scan of the horizon and those standing watch had an easy time of their duty.
Being offshore is its own world. You are isolated. There are a thousand and one things changing over the course of a day. Still when the sails are drawing wind and the wake is singing off a speeding hull there is nothing quite so enrapturing and as peaceful a way to wander about this one world we have to care for. Sailing as ever is not just about where a boat takes you, but how a boat stirs a soul. We are transported to distant unexplored interior shores. We arrive at the next port knowing more about what we are made of. Wind power is revelatory in that sense. Sailing is about so much more than merely traveling somewhere.
Sunset off the Isla San Benito Islands. This group of three sit fifty miles west of the Baja Coast. Toss overboard all your small selfish comforts. A swell and chop tossed sea filters the few from the many. Three hundred miles south of San Diego is no longer a mere dance of make believe images passing through the imagination. Off Baja is in the mind.
Crew and skipper gathered in Spirit’s cockpit for the show. Sketched out hanging in front of the blue above were an intermingling mix of clouds, some billowing where another section was rolling then another misting into a vast and vertical fog.
East of our southbound sailing ketch Isla Cedros stretched out by rugged mountains that crashed into the sea. The shoreline measures twenty miles north to south. Spirit was swaddled by islands, ocean and sky. The source of matter and energy was nearing that interval when our planet would turn on the sun and allow its lighted beams to burst out on fire
A sole mariner was nosing north and west. Further south out of sight but on our display was a pleasure craft underway moving at cruising speed toward our position.
Just for this one sunset we had been nonstop from Ensenada to Turtle Bay for more than 33 hours.
In this dusk a chorus of scarlets and golds interwove through wild blue yonder. Beyond the core bursting precious metal like bangles were distant feathering lavender smudged atmospherics. Each carnival of pinwheels, all the darting twinkling scabbards of luminous dusk appeared as its own most original once in a lifetime taxi time traveling speed of light to another and then another soul boggling transformation. Above the San Benitos Islands we found the symphonic fires played by an orchestra in the the great muse’s sky. We sopped up the incomprehensible stowing each taunting beam of delight into the hungry heart of our color seeking imaginations.
Richard Henry Dana’s classic aboard the vessel Spirit
South downwind into the night Spirit gathered the force. Whatever witness, whatever testimony the cosmos had bestowed upon us was more than enough. For some measure of our transitioning from daytime to night we were afforded a seat in the grandest of grandstands. What dusk offered initially was at its extinguished end taken to be ethereal tequila with a lick of salt and bite of lime. All the dancing phantoms, all the kindred forms of light were murmuring in our inner soul tides teasing us to treasure what moments before had been described by this crew to be some of the most precious light painted beatings of our hearts in our passage here on earth. Amen.
Packing bags. Leaving on a jet plane. Last night was spent reading Steinbeck’s account of motoring south off Point Sur. The date was March 11, 1940.
It is one thousand miles from Monterey, California to the southern tip of Baja. Durban to Cape Town measures a thousand miles. New York City to Key West is near the same.
The French-Vietnamese sailor Bernard Motiessier departed Durban in 1954 ran into the teeth of a gale and for two weeks made no progress to his destination. Only a stubborn few have spent fourteen days off the coast of South Africa battling a stout blow to a draw.
There is not a zero probability of encountering a gale while making our way south to Cabo, but the chances are slim. High wind could kick up. Given our boat’s displacement we will not likely be pressed too hard. Capability matters when you match a boat to a blow.
Always have a backup plan. If the first plan becomes untenable try the second or third or fourth. Back in 1954 Moitessie’s could not approach the harbor because of the violent seas nearest shore. Better to stay in deep water than try and approach the coast.
Moitessie lost his most famous boat Joshua while in Cabo San Lucas when the anchorage was suddenly overtaken by unanticipated storm waves. Sketchy weather reports were ignored. That evening local conditions were docile. By nightfall the fleet of sailboats that had not departed were dragged onto the beach where pounding waves finished them off one by one.
The hard won wisdom we earn in our years of messing around on boats is all prequel. First sign of difficulty we will use our boat and judgement We’ll be ready. This is the pleasure of sailing.
Organizing our gear for our trip from San Diego to La Paz is near complete. Having spent ten weeks sailing the coast of California over the past two years makes preparations many times less complicated.
First off there is the matter of flashlights. Aiming a light into a darkened storage locker solves most every kind of first order of problem you can encounter. A second pair of readers, backup sunglasses are a must.
One toothbrush is fine. One razor is optional. Sunscreen and moisturizers help. Chapstick is a necessity.
My ragged, dogeared Penguin paperback 1981 reprinted edition of Steinbeck’s The Log from the Sea of Cortez will make the trip. Bernard Moitessier’s Sailing to the Reefs earns an E-ticket as does Hiscock’s Around the World in Wanderer III.
Two couples will be making the coastal passage. Each of us will stand a four hour watch every twelve hours. Standing watch will not be a burden.
The gods would find sailing past Turtle Bay without visiting a boondoggle. Uncorking a protected anchorage is to have a taste of respite from the constant motion while at sea.
This is where will go. We will set sail from here. Here is all hopped up about troubled leadership in Washington. Preparations for Thanksgiving are in evidence. When will it rain and where will the next wildfire strike keeps California on a knife’s edge.
All of these urgent concerns will soon be off our stern. Our passage will be the meat of the matter. Our time in La Paz will consist of a three days.
Walking La Paz is on our bucket list. What we will want to understand about this part of Mexico we can learn by exploring on foot.
Our passage measures somewhere near nine hundred miles. One week sailing add a handful of days at anchor, take the dinghy to shore to walk and explore. By my reckoning if the weather is fair we will celebrate Thanksgiving nestled in the water off La Paz.
We arrive Saturday. We will provision Sunday and weather allowing will sail south for Ensenada
We are sailing from San Francisco Bay to the Channel Islands this summer. Aside from working on the to-do list and planning is to take pause from preparations and spend time reading Bernard Moitessier. The French-Vietnamese circumnavigator’s maritime narrative reads as lyric verse and Farmers Almanac guidance.
Clutter can accumulate within the mind while preparing a sailboat. In this modern era there is the risk of having too much equipment. Electronic navigation has radically changed the task of keeping an accurate course and position. Automatic Identification System-allows two vessels to view the others information while approaching and take evasive action or as needed to hail by VHF radio. Add the weather satellites and telemetry from the ocean buoys being caught offshore in an unexpected gale is much less common now than in earlier times.
Moitessier reads more as an example in how to exercise judgement. He nudges less seasoned mariners to unloading expectations, Turn the keys to your life over to the seas rhythm and wavelength. Be with the wind and the waves. Listen to the music of the bow wake. Technology can veil the visceral, anxiety can turn attentions inward, the long list of things you didn’t get done before shoving off can distract.
We untether from a land based time and begin living on that other scale on the inner clock. Nothing much happens when sailing resembling the pace of the modern world. You become acquainted with the pace and rhythm of the clear and present. Here and now with hundreds of miles ahead asks the voyager to get comfortable in their own bones. Impatience, the odd pace of life at sea, unrealistic expectations will contaminate the mind and fog the lens of judgement. Exercising untainted judgement is the highest form of voyaging art. The best decisions determine whether you and your boat will both live to tell.
Buy a book, book a show, and be sure to come back for no good reason other than to have a look-see. I’m right here mate.
