Day 18 – The last night and final thoughts
31 July 2009 | Port Townsend
Scott
I passed by Cape Flattery at 9:00pm and was trying to decide whether I should stop and rest or just keep going. I felt good and excited about making it to land and decided to just keep going. I figured I would not sleep that well in Neah Bay anyway. The sun was setting as I headed down the Strait and I was ready for a fairly relaxing all night motoring adventure. Adventure is what it turned out to be.
As soon as the sun set the wind filled in. Forecast was for light to no winds but by 10:00 is was blowing 25 knots and the fog had rolled in for the night. Of course as soon as I got the sails up the wind went back to nothing but the fog stayed. It is such a busy body of water that all commercial traffic is controlled and they stay in their designated channels which is nice. I was able to stay off to the side out of the commercial traffic. There were quite a few boats out that night that were showing on the radar all heading in our out of the Strait.
My only real issue was how cold it was. Earlier that day Seattle set a record for the hottest day recorded but I think I had the coldest night of my life. Between the fog and dampness and water it was a cold that went right through you. I was wearing two pairs of socks, long underwear, pants, sweatshirt, jacket and wool hat and I was still cold. I would come down inside the boat and turn the stove on just to get warm.
When the morning light came I was just off of Port Angeles going very slow in the tide rips. Tide that morning was flowing at about 4 knots and I motor at 6 knots which meant I was making about 2 knots forward. It was still really foggy and strange blips started showing up on the radar. Looking out into the fog I could not make out what was coming at me and all of a sudden I was surrounded by a pod of Orca whales all jumping out of the water playing in the tide rips. They were quite impressive and were a nice welcoming to the Northwest.
The rest of the morning was uneventful and I motor-sailed into Port Townsend at 11:30. I had a surprise greeting by friends from Port Townsend and Seattle which was very nice.
Since arriving I have had time to relax, clean and sleep. All is good.
Thanks for joining along for the adventure and I will leave you with some random thoughts that I had about doing the trip solo.
Thoughts on sailing solo . . .
I have been wanting to do a solo passage for a long time and when I decided that this was the year to bring SCOOTS back to Seattle I also made up my mind that I would bring her back alone. These are some random thoughts that I had about the trip and sailing solo that I thought I would share.
So why do this alone? It is certainly more dangerous and if something goes wrong the opportunity for assistance is few and far between. Many would say that it is an irresponsible and selfish act. For me it was a goal and journey that I have been working toward for many years and I was prepared to accept the risks. It is important to know that this was not a box I was trying to check so that I can say, did that. For me it was a journey of sailing, the challenge of being alone, test of personal skills and strength and the thrill of achievement. This was my chance to do what I love and to experience the adventure as me in my purest form. Not diluted by any outside influences.
There are not many opportunities in life where you get to spend three weeks with no one but yourself. I think some might find this quite scary but I really enjoyed it. It gave me time to reflect and think about many things that are going in my life as well as the greater world. I can't say that I was ever lonely. I missed my kids and friends and family but in a healthy way. There were certainly moments when I wished that someone else could have seen or experienced what I was.
I think when sailing alone you make a choice of how much risk are you willing to take for the rest you need. You don't know when that next ship is going to come over the horizon and if you want to be 100% safe then you will check every 20 minutes 24 hours a day. That was not going to work for me so I sought a balance that allowed me to get the rest I needed but still be reasonably safe. I felt that the risk of doing something stupid because I had not slept for more than 20 minutes at a time was greater than being run down by a ship. Three times a day I would sleep for 90 minutes and I would combine that with a few 30 minute naps. In all I was getting 5+ hours of sleep which is plenty for me.
More than on any other passage, I really enjoyed sailing the boat. I spent far more time tweaking and tuning and making sure everything was just right and when the boat responded it felt like we were a team. What I really found interesting was that I sailed bolder and more confident than when I have crew.
Now that it is over I can honestly say it was my best passage ever. The weather was kind to me, the boat worked flawlessly and I did not make any serious mistakes. This will not be my last solo passage but it is one that I will always remember and will always have a special sense of achievement.