Wild Blue Yonder

Vessel Name: Shala
Vessel Make/Model: Sceptre 41
Hailing Port: Nanaimo, B.C.
Crew: Skipper: Harry Nichols Mates: Moe Graham, Laurie Graham
About: Moe and Laurie Graham will be accompanying the boat on the first leg to mexico, departing aug 2017. both are seasoned sailors and wonderful folks.
Extra:
this blog ( and associated philosophy ) has given me cause for much reflection , discussion , and eventual compromise , for the ones i love , and i havent even made a post yet. apparently the time for fence sitting is over. welcome friends and family and loved ones. and for all you spies and [...]
13 September 2017 | ensenada, mexico
07 September 2017 | Ensenada, Mexico
23 August 2017 | off the coast of oregon
15 August 2017
13 August 2017 | ukee
10 August 2017 | uclulet
07 August 2017 | Nanaimo, BC
06 August 2017 | currently in the gulf islands on the shakedown cruise
28 July 2017 | Nanaimo, BC
Recent Blog Posts
13 September 2017 | ensenada, mexico

sittin at the dock of the bay

so i sit in paradise…a week has gone by…more…i cant remember how long ive been here. my crew left me today and suddenly the “irma” of activitiy is over. the first few days were surreal. i awoke the first morning and had to pinch myself. here i am in paradise…somehow ive managed to get my [...]

07 September 2017 | Ensenada, Mexico

Post by Moe

Post by Moe

23 August 2017 | off the coast of oregon

a day at sea

23 aug 2017

15 August 2017

Pedder Bay to Ucluelet

Post by Laurie

Post by Moe

07 September 2017 | Ensenada, Mexico
Post by Moe
leaving on a solar eclipse seems like an auspicious way to start an adventure like this. im glad to be off the dock because im tired of the pre-trip stress and emotions After all, I've done this before....or have i ? anyhow 2 days in ukee fog was enough for me. harrys cdn cash was evaporating fast and laurie was balancing on a great emotional divide. prior to leaving harry invested in an iridium go sat comm system and the technical rigmarole took all of saturday and sunday and left little time for much else. we had a total of 4 computers and phones operating on a satellite wifi hot spot that was supposed to deliver email, text messaging, and weather forecasting. in addition to that we were collecting weather fax data on the hf radio via an hp pc and frankly the flurry of technical discussion was consuming the entire attention of captain and crew. but in spite of it all we did leave the fuel dock fully loaded with food, fresh water, and fuel including 175 litres in jerry cans in the lazerettes.
into the sunshine just after the passing of the moon in front of the sun. as i was off watch i went to bed. 24 hrs of nice, fast, full sail broad reaching. we acclimatized our selves to the watch system we had set up. mine had 2 dog watches of 2 hrs each, so i did the 2000 - 2200 and got to see some great sunsets, but the 0200-0400 was ugly, the wind seemed to blow harder , the waves came from everywhere, it was rougher and scarier with that hollow in-mast furling system making the creepiest wail ever.
slowly slowly the wind diminished, hmmm we did not pick that up in the pre trip weather forecast. im reluctant to switch from my internet based forecasting to old school methods of data collection, like vhf, hf, barometer readings and weather fax (yes weatherfax is old school ) now we are back in the stone age of dial up modems but at 10%the speed of the slowest dial up ever invented. What? no google? so why did the wind die? like i said we missed an important clue, more on that later. so we motored for 12 hours till we found some wind...in the wrong direction. from the SE not the NW. laurie was not impressed and flat out told us we were incompetent meteorologists. now i do admit im no weather guru, but im not exactly new to this either, but i had to endure her glare for another 6 hours, as the wind continued to back to the sw forcing us to sail close hauled when we should have been broad reaching. oh well i did catch a tuna which distracted us for a while. when we finally felt that sw peter out harry was the first to notice that black line off to the nw, immediately followed by a sudden and dramatic rain squall. at first i was elated to see the nw, then vindicated, as i shouted to my long suffering wife, see!! old mister nw is here. my next thought was oh shit, this looks ugly, the wind hit us at 21-25 kts, and continued to climb into the high 20's making a complete mess of the ocean surface and dismantling the remaining sw swell into breaking waves. we took a wave in the cockpit around dinner time, and things were on the verge of becoming unmanageable so we made a plan to heave-to so we can rest up and allow the sea to settle. its all about the sea state all the time. the wind strength and direction can be irrelevant at times and may or may not contribute to a rough sea, but other factors such as , current, and other layers of ocean swell can and will influence the size and duration of the waves and the sea state.

We began to sail into the Cape Mendicino area of influence and what an area! Covering the distance from the Columbia River between Washington and Oregon states all the way past Point Conception for another three hundred miles to the south and up to two hundred miles wide. It's a giant area and it's a gale factory most of the time. A gale is defined by winds up to 34 knots. Day by day the wind increased and so did the seas, it became choppy, sleep was difficult and we got grumpy. The distance between waves was not much, maybe 5 - 10 seconds making things very uncomfortable and hard to cook and, as I do have experience as a sea cook, it took a lot of my effort just to make dinner happen.

Maddening. The sea is wearing us down more than we expected. The sea is more rowdy and Mr. Radar has failed to detect three fishing boats within three miles and less. We had suspected radar issues entering Ucluelet, but we decided it was incorrect tuning by the operator. This was not good. An unreliable radar is a liability. Almost immediately the sat phone stopped sending text messages. We could receive some incoming messages, but were unable to send. The next problem was the HF radio that was paired to an HP PC through a Pactor modem. It was freezing up and causing the PC and the modem to require restarting.

So we are down to AIS and visual only. We can't trust the radar and we know for sure that not all boats transmit AIS. We know that because we are one of those boats. Having said that, most larger boats and tow boats do use AIS, but during the whole time we saw only one fishing vessel displaying an AIS signal.

At night, in the fog, it is very stressful not to have the right electronic equipment. I wonder how many we missed in the night?

We gradually reduced sail until we had furled 3/4 of the main sail, eventually taking it all in. We tried wing on wing with a very small poled out genoa but we felt it was overpowering the autohelm (ST 7000). The wind occilations of the boat as it got out of sync with the waves was awesome to see and the auto pilot (aka auto) was the hero. We did need to do a small electrical repair on the autopilot. One ten minute stint of hand steering was enough to convince me that auto was the most valuable of us all.

Eventually with the wind hovering in the high 30s, gusting to the 40s, we reduced sail further to 0 main and a mere two feet of poled out genny and were hitting boat speeds of 10-11 knots. One day was amazing - we covered 140 miles. All the power you can handle, as long as you can handle it. It all sounds like tough guy stuff, and it is and it isn't. We are not really tough guys, but we are all very adaptable and we are working well as a crew. We are eating well, sleeping whenever possible and Laurie is becoming extraordinarily competent as an offshore navigator and, as a result, has been promoted to Nav Master and Breakfast Cook. Harry gets the best watches, but is getting the least sleep. Harry is performing brilliantly as a captain. He is adapting to his captaincy very well. We appreciate him taking care of the vessel and its myriad systems.

Time seems bent somehow. Priorities break into numerical values of equal, greater or lesser importance. For example, speed of the wind, speed of the boat, the time of day, the time it will be tomorrow, the distance to go, the course to cover, the direction we are going, the angle of attack, our bearing, and so on. They all matter. It's all very important. In addition, there is vessel traffic, what is their speed, what is their course, what is our course? It's all a whole bunch of numbers and that's all we seem to care about at this point at this time. Life becomes very simple, it's all a matter of numbers.

San Francisco looms for days as we try to run our easting down, broad reaching and still poled out. Laurie is the one who provides the next terror of the day as she scours the weather fax, the gribs and the offshore text forecast. Once we had determined that the 3 meter swell leftover from Kenneth were forecast from the south up to 31* north. Exactly where we were going. We took the foot off the gas for 10 hours to let it by and spent a day loafing off of Point Conception at 4.3 knots. Then, Lidia! Localized thunder cells off the Catalina Islands! Live fire military drill exercises to the east, dense fog and Lidia is dissipating. Lidia is increasing. Lidia is stalled. Lidia is not stalled, but heading NW to a point up to the head of the Sea of Cortez. Not far from where we're going. Bummer. So, LA? San Diego? Or Ensenada? Ensenada is the port of choice for us but no one is keen to experience a possible 50 knot SE winds as the remnant of Lidia is expected to be.

The wind died completely off San Nicholas Island. Motor on for 30 hours direct to Ensenada, flying fish everywhere, sunshine, warmth, smiles all around. Motored through thick smoke and ash from a wild fire behind Ensenada. Docked at Cruiseship Village and we are done we made it ahead of Lidia by 6 hrs!
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Shala's Photos - Main
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Created 10 September 2017
A few photos from the journey
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Created 5 September 2017

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10 September 2017
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