Linger Longer

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Reflections by Kirk 8-20-2013

01 September 2013
Reflections by Kirk 08-20-2013

Sure is a good thing that we are not on a tight schedule. The weather pattern has been a bit unusual for this time of year. Normally, in late summer, a high-pressure system settles over the north Pacific and brings relatively nice weather with lots of warm, sunny afternoons and northwest winds from ten to twenty knots. Our weather for the past two weeks has been dominated by low-pressure systems that have produced rain and winds from the southeast up to thirty-five knots or gale force winds from the direction in which we need to travel. The North Pacific Ocean is cold so we expect to wear layers of clothing when we are out in the ocean, but when we get into some of these calm secluded anchorages a few miles inland, we expect shorts and tee shirt conditions rather than fleece and rain gear. The west side of Vancouver Island has five major Sounds which are big, long inlets usually with several branching arms; and our exposure to the nasty winds and seas are when we travel from one Sound to the next. Once we are within the confines of a Sound, it is relatively easy to move from one anchorage to another. Other boats out here, of which there are few, face the same conditions. We all tend to wait for a weather forecast of conditions which will allow us to safely and comfortably go back out into the ocean to round some point or peninsula to get into the next sound to the southeast. This is really serious business as the coastline here has thousands of boat crunching rocks all over the place and the prospect of finding our way through or around them while fighting high winds and the corresponding uncomfortable seas…. Well, we would rather not do that if we don’t need to. If we had to maintain a tight schedule for some reason, we may feel forced into making some unfortunate decisions.

All is not bad. We have had the opportunity to explore some of these sounds more intimately than we may have otherwise. When we get to a new anchorage, sometime between when we get the anchor set and the time we go to bed, we get out the charts and guidebooks to scout the next day’s opportunities. There are usually multiple options of potentially excellent spots within an hour or three and we have often moved just to see what another place looks and feels like rather than try and move on down to the next sound. Consequently, we have been to more cool places than we had anticipated. The first time we explored the west side of Vancouver Island; we only spent about two and one half weeks out here. We have already been here for over three weeks and are maybe a little over half way down the west side. We have had the chance to do more fishing and crabbing. By the way, since the “agony of defeat” day where the score read fish two/Kirk zero, we have caught a fish every day that we tried. We get one fish and quit, as we really don’t have enough freezer space to keep more and the fish have been big enough that we cannot eat all of it in one meal. Both Kris and I have been reading much more than would be normal for us. We have done quite a bit of exploration by dingy and kayaks. Social activity has also been a fringe benefit of our forced confinement while waiting for weather. We found ourselves traveling with two other boats for the past two or three weeks. When we finally get a forecast of appropriate weather, we all go down to the next sound and we all tend to stop at the first place that offers a very secure anchorage. The three boats may move around to different places within each sound, but it seems that we have not gone more than a day or two without sharing a place with one or both of the other boats. This has resulted in several evenings of dinner together or just hanging out on one another’s boat. All three boats have two kayaks aboard and this just results in cool stuff. The potential for some lasting relationships is good, which brings me to another subject.

I suppose that any type of activity that brings people together creates a form of camaraderie; whether it be boating, work, motorcycles, fishing, dancing, bridge, etc. Kris and I have been around for more than a few decades now and have been involved with many different groups like that. Our years of motorcycling produced several strong friendships and other activities have produced good times and good friends that we will never forget. Family and friends that we have known for decades are different. I’m talking about an activity that brings people with similar interests together. Boating, particularly sail boating, is an activity that, for us, has produced a very large circle of people that we feel particularly good with. Maybe we just got lucky and hooked up with the right group or maybe there is something about the nature of the activity that binds us together so strongly. I really don’t know yet.

A subset of sail boating, cruising sailboats I think will take the idea of camaraderie to an entirely new and higher level. We have heard of and now have felt this. I suspect that living in a very mobile home, exposing all of your earthly possessions to the whims of Mother Nature every minute of every day produces an altered focus and mindset that to some degree must be shared by all cruising sail boaters. As our years of being cruising sailors mount, I hope to explore these relationships and am confident that we will develop lifetime friendships even though the time spent together with other cruisers may be relatively limited. Stay tuned.

Now for some exciting stuff. Kris wrote in the blog that we had close encounters with humpback whales while rounding the Brooks Peninsula and I want to expand on what she wrote. When we see whales, it usually starts when we see a “blow” that looks like a narrow vertical stream of mist that goes maybe twenty or thirty feet above water level. We watch that area for a while until we see more “blows” and try to determine which direction the whale or whales are traveling. If it is far away we are not too concerned, but if it looks like we may get close or cross paths we alter course to pass not too closely behind the whale. On this day we decided to round Brooks Peninsula, which juts out into the ocean for five or six miles. This area is notorious for confused seas as the bottom rapidly rises from very deep to relatively shallow and is centered around a huge barren rock called Solander Island located about one mile beyond the end of the Peninsula. This rapid shallowing of the ocean bottom that causes the confused seas also brings whale food from way down deep and concentrates it in this place (we later discovered). The day started with dense fog, but as the weather forecast was for a day without gales from the southeast, we decided to motor around this potentially nasty place with radar and electronic charting. About two thirds of the way out to Solander Island the fog ended. We raised the sails to a gentle wind doing three to four knots through the water and noticed a few “blows” that were probably a mile or more out toward Solander, not close enough to worry about. I really don’t understand how this happened as we thought we were paying attention, but all of a sudden we were in the middle of a huge herd of humpbacks. They were everywhere. I believe that there must have been at least fifty whales and Kris thinks there were many more. For a period of at least one half hour, if I made a visual sweep of just what was in front of us and to the sides, I could not go ten seconds without seeing either a “blow” or the body or descending tail of a humpback. It did not seem that altering our course would make any difference, as they were just everywhere. After a while I went from slack jawed amazement to nervousness as the very real possibility of making contact with one of these giants became apparent. We were trying to track just the whales within a few hundred yards of our boat. It was really no longer an issue of trying to maintain a respectable distance from them, it was now a matter of trying to avoid contact with them. When we saw one surface close by our port beam, go back down and then resurface again close by our starboard beam, the nervous feeling accelerated and my legs started to shake a little. During this whole episode both Kris and I were sure that we could occasionally hear the songs of the humpback. Some may have been random boat noises, but some certainly were not. We finally got to where there were only a few whales in front of us so we started the motor and cleared out the area as fast as we could. In all of the excitement, neither one of us ever thought about the camera, but many snippets of a half hour “video” are still replaying in my brain.

Thar she blows!
Comments
Vessel Name: S/V Linger Longer
Vessel Make/Model: Sceptre 41/43
Hailing Port: Seattle, WA
Crew: Kirk & Kristin Doyle
Extra:
Our adventure started Sunday, June 16, 2013 with many friends "cutting our dock lines" at Shilshole Bay Marina in Seattle, Washington. When we left we knew we were pressed for time to reach southeast Alaska for the most favorable cruising months. After contemplating this dilemma for a short [...]
Home Page: http://www.k2doyle.com
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