Work is going well, Julia is back in Seattle and I'm framing in Nanaimo. This weekend is a long weekend so I borrowed a car and headed for Tofino. Its really nice out here and this is probably the last really nice weekend of the year. Yesterday I got to climb a lot, outside first on the way here, and then indoors at the new little gym. No fingertips left this morning so I'll try and talk my way onto a whalewatching boat and get over to HotSpring Cove for a soak.
I won't be posting again on here for awhile unless something exciting happens..
On leaving the boat in deer Harbor I noticed some water has penetrated the pilot house tops at the edge of the lexan, this has begun the process of destruction, I expect when I return that the plywood will be swollen and mostly destroyed inspite of all the epoxy and glass. It seems the whole project will wash up as a wreck and we are back to square one. Perhaps this time I'll do them out of aluminum was what I should have done in the first place.
until soon
Sail fast.. take chances.
update: october 21. still framing. Raining almost everyday but atleast its warm. The photo is from one of the evenings in Tofino. After finishing the current house there is a siding job, basement reno, possibly another house, and on the weekends I'm working another job helping frame a MCdonalds.. not sure how i feel about that. Either way it doesn't matter how I feel, I am resigned to get south and be warm.
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Time slips by like a swift current in the darkest night unnoticed by those at anchor in the cliffs bight, pulled ashore on the sandy beach next to the downed tree, drifting in the calm of dream. Badu makes such good work of the courses she must follow tearing along in any good breeze and sculling at about a knot when the breeze is dead. Keeping the weather continuously in mind one sees daily patterns and learns to align the wind and current forces into favorable distances made good, into the most idyllic days of movement. Through both wind and calm the invisible current bears us along flowing and spinning as the ocean daily wraps itself around these island shores. It takes us where we wish, always faithful to arrive if we are willing to wait. Timing our movement with the swirling of the universe we travel about as if by magic or the sheer force of will, creating the landscape as it comes into consciousness. More dependable than any motor is the absolute certainty that the conditions will change their attitude towards us at any time, so one is constantly adjusting the form of the boat or the self to accept it. This way the whole experience of life becomes a practice of acceptance, unity, and ultimately awe and thankfulness.
How can I begin to describe these timeless summer days filled to overflowing with the small gifts of wonderment? How to speak of this barefoot beach cabin called Badu, or the feel of my dirty bed mat and old sleeping bag at the end of a long days run. I cannot describe how hot tea gets so much better under a red sunset, with the skin of my hand smelling of salt and the last kisses of sunlight on brown skin. There is a little wind playing in the anchorage and I grow to love it, so full of nuance and power holding the materialization of the whole world in its airy hand, we need only grab hold and keep our eyes fixed on the horizon.
Often at night I lay beneath the pilot house windows and watch the stars spin round. When its dark and calm at anchor the land melts into both the ocean and the sky, making everything one in darkness. The oceans surface becomes invisible and is lost in the still reflection of the universes stars. Then Badu really does look like a spaceship floating in the void with star fields all around. Rocking in such a comfortable bed and set adrift in the sky with all the stars in full view it is hard to imagine a better bed for dreaming. Thus I am often awake at night and the shift from dream awareness to sky awareness can be seamless at times.
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Are you staying north for the winter?
Don
corsair 31R trimaran
After nearly five days in the lagoon infront of Roche Harbor Resort the GM finally came down to ask us how long we were staying, so we took a few hours and moved the boat around to the lagoon in the bitter end of Westcott Bay. This lagoon sits just on the other side of the blackberry thicket in the back of Roche's sculpture park, and is comprised of a myriad of small channels carved into the sea asparagus and mud. It is very very muddy here but no one will bother us this way. Out of sight and surrounded by marsh Badu lies in the muddy trough that lays between the hummocks. At high tide this maze of muddy corridors becomes a blue flowing river and semi submerged islands of sea asparagus. Then it is easy to get around. We poled our boat into what seemed at first like a little creek but soon fractured into the maze that radiates out from the central lagoon. Poling into shallow water it always seems like we should be running aground but somehow we keep ghosting along. The oar blade is longer than the water is deep, and all the shells rush by as they soar along in the skies reflection, their dirty world forgotten and passing beneath like a painted picture.
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We're back in the tidal lagoon south of the marina, the weather is fine and there are way less people here than last weekend.as americans tend to observe a boating season which officially ended on labor day.
The night of our arrival we were treated to dinner with friends whom we hadn't seen in over a year. We met them in Port Mcneil a few summers ago at anchor and shared many crab feasts with Lopez Larry's Habanero Mustard Sauce, which if you havn't tried yet I dare say you havn't lived. Now they are anchored on a new piece of property having sold their boat this spring. With forest all around a garden and fruit trees, trails through the woods, deer and owls to share their view of the night sky life has cast a favorable glance on all their labors. It is always wonderful to reconnect with old friends.
The next morning while making a monstrous BLT I was hailed from the shore by another friend long lost. James Reid who lives aboard his little schooner whom I hadn't seen since last summer. We ended up going out for pizza and drinks in Friday Harbor and today I will work with him on a large gelcoat repair here in the Roche Marina. It is good to have a little work and hopefully this will spool up into something more steady.
Either way, the sun is shining and everything seems to sing a little in this happy island life reminding us that soon we will find a proper way to anchor ourselves for the winter.
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Rain patters on the hatch tops as we sail north from the lagoon in the back of Roche Harbour where we spent the weekend..When we pulled in on saturday they fired the canon and played some nautical bit on the loudspeakers but we were wrong and it wasn't for us. Instead they were celebrating some holiday and the place was packed. We are glad to be out of there and 3 knots is enough to get us where we want to go. Gulls cry under ominous grey clouds interspersed with large shafts of light and rain drifting down to the sea. I don't even need to steer on a broad reach. The rain increases and gets harder but it can't reach us all comfortable and dry inside, and it wont last anyways. I think back to our attempted departure from Sucia and the near failure of the forestay bridle in a heavy wind. We were attempting to beat out of Fossil Bay from our snug spot in Mud Bay, it was blowing about 25-35 and there were a lot of boats to weave through. The log reads " The boat is moving fast already when the sails fill, wham, shudder, Badu is carving through the moored boats at 10 knots, we are heeling a little, close hauled for 5-10 seconds. Spray is rushing down upon us as we tack next to the rocks on the far side of the bay. Some of the reefing lines come undone on the main and a criminal flogging of the clew threatens our heads as the jib backs and we surge into the next tack. This bay is too narrow and full of boats for this sort of speed, we are making a lot of leeway and totally ripping the ocean up. We pass close to people having breakfast in a little powerboat, mouths a jar, fearing for their boats as we blur past a vision of spray and sails and freedom that few here can understand. Our headsail has no purchase and no winch for power and the jam cleat is failing, we are unable to control it in such high gusts. I bear off, ease everything and head back into Mud Bay to wait for better conditions"
Later in the day we got out of there and sailed to Roche harbour, the wind was less but we still made 6-8 knots overground against a 2 knot flood. Pulling into Roche we discovered that the stainless wire gate carabiners that clip the forestay bridle to the hulls are definitely not adequate. One was completely deformed, missing the wire gate and hanging on with only a little luck. I've since lashed them on and things look alright. Ultimately we will need to drop the rig and replace the wire with amsteel as I no longer trust any of it. It was the only element of the boat we did not completely overhaul, crossing our fingers was not enough. I will also replace the d-rings in the bow as they look rather light as well.
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Another day is whiled away in this sunny Sucian way. The wind has been non existent or from the south and it seems our window for going south is closing and a storm is on the way. The next few days should be wet with a lot of wind. Now that we are out here living in these beautiful islands the urgency of Mexico has subsided and the emptiness of our cruising kitty combined with failed gear prompts us to stay on here for the winter. If anyone knows of a house that needs sitting we are on the hunt. The winter will give us time to impliment all the things we have learned about cruising this little wind machine, mainly things are going to continue to get simpler, more water tight, and less tied to life on the hook. All the lexan in the rocket tops has begun to leak, the pin holding the tiller cross arm to the tillers is always trying to come out, we need more purchase on sheets, better jam cleats on halyards, a better way to cook in rough weather, and way less books and clothes. The deck is taking care of the clothes issue as I am down to only one pair of pants having blown out all the right knees of everything I own. Clothes are pretty much optional on these boats anyways so it really doesn't matter. I have taken to removing clothes when it rains instead of wearing foul weather gear. It keeps the inside space much drier-- I wonder at the wisdom of "savages".
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Another week drifts by like Badu on these windless summer days. Another raft party with Tsunami Chaser and hanging out with Helena 4 on the hook. Sucia is great with miles of good bouldering on the beach, all kinds of animals and various types of fruit This morning everyone departed for various ports leaving us to drift around in the bay trying to sail to another anchorage on the west side of the island, but with no wind we only made it to Ewing Cove. This small shallow bay is the perfect cat hole, restricted entrance, shallow crescent beach and crab apples. This evening Julia and I took a walk and watched an otter family catching fish, The young ones are definetly watching and learning from mom, unable to catch fish for themselves they wait on rocks for what she brings them. They never fight over fish but are content to wait their turn, perhaps hunting small crabs and fish under the rocks while they wait. They are so extraordinary.
We miss all our friends. These moments of life packed so full of riches are hard to love alone, and I find myself thinking of Sagstad and all our friends there. Today was a little melancholy as everyone pulled away and left us drifting in the bay.This enginless way keeps us busy though, each moment the seed of the next, creating flavour and texture and ultimately this flow of life. No longer having a destination while pulling up the anchor gives freedom to the boat riding soul, trusting that everyday the world will take care of you and give you what you need, be it storm or rest. Arriving at a place not of your choosing, the seed of today transforms into the life of tomorrow and soon your life grows out of these weeks into something beautiful and free, unhampered by the schedules and structures of the engine driven mind.
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The life of a spider web aboard an ocean satellite never lasts long, yet every morning there it is again. An undetermined future lies ahead shifting in my mind like vapor forming into shapes built of time and space and memory. Somewhere high in the trees a prehistoric squaking signals the disturbance of a heron, like an adolescent dinosaur it lumbers away in the clear morning air. Does it know where it is going? The tide is running out of this lagoon exposing all the little crabs as they run for cover; the herons have wings to drop quickly, soundlessly, no one hears them coming until its too late. Scuttling for a clam hole or a piece of seaweed the crab is driven through from above and eaten.
I stand at the door and knock, but no one answers. This mysterious nature has no window, I can't look in. Do I know where I am going? Stuck between worlds I wonder at my impulse to go ashore and build a home in the woods, a place I don't belong if I do it alone. I turn around inside and remember when I used to live in the city discontented and confused, wandering like a shadow through their streets, watching them live like puppets soon to be put away, puppets who act as though the play will never end. I left them there on the ship they'd worked so hard to build, their lives now a wreck pitched against an unforgiving coast. I left with no destination and little hope, dreaming of far of places that no longer exist. There are no more ports where man is not consumed by toxic fetish and insanity. So we are adrift as it were having no course to steer, only knowing that to return to the other way of life is to die a little more, to destroy the last vestiges of some distant home we still find burning inside us.
Today I spent the day sitting on a rock, climbing a little, eating a little, and contemplating the relationships between man's psychological needs and the modern way of living. From here on this rock it is plain that all the daily movement of goods and information in massive quantity is totally unnecessary. It is mans ideas that make the need, ideas about profit and money and ownership of little pieces of a planet passed from hand to hand. On the altar of a collective and selfish thought structure man has burned his last connections with the nature that sustains us. Both the physical nature surrounding us and the human nature within are lost completely in the modern way of living. The loss of connection to a common origin in simplicity as brought about by the mists of time and the socialization of this new way has turned the human heart into a desert. We are empty now having nothing left to give, nothing left to offer up to either the ghosts of the future or the past. With no identity apart from that given us by right relation to the natural order we cannot hope to perform the necessary tasks to save ourselves or even recognize what they may be. No false identity given by country or corporation can hope to restore man to the original simplicity as countries exist only in the minds of those enslaved by them. To the Otter playing below my sitting rock there is only one world one mind and one way to live, and something in the way it glances up at me reminds me that this law of Oneness is the only law, and by it one can leave the sinking ship and find home anywhere.
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08/19/2009, Watmough Bay
To cross the Stait of Juan de Fuca we left Kala Pt at 4:30 with a large ebb and a light southerly. Two hours with the spinnaker dropped us infront of PT. Much less current than I anticipated. Another hour of sculling, some paddling, finally some wind and we just barely made it out of Admiralty Inlet in time for the flood to start and sweep us backwards into Puget Sound. We had hopped to reach Rosario where the flood would have been a welcome friend to push us north. Luckily as we were sculling hard to stay off Whidbey Island a passing sailor offered a tow, which we accepted inspite of his warning that he might be one toke over the line. We were in tow for about an hour, listening to the whine of his outboard blend with the sound of the banjo he was playing. Turning us loose again south of Smith Island our tow continued on leaving us to wallow around drifting with no wind. Trying to get the spinnaker to fly while watching the breakers getting closer and closer as we drifted down on Minor Island, I was getting stressed. Julia on the other hand was happy to get a close up view of the birds and seals that make this exposed and sandy shoal their home. Then the wind came and saved us, shooting us north to Lopez island where we barely made it into Watmough Bay before the tide turned and once again sent us off in the wrong direction. Some lessons learned.
There is a ton of sweet deep water climbing in these islands. non of it gets climbed ever. Luke I need your muscles. i couldn't make the lip
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08/16/2009, Kala Point
Today we spent the day at Kala Pt. In the morning at low tide Badu was touching the bottom a few steps from the beach. This shallow draft is awesome. I pulled up two large horse clams which we made a chowder with for dinner. A few chores during the day like making an aft tramp, an evening walk, and somehow it is night again. The voyaging life is like a pleasant dream from which there is no awakening.
Life on Badu has been as expected with a few surprises thrown in to keep things intresting. One detail we overlooked is just how much damage is done to ones clothing and deck boots when living on 80 grit sandpaper. Foul weather pants and boots will be destroyed in a month or so, but we'll stick to the deck!
Before we left Seattle we filled the bilges with food and water leaving everything else a shifting heap that migrates around inside the hulls. We have some storage inside with nets strung down each side but they are full, and the space between is occupied by our bodies and the bags and rudders and books and water cans and tool boxes and fishing gear and boots that we share it with. This coastal cruising provides plenty of time for the shuffle of stuff that is necessary for tasks such as cooking or cleaning because we are at anchor so much. This wont work offshore so we are busy perfecting both the storage and practice of using it. With micro cruising everything becomes a practice like a martial art or meditation. In this case there is some contortion and confined scooting like living in a culvert under the road. Julia says its a pretty glamorous life, I would agree having tried the culvert and found it wanting.
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