Iolani

Now that we are home, getting back into the rhythm of life ashore, I am compelled to chronicle the last days of our cruising adventure. We had a busy final few weeks in the Pacific Northwest; attending the Victoria Classic boat show and Blues festival and enjoying final visits with our cruising friends in Canada. We made Landfall in the USA at Roche Harbor where we walked a fabulous sculpture garden. There we had a fun surprise running into a sailor we knew from SF Bay and Mexico, amongst the trees and sculptures. At Griffin Bay on San Juan island, we hiked around historic parkland, gathered seaweed, and saw orcas from the cliffs. Heading to Port Townsend, our motor died in the middle of the the narrow pass.....luckily the current was pushing us towards safe water, not rocks, and the motor restarted after Barry bled the air out of the fuel lines. We went to the Port Townsend Wooden Boat Festival, another event that is among the highlights of our voyage! It was three days of boats, seminars, and demonstrations, ending with a sailing parade that was a feast for the eyes with massive schooners and gorgeous little sailing dinghies, all on the water together. While there we made new friends, Don and Charlene, friends of Barry's father, who treated us to delicious meals, showers and laundry. It was tempting to linger in that lovely place, but with Fall coming, it was time to head west, back through the Straits of Juan de Fuca towards the West Coast and Neah Bay. This was our first landfall from Hawaii in july but we had not been ashore, thus it was our first visit to an Indian Reservation. We had sailed by and anchored nearby many of them in British Columbia, but we always respected their territory and had never even landed our dinghy on the beach. It seemed to us their land should be a safe place away from the hustle and bustle of "Western" Civilization.
We had heard a few negative comments about Neah Bay, home of the Makah tribe: "there's nothing there", " its a dump", "service is bad, of course, because its a reservation".......and yes, we saw real poverty there, but also natural beauty, nice people, and a slower pace of life.
We had also heard that there is an excellent museum, the Makah Cultural and Research Center, so on a rainy day, we traipsed through town in our foul weather gear with our good friends Tom and Britta and spent a wonderful afternoon there. It houses artifacts from the village at Ozette, which had been buried by a mudslide some 300 years ago and was frozen in time til the 1970's. It is one of the most significant native American archeological collections in existence. But it is not only a place to see the objects of the ancestors, it also shows how the discovery of the site at Ozette gave the current day Makah back their identity, through the art and tools their ancestors. There are culture, language and art programs at the museum, which have revived a way of life that was not only forgotten, but actually forbidden by the missionaries and school teachers. The archeological items have even given them legal rights, in the case of preserved fishing net fragments which were used in court to prove that the Makah engaged in net fishing pre-contact with whites. The Makah are now allowed to net fish though it has been outlawed for other fishermen. The next day, we met the artist Greg Colfax (whom we had seen in the museum film) at his pizzeria/espresso cafe. Chatting while he made salmon lures, he spoke of his great grandpa, Skylar Colfax, the whale spearman in a photo at the museum. It was fascinating to have a contemporary connection to the history we had learned about. In the cafe there was a human sized statue; a mask with body of grass, a whale's dorsal and side fins that he had carved and hopes that the Smithsonian, Burke Collection or another museum will buy. The piece depicts a whaler's wife, partially metamorphosed into a whale. He told of the custom of Makah whaler wives to take to bed when the men went to sea to hunt. Their relatives would cover her with mats, and she would stay in bed for the week or so he was gone. It was believed she was spiritually tied to the whales, and if she was busy working and moving about, the whales would also be moving fast thus harder to catch. Also, she could become a whale and thus be in danger herself. He also explained the carved wooden whale dorsal fin we saw at museum. It is inlayed with hundreds of sea otter teeth, each of which represents a whale kill in that family. The carving was handed down through generations and used for family ceremonies. It is the only one remaining, anywhere, in existence.
His great grandma had told him about leaving Ozette for Neah Bay, to attend school, where the children were punished for speaking their language.
His father who had fought in WWII, told him a story of meeting Maori soldiers at a party, then being "adopted" as an honorary Maori, and how they seemed so familiar to each other. It affirmed our intuitions that Polynesians and Native Americans are somehow related, if only spiritually. I left the Pacific Northwest with a strong impression that the seas we have sailed and islands we have visited on our Pacific voyage are quite connected, with similar art, culture, religion and a shared history of colonization and subjugation.
After the rainy days and southerly winds associated with a low pressure system passed by, it was time to start the final passage down the coast, to home. Short windows of favorable and light winds necessitated breaking the 5 or so days of sailing into three passages. We were in good company with 4 other boats that were making the same passage. We first stopped at Newport Oregon to wait out more strong south winds and big seas. The entrance to that harbor can be treacherous and was even closed for a day to recreational vessels under 40 ft. We enjoyed the forced time at the dock with beer tastings with our cruising pals at the local Rogue River Brewery, walks across the historic bridge and through the quaint old town.
Our next hop was to Crescent City, California. We had light wind, which means lots of motoring, which was actually a good thing in this instance because of the many whales we encountered. It is said that having the engine running will alert a nearby whale so there is less likelihood of colliding with one. Whales can sink boats. At any rate, it was in the pitch dark, at around 10 pm, watch change, that a whale surfaced just about 10 ft from Iolani. Barry had heard it breathing behind us, then suddenly we saw, heard, smelled and even felt a spray of water from its exhalation.....Waaaaay too close! Believe it or not, that was actually the scariest moment of the whole trip.
The following day we sailed past St George Reef which has a lighthouse a few miles offshore, marking the many reefs and rocks that make it such a dangerous coast. Another lighthouse close to shore, while still functioning, is now also a museum which is accessible only at high tide. It has been operating continuously since the 1850s. Instead of full time keepers, it rotates monthly visiting volunteer keepers. It costs nothing to stay there, but the duties include giving daily tours. After a short stay in Crescent City, we had a final overnight to San Francisco Bay. Not wanting to sail under the Gate at 6 am, fighting an ebb tide, we tucked into Drakes Bay in the dark at 4 am, for a four hour nap, then woke to a glorious, sunny and calm morning. The wind picked up to a perfect 12- 15 knots, as we approached Pt Bonita then headed towards the Golden Gate bridge. Barry's parents were waiting on the Marin Headlands to photograph us as we sailed under the bridge. It was so fun to sail into the Bay, to Sausalito, waving to sailors we know and to be met by dear friends Susan and John who dinghied out to greet us! It was a great final day to an amazing 2 year sail!