Cruising Active Transport

We circumnavigated between 2008 and 2014. After sailing to Alaska we ended up in Seattle for four years.

19 September 2018
Youtube Video of our Voyage
08 August 2018 | Marina del Rey
Settling in at Marina del Rey
23 July 2018 | Marina del Rey
We are tied up in MDR
22 July 2018 | 25 miles west of Cambria
Good first day
21 July 2018 | Crossing Monterey Bay
Whales
21 July 2018 | South of the Golden Gate
On our way on the last leg
16 July 2018
Enjoying the Bay Area
14 July 2018 | Grand Marina
Change in Marina
14 July 2018 | San Francisco Bay
Back in the Bay After Ten Years
13 July 2018 | Point Arena
Passing Point Arena
12 July 2018 | Thirty Miles NW of Humbolt Bay, CA
Weather Is a Bit More Contrary Than Forecasted
11 July 2018 | Crescent City
Not a Whole Lot to Report
10 July 2018 | Neah Bay
Waiting in Crescent City for Blustery Weather to Die Down
09 July 2018 | Thirty five miles WNW of Reedsport, Oregon
Another Day of Motoring in Flat Water
08 July 2018 | Forty Miles West of Columbia River Entrance
A Successful First Day at Sea
07 July 2018 | Neah Bay
On our way
06 July 2018 | Neah Bay Marina
The Gods of Lousy Weather Don't Want Us to Change Our Minds
05 July 2018 | Neah Bay Marina
Weather Still Looking Good for a Saturday Departure
04 July 2018
Tied up in Neah Bay
03 July 2018 | Port Angeles City Floats
Docked on the Cheap in Port Angeles

Youtube Video of our Voyage

19 September 2018
John
I just added a link to a youtube video of a google earth animation that shows the route we took around the world. The route for our circumnavigation is in red. Our subsequent voyage to Alaska and then Seattle is in Yellow.

Settling in at Marina del Rey

08 August 2018 | Marina del Rey
John
We have been here in Los Angeles for two weeks, at this point, and life has settled into familiar routines.

We bought a car. We got a 2012 Honda Civic that runs on compressed natural gas. Almost all the airport shuttles use CNG for fuel so there are quite a few fueling stations nearby.

CNG and Electric vehicles are the only ones that are allowed to use the car pool lanes with only 1 person in the car. They used to allow hybrid vehicles to use those lanes but ended that program when Toyota sold thousands of Prius cars just so their owners could get the magic sticker that entitled them to use the carpool lanes. The carpool lanes became so crowded that their original purpose, of encouraging car pooling, was negated.

We have both ordered bicycles. Neither has shown up yet but we expect them to be very useful here in Marina del Rey because parking can be a real problem in the shopping plazas like the one where we have to go to pick up our mail.

The bicycle trails are well developed in this part of Los Angeles. It is possible to ride all the way to Malibu on bike trails and there are a lot of cultural activities that we will be able to bike to. We are going to see Shakespeare by the Sea this Saturday evening at Pollywog park in Manhattan Beach. We are seeing "The Merry Wives of Winsor" which is Shakespeare's take on "Housewives of Beverly Hills."

We have also bought tickets to a couple of events at the Hollywood Bowl this month. The first is a performance by the LA Symphony. dorected by Dutamel and with Itzhak Perlman on the violin. The, later in the month we are going to a performance of Carmina Burana.

The Hollywood bowl is a wonderful venue for big performances. It's way too big for a lot of things but it is very nice to have your picnic dinner and wine before the performance starts.

LA has so much going on that we could spend a fortune on everything that is worth seeing.

We have been having a heat wave but here on the edge of the ocean we have cooling breezes most of the day.

Shawn has actively started looking for a job and has a lot of leads on really interesting opportunities. A couple of the jobs he has looked at are in Santa Monica which is so close that his commute would consist of a 25 minute bike ride along the beach.

Im adding a satellite view of Marina del Rey that I snagged from google earth. At the bottom are some of the runways at LAX. Any of our international friends with layovers at LAX can easily come visit us. Give us enough warning and we will pick you up. Visiting some place like Venice Beach would be a lot more fun that sitting in the airport.

The blue dot in the marina is our slip.

We are tied up in MDR

23 July 2018 | Marina del Rey
John
After a bumpy ride around Point Conception last night we made it to marina del Rey around 5 PM this afternoon.

It was a motor boat trip the whole way.

After a couple of tries we got docked with the help of our friend Cecile who was sitting on her boat waiting for us and then did her Vanna White imitation to show us to our slip.

Tomorrow we will be occupied with errands like getting a mailbox, getting driver's licenses, picking up a rental car, etc.

At the fuel dock in Oakland Shawn's shorts got caught on the lifeline and it ripped the pocket off. His cell phone was in the pocket and it had a pocket on the back that contained his driver's license and credit cards. So replacing all that stuff will be among the errands we have to deal with.

Our friend Cecile, who has her sailboat next to our old slip in Seattle, is coming by in a few minutes so we can go get some supper. I ate the last of our KFC this morning (aka the Breakfast of Champions)
Vessel Name: Active Transport
Vessel Make/Model: Tayana 37 PH
Hailing Port: Seattle, Washington
Crew: John and Shawn
About:
John and Shawn left San Francisco in September of 2008 to sail around the world. They completed their circumnavigation when the came out of the Panama Canal in late October 2013. From there they sailed to Mexico, out to Hawaii and up to Kodiak, Alaska. [...]
Extra:
This blog is intended for friends and family who may or may not be sailors. It is not intended to provide technical details of any of the boat's systems. Its purpose is to keep friends up-to-date on our progress and, whereabouts Following the completion of our circumnavigation our blog entries [...]
Active Transport's Photos - Panama Canal Transit Photos from Linda Charest
Photos 1 to 31 of 31 | Cruising Active Transport (Main)
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This is Linda Charest from Alberta Canada. She just happened to be doing a tour of the Panama Canal on the Pacific Queen the day we ended up rafted up to the tour boat while going through the Pedro Miguel ad Miraflores locks. She struck up a conversation with our friend Brian during the down times when we were waiting for the water to run out of the locks and also took a lot of good photos from an angle we dont normally get to see ourselves from. She sent the photos and consented to let me post them here.
According to the numbering of her photos this must have been the first one Linda took. We were rafted up to the Pacific Queen with our starboard side against the tour boat in the Pedro Miquel lock. In the Miraflores locks we were rafted port side to.
Our line handler, adviser and El Capitan seeking shelter from the rain under the cockpit cover.
Linda even thought to get a pic with the name of our boat
We put the dingy in its davits for the transit because we wanted to have as much room as possible on deck for line handling. At sea the dingy rides upside down on the foredeck. The blue tarp was something we rigged up to protect the solar panels over the cockpit from damage from the monkey fists the line handlers use to send the messenger line out to the boat when we needed lines to the top of the walls of the locks.
Im not sure our lines were always that neatly arranged but Linda managed to catch us looking somewhat shipshape. Since we were rafted up for all our downlocking on the second day of our transit the guys were probably in the process of getting the lines ready to send ashore when we were thorough the canal.
Here is Shawn, Brian and Bart just after the rainstorm stopped.
Brian right beside his camera that he mounted on the boom gallows. This is the camera he used to get most of the photos he used in the video he made. Its the same underwater camera he used when we went snorkeling with him and his wife Claudia in Vanuatu a couple of years earlier.
soggy Bart still looked like he was having a good time.
Bart was getting wet at this point and it probably felt pretty good compared with the humid weather we had for most of our transit.
Linda must have been seeking refuge from the downpour when she took this shot that shows us and also the hundred year old concrete walls of the lock chamber. It
Another shot of Bart soaking wet.
Here is Brian chatting it up with people on the Pacific Queen.
Shawn and Brian and Bart and our tidied up rented lines. The lines were 3/4 inch polypro and did not get much use during our transit.
From left to right this pic shows Brian, John and Shawn with our panamax lock mate in the background.
Brian, John and Shawn posing for Linda on the Pacific Queen
Each side of the canal has three chambers to raise and lower the boats that pass through. On the Caribbean side all three chambers are joined together in a row in the Gatun locks. On the Pacific side there is one chamber in the Pedro Miguel locks and then a couple of miles through the Miraflores lake until the final two chambers in the Miraflores locks. This photo was taken in the Pedro Miquel locks. You can see the level of the Miraflores lake beyond the closed gate. In a few minutes we would be floating in the Miraflores lake.
By this point our tarp that was intended to protect the solar panels had filled with water but since we were locking down tied to the Pacific Queen we did not have to worry about monkey fists on our second day. In this photo you can see the steel cables on the ship that lead to the mules on the tracks at the top of the lock wall. Those cables sure look thin to be controlling the position of such a big ship in such a confined space.
Bart was checking his camera that was mounted on the bow pulpit and Brian and shawn were just chatting as we waited for them to pull the plug on the chamber we were in.
This is Captain John chatting with a soaking wet Shaw before the pulled the plug on the chamber we were in. We were waiting for them to secure the ship behind us before the started lowering us toward the Pacific Ocean. The Captain got to stand behind the wheel and under the cockpit cover during the downpour. It
A very nice photo of Shawn sporting his San Diego Chargers
Only one more chamber to go and we will be done with this part of our adveture.
This shot was taken while we were tied port side to and shows our adviser taking it easy under the cockpit cover
It started to rain just as we were motoring to the next chamber.
We needed to get a head start on the Pacific Queen once we untied and were headed tot he next lock chamber. She could out run us with no problem so we tried to be in position to tie up to her when she was secured in the next chamber
Here we are motoring between the two chambers at the Miraflores locks. At this point the Pacific Queen was well ahead of us but we were not feeling too stressed because the ship that was downlocking with us took a lot longer to get between chambers. In this photo you can see how the leaves of the gates on the locks fit into recesses in the walls that maintains the maximum width all the way through the locks. You can just see the lock control building on top of the wall on the left. This shot gives you some idea of the distance we dropped in the chamber behind us. When we entered that chamber the water, in the chamber was only a couple of feet below the top of the gates for the lock.
The Pacific Queen continued to pull ahead but we were not in a hurry since we wanted to give her time to get tied up in the next chamber before we pulled along side. The building on the right is the Miraflores Visitor Center.
We are getting farther behind the Pacific Queen but our big lock mate had still not budged. It takes a while for them to nudge one of these panamax ships through the locks.
This photo gives you a pretty good idea of how long the locks are. The last chamber ended right below the lock control building and the next chamber is stretched out in front of it. We sailed this tiny boat around the world. Were we really nuts like some of our friends think?
They did not have to get the gates on the last lock open very far before we were on our way into the Pacific Ocean.
At this point we were making tracks toward the bridge of the Americas. Once under it we will have crossed our outbound track and tied the knot on our circumnavigation.
 
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On the hook in Tomales Bay

Who: John and Shawn
Port: Seattle, Washington