Dick says once you’ve navigated the Wrangell Narrows you can put that on your sailing resume. My sailing resume now can state, "Safely provided backseat navigation of Wrangell Narrows."
We are in Petersburg. It’s supposed to be a lovely, quaint town of 3500 people who are very neat and clean, thanks to their Norwegian heritage. We shall never know. We are staying inside the boat, discouraged by the pounding rain. I’m sure it’s just lovely.
Tomorrow we head up to our very first glacier – Tracy Arm. I’m to look for icebergs tomorrow. Ah. Just think, most people go over to the Caribbean with their cruising boats. But not us. At least, not yet. This will make us appreciate it. At least we’re not still in San Francisco trying to breathe the smoke-filled air from all the fires. Here, at least, we are breathing just fine…lots of moist, fresh air.
Our favorite spot so far is Misty Fiords (and not just because it has a cool, exotic name). We counted more waterfalls than bathroom stalls at LAX. The place is amazing. We had stocked up on crab and shrimp pot gear while we were in Ketchikan:
Crab pot -- $100 Shrimp pot -- $120 Other junk -- 200 The joy in finally catching a crab? Priceless
You should have seen us deploying these traps for the first time. We bumbled around like first-graders with a chemistry set. We spent the good part of an evening dropping the two pots and the next morning I sent forth our great, white hunter to collect the proceeds. He pulled up the prawn pot; no dough. He pulled up the crab pot and, lo and behold, one (1) crab! He nearly jumped out of the dinghy in surprise. Later he quipped, "It was like the Deadliest Catch!"
Last night Dick decided he would catch a halibut. .,eu,niyndfkljwehfnv [Excuse me, I was still laughing.] "I’m Jigging," he explains. He is jerking his fishing pole up and down like a carousel pony. "It’s when you lure the fish into thinking there’s a fish in trouble that will be easy prey." He has bathed his colorful lure with very aptly-named Butt Juice. The lure’s yellow and white streamers flutter very attractively. As we wait, he tries different techniques. First there is the straight up and down jig. This is akin to the missionary position in jigging and it is not exciting to watch or participate in, apparently. So he enhances his repertoire to include exotic moves like figure eights, before introducing increasingly higher levels of difficulty. "That’s good," I encourage him. "That must look like final death throes down there. I’m sure it’s like Madame Butterfly."
Did I happen to mention that I’ve been appointed to the position of Gaffer? The Gaffer gets to take this pole with a steel hook on the end, poke it into the halibut’s gill whenever Dick pulls it out of the water and hold the approximately 100-pound fish thusly until Dick manages to do something about it. (What that something was has yet to be explained or probably even thought through, exactly.) Fortunately, halibut did not apparently find our Butt Juice stimulating enough. I ate chicken last night." * * * *
I*N*S*I*D*E P*A*S*S*A*G*E by Sharon Drechsler
Dick’s hand is shaking too much for him to unscrew the bolts to the seal that was supposed to provide a water-tight connection between our sailboat’s engine and the propeller. Sea water is gushing in around the coupling like the return of the Red Sea after Moses led out the Israelites. The piercing, electronic bleeping of the high-water alarm is incessant. As I shake off sleep and try to focus, one thought lights up in my brain like an old-fashioned burlesque marquee: What are two almost-senior citizens doing here, anyway?
At this point, I’m an unlikely candidate to master any Zen-like moments of spiritual calm. But, somehow, I manage to get the wrench started. In a matter of moments Dick regains his composure. He takes over again. I take a look at myself in a new light. Who is this cool-headed woman methodically reviewing a checklist of emergency procedures?
1) Finish getting dressed in the warmest clothes available (it’s 3:00 am and we’re three miles out to sea – west, northwest of Crescent City, CA). Check.
2) Throw go-bags into our dinghy. Check.
Well, that’s about it, actually. My other mental checklist is of items to do if/when we survive:
1. Enhance my list of emergency procedures. 2. Start drilling on emergency procedures. 3. Drill some more on emergency procedures.
Dick is now confident. He’s reattached the coupling and the bilge pump has taken care of the excess water. Dick is incredibly adept at handling any emergency that arises on-board and actually seems to welcome the challenge. Which is probably what we’re doing here in the first place -- I snort mentally – conquering new horizons. It’s like being married to Lewis and Clark. Let’s face it, kids: I’m living his dream. Apparently that dream requires extreme tests of stamina, endurance and nerves. We’re pounding into scary-looking twelve-foot seas. My hair has been permanently rearranged into a charming monk-like coif from being anchored under caps to protect against twenty-five-knot winds on the nose. We’re striving to beat our way toward the Inside Passage between Canada’s mainland and the Gulf Islands toward Alaska. As we fight our way from Los Angeles toward the Strait of Juan de Fuca, I think, what am I doing here?
And, why am I still asking this question? It’s been almost 18 months since we traded in our 36-foot boat for an almost 50-foot yacht (a Catalina 470). I had simultaneously started a new business performing public relations and marketing for a handful of select clients. Although communications with my clients in the beginning was often rough, it wasn’t impossible, so I managed to keep the business going. But as we made good on our intention to do some “serious cruising” as far north as Glacier Bay, Alaska, I began to feel ill at ease. Is this worth the risk?
In truth, despite years behind the mast of our 36, I’m only so-so when it comes to being seaworthy. And if you take into account mental readiness, my happiest days were actually when we briefly owned “the land boat,” a tiny, slide-in camper top which we trucked around on the back of a heavy duty Ford truck, from the Grand Canyon to Yellowstone. Now that was a vessel you could control: no weather issues, no running out of supplies and plenty of available ports-of-call. Not quite challenging enough for Dick, though, it would appear. Here’s his note from the log that day:
"APRIL 27, 2008 (SUNDAY): CRESCENT CITY, CA TO CHARLESTON HARBOR, COOS BAY, OR "Sky Condition: Overcast w/morning fog; visibility <1 NM Temperature: 48° - 50° F Wind Direction: N to SW Wind Speed: 2 - 10 kts. Wave Height: 2 - 6 feet Total Miles: 116.3. NM Miles Under Power: 116.3 NM (Motorsailing) Miles Under Sail: 0.0 NM Average Speed: 7.25 Knots Cumulative Miles: 953.75 NM
"This will be the last very long leg for awhile. We will hunker down in Coos Bay until at least Thursday, maybe Friday. Unfortunately, this leg did not start out well at all. First, I had some orientation problems getting out of the harbor. We had trouble with the E120 and for a few moments were sailing "blind" as we left the harbor. Once the radar was back on and the tracking restarted we were okay. But about 20 minutes later an alarm went off. I thought it was the LifeTag, but quickly determined that wasn't the problem. Seconds later, with an adrenalin rush, I discovered it was the HIGH WATER ALARM.
"It turned out to be the hex nuts on the shaft for the PSS system were loose and the flywheel, or restraining wheel, whatever they call it, had slipped up the shaft again causing a flood. THE GREAT NEWS IN ALL THIS IS THAT OUR SAFETY SYSTEMS WORKED PERFECTLY. This was the first real test of the High Water Alarm. Without it, the floorboards could have been awash and the batteries shorted out before I knew we had a problem.
"After that, things calmed down, Sharon went to bed and I'm answering a few emails and keeping occupied."
Now, does that sound at all like we faced down death in a scene that could be spliced into the film “Victory at Sea”? Does it even sound like we’re on the same boat? I had no idea there was any great news, other than the fact we survived.
This tells me Dick and I are living in strange and often complex, parallel universes. While he’s Peter Pan, I’m the conservative and reluctant Wendy. While he’s Captain Kirk – going where no man has gone before – I’m still Wendy. I haven’t gone anywhere at all. And maybe that’s my problem: while I talk a good line about loving to travel, I’m also risk-adverse.
The good news is that we made it safely to Coos Bay, Oregon and after that, all the way through the Strait of Juan de Fuca, the Georgia Strait and are now in the Queen Charlotte Strait. As I write this, we are waiting for a weather window to open so that we can cross Queen Charlotte Sound. We are deep within the Inside Passage, moored at a town called Port Hardy (now, doesn’t that name just tell it all?).
It’s been about four months since we undertook this journey, so it’s a good time to assess if we are ‘hardy’ enough to live on-board and roam from port to port for the foreseeable future. Yes, we’ve had a few emergencies since the Great Near-Sinking Episode, albeit none quite so life-or-death. Nonetheless, I find that I’m much calmer now during a day’s journey; my stomach is no longer tensed up from the moment we cast off, through the course of the sail and upon arrival at the next port-of-call.
So I guess, yes, I’ve made my own, inside passage of sorts, from reluctant swabby to capable crew member. I’ve had my confidence in my boat and my captain reinforced on an almost daily basis. I even find that I am less panicked about things that once possessed me: my work, my never-ending weight-loss diet. There has also been a transition internally from a workaholic, frantically multi-tasking my way through the day, to a woman who is gradually becoming accustomed to just being and enjoying each moment.
Twenty years, several shirt-sizes (and one wife) earlier, my husband, Captain Dick, had submitted an article to San Francisco’s legendary sailing magazine, Latitude 38, and was given a “Roving Reporter” tee-shirt. “Do we have the Roving Reporter shirt?” he’s now asking me.
“What’s the emergency?” I ask as I rummage through my locker. Of course I’ll have it. It’s my favorite tee-shirt, well-worn, roomy and a great color. (Of course, you have to overlook the bleach splotch around the navel area where I unfortunately leaned into my cleaning.) It’s my lucky hand-me-down, now that it no longer fits Dick.
“Richard Spindler, the publisher, is here at the Isthmus! Put it on and come ashore so we can show him. It’s an antique and I think he’ll get a kick out of it!”
“Ta-da!” Sure enough, it’s right on top of the pile and pretty soon I’m parading around like a rock star through the tiny outpost of Two Harbors, my ‘antiqued’ chest proudly swelling. We are told to look for a tall, handsome, broad-shouldered guy with tousled blond hair. That’s not much to go on. However, we are determined and give it a stab. No Richard. Nor is anyone aboard his enormous catamaran later that afternoon when we dinghy out to his anchorage.
The next day I ask Dick half-jokingly if I’m required to wear the shirt, again. He pretends to toy with the idea, but let’s me off the hook. We’re off for a tour of the USC Wrigley Science Center, a fascinating informational session led by three incredibly dedicated graduate students, being presented on Saturdays at 2 pm throughout the summer.
Afterwards, we are leaving the USC area when we spot activity aboard Richard’s catamaran, Profligate.
“Quick,” he cries. “Let’s grab the shirt!”
That’s what I love about Dick: He’s so “in the moment.” Whereas someone else might be too shy, too lazy, too afraid of rejection, he never hesitates to connect with other people. I learn from him every day.
So we blast our way over to the mooring area, hardly able to restrain ourselves from speeding through the no-wake zone. I dash on-board, nab our Latitude 38 artifact and we’re off to the cat.
Clearly, the crew has already weighed anchor and is setting sail. “Honey, they look pretty busy,” I say timidly.
Dick is unabashed. “Ahoy, there!” he shouts, waving our shirt like a burgee.
And there he is…there is Richard! Dick yells over the noise of several motors, “I wrote an article for your magazine and got this shirt, probably twenty years ago! I thought you’d be interested in seeing that it’s survived all this time.”
Richard welcomes us. He doesn’t know a stranger. “You want to come out for a sail?” he asks.
My gosh! We feel we’ve been invited aboard a magic carpet ride. We tie our dinghy to Richard’s buddy’s boat and are gingerly wrestled up the steps aboard one the huge cat’s slapping hulls.
Richard may be at the helm, but it turns out the real captain is his significant other, an exotic beauty wrapped in a sarong and handing out assignments to the crew. A commercially licensed sea captain (up to 100 tons), Doña divides her time between orchestrating the preparations for her own birthday celebration and managing the sail. Sailing the enormous vessel turns out to require several hands. Dick is quickly engaged in helping ease off a sheet as the huge mainsail begins to pick up the wind.
With a gentle breeze of 10-to-15 knots or so, we all get to take turns at the wheel.
“You’re doing great,” Richard encourages me during my turn as I reach for that afternoon’s record of 12.6 knots (only held for a few more minutes as it turns out). I’ll have bragging rights at the bar I am told. I am elated until I hear that means I’ll be buying the first round! I’m pretty relieved when I am bested.
As we are wafted along on Profligate’s enormous twin hulls, I have a moment to talk to Richard, who is the honorary and volunteer ‘Grand Poobah’ of the annual Baja Ha-ha. This is the famous 750-mile rally-cum-race from San Diego to Cabo San Lucas.
I must confess at this point that I had arrived on-board Richard’s boat more than a little awed by his reputation. People tend to speak of him as almost a mythical creature – a long-time bastion of the San Francisco sailing community and surpassing seaman: The Grand Poobah, who possesses all the mystique of Der Fleigland Hollander (whose fabled ghostly ship would rip past other vessels as they lay becalmed). But in Richard we find no Wagnerian dignitary, stooping to elevate with a bejeweled hand. He’s just a guy – a fellow cruiser.
Our spirits are lifted by the conviviality of the hour and that evening we muse about the draw of our calling. We have experienced another example that it’s more than the wheel’s kick and the wind’s song that lend the cruising life its allure; it has as much to do with the camaraderie of our fellow adventurers. The grandness of the Grand Poobah is that he, like us, is on this same journey, blown by the same winds, fair or otherwise. And, in our way, aren’t we all Grand Poobahs of our vessels and our destinies?
Puerto Santo Tomas
By Sharon Drechsler
Hold on a minute, because Dick is jumping up and down, laughing and singing, “We’re cruising! We’re cruising!”
Okay, I’m back. He’s calming down. It’s understandable. His elation has been building up over many months while our cruising life was delayed by a lengthy repair list for the boat and multiple business issues.
Very clearly, we are being taught patience by a higher power. Even before Dick and I were married , we decided our goal was to grow up and go cruising. Since then, we have moved through several different realities – different jobs, different homes and now different boats. We took possession of Last Resort in November of last year, trading in our Catalina 36 for a new Catalina 470, which my husband often tells me, is a real, live yacht. We took her to Ensenada, Mexico (via San Diego) and finally, here we are on March 1, 2007, finally cruising. (And, in actuality, until we sell our house in Scottsdale, we can’t actually be totally cruising as we would like.)
But at least we are finally able to take an overnight cruise out of the Hotel Coral Marina, our six-month base at Ensenada. We have a delightful sail to a tiny (and I do mean tiny) fishing village off the west coast of Mexico’s Baja California. There are less than fifteen tiny cottages lining the coast. On the road leading to the point is a peach-colored arch worthy of a Ben Hur movie, with the name Puerto Santa Tomas emblazoned over a road leading to more tiny cottages. In the bay below town are anchored a dozen modest pangas painted in bright pastels.
Two familial groups are gathering mussels from the stony shore. They pause for the amusement we provide as Last Resort threads this way and that to avoid maze-like clumps of seaweed and drops her anchor once, twice, well…three times, until we are happy with the final location.
But thank God for my thorough captain! Even if it took forty tries, you know he’d get it right. We are tucked safe and sound in our cozy anchorage and have our brand new flopper-stopper out (doing God-knows-what). Uh, perhaps this is as good a time as any to mention we later lose this ingenious device due to a faulty snap shackle. (Cappy says we’ll buy another one. Not to worry.)
So here we are relaxed, at last, when we hear, “Nothing.” That’s not good. We should be hearing our generator cranking out power. Seaweed has clogged its intake valve. We take about a ton of stuff out of a 3-foot by 4-foot space in the bilge underneath the Pullman berth and replace it with a sweaty, cursing captain. The whole evening passes in a blur as he grunts and groans and attacks the problem. All I remember is a studied discussion on which plug is most likely to prevent the boat from sinking. Once again, we are victorious. We watch “American Idol” in our nice warm cabin as our electric blanket is set on preheat.
A sunny morning finds no mussel-gatherers on the beach. There were no lights in the little village last night. Dick surmises there’s no electricity in town. Whoa. Guilt trip. We had more electricity on our boat last night than the entire town, thanks to our generator.
We have a terrific sail in 18-to-20-knot winds. Last Resort handles the upwind sail beautifully, despite facing some big seas, sometimes up to 8-to-10-feet. We duck back into our cruising port of call as the sun begins to set. There’s a lovely full moon and the beginning of Santana wind that promises warm temperatures tomorrow. It may take some time, but I think we’re going to become more and more accustomed to the cruising life.
La Bufadora By Sharon B. Drechsler
La Bufadora.... A non-speaker of Spanish might wonder what that is…some low-lidded, throaty lounge singer who’s seen better days? Perhaps a shard of Mayan crockery inlaid with an artfully crafted buffalo? No, it’s an ocean blowhole on Punta Banda, just south of the Baja California, Mexico seaside town of Ensenada.
The Spanish verb bufar means “to snort” and snort it does, with plumes of seawater shooting through rocks, spurting 60-to-70 feet into the air. They’re not bluffing, there’s plenty of puffing.
And that goes for the street vendors, too. They’re the best part of the show. Aggressive, but harmless, they’re like a church carnival on steroids. I look at a pair of sunglasses emblazoned with a giant, bejeweled “D” being offered for $10.00. I walk away and the price drops to $7.00. I now own a lovely pair of ‘name-brand’ shades. We continue making our way through the gauntlet of eager hawkers touting jewelry, stained glass, serapes, wood carvings and the inevitable sombrero or two for almost a quarter of a mile.
My husband, the expert, advises me to not make eye contact and keep moving. I drive forward in a determined fashion, like we’re heading for the fountain of youth. (Well, I admit I did linger a little bit around the food stands. They were selling hollowed-out coconuts stuffed with something that must have been delectable judging from the lines of hungry-looking people.)
Finally, we reach the stone balustrade perched over the edge of a 50-foot cliff. The rocky coastline, 70-degree weather, turquoise waters, bluer-than-blue skies – it’s hard to believe it’s the middle of winter and parts of the Midwest, New Mexico and Colorado are having record snowstorms.
The crowd at La Bufadora reminds me of first-time viewers of the Grand Canyon: Seeing the power of nature displayed so vividly makes you go, “Ah!” We gaze and gasp at the impressive power of the ocean trying to defy gravity. We linger for a full round of family photos – me with the hubster; my daughter with her fiancé, etc. – before we continue to the day’s final highlight, lunch at a seaside restaurant with an incredible ocean view. I am bedazzled, despite my new sunglasses.
Dick says once you’ve navigated the Wrangell Narrows you can put that on your sailing resume. My sailing resume now can state, "Safely provided backseat navigation of Wrangell Narrows."
You should have seen us deploying these traps for the first time. We bumbled around like first-graders with a chemistry set. We spent the good part of an evening dropping the two pots and the next morning I sent forth our great, white hunter to collect the proceeds. He pulled up the prawn pot; no dough. He pulled up the crab pot and, lo and behold, one (1) crab! He nearly jumped out of the dinghy in surprise. Later he quipped, "It was like the Deadliest Catch!"
Last night Dick decided he would catch a halibut. .,eu,niyndfkljwehfnv [Excuse me, I was still laughing.] "I’m Jigging," he explains. He is jerking his fishing pole up and down like a carousel pony. "It’s when you lure the fish into thinking there’s a fish in trouble that will be easy prey." He has bathed his colorful lure with very aptly-named Butt Juice. The lure’s yellow and white streamers flutter very attractively. As we wait, he tries different techniques. First there is the straight up and down jig. This is akin to the missionary position in jigging and it is not exciting to watch or participate in, apparently. So he enhances his repertoire to include exotic moves like figure eights, before introducing increasingly higher levels of difficulty. "That’s good," I encourage him. "That must look like final death throes down there. I’m sure it’s like Madame Butterfly." 
Dick’s hand is shaking too much for him to unscrew the bolts to the seal that was supposed to provide a water-tight connection between our sailboat’s engine and the propeller. Sea water is gushing in around the coupling like the return of the Red Sea after Moses led out the Israelites. The piercing, electronic bleeping of the high-water alarm is incessant. As I shake off sleep and try to focus, one thought lights up in my brain like an old-fashioned burlesque marquee: What are two almost-senior citizens doing here, anyway?
At this point, I’m an unlikely candidate to master any Zen-like moments of spiritual calm. But, somehow, I manage to get the wrench started. In a matter of moments Dick regains his composure. He takes over again. I take a look at myself in a new light. Who is this cool-headed woman methodically reviewing a checklist of emergency procedures?
Dick is now confident. He’s reattached the coupling and the bilge pump has taken care of the excess water. Dick is incredibly adept at handling any emergency that arises on-board and actually seems to welcome the challenge. Which is probably what we’re doing here in the first place -- I snort mentally – conquering new horizons. It’s like being married to Lewis and Clark. Let’s face it, kids: I’m living his dream. Apparently that dream requires extreme tests of stamina, endurance and nerves. We’re pounding into scary-looking twelve-foot seas. My hair has been permanently rearranged into a charming monk-like coif from being anchored under caps to protect against twenty-five-knot winds on the nose. We’re striving to beat our way toward the Inside Passage between Canada’s mainland and the Gulf Islands toward Alaska. As we fight our way from Los Angeles toward the Strait of Juan de Fuca, I think, what am I doing here?
The good news is that we made it safely to Coos Bay, Oregon and after that, all the way through the Strait of Juan de Fuca, the Georgia Strait and are now in the Queen Charlotte Strait. As I write this, we are waiting for a weather window to open so that we can cross Queen Charlotte Sound. We are deep within the Inside Passage, moored at a town called Port Hardy (now, doesn’t that name just tell it all?). 
GREAT NEWS... Sharon has had her first travel journal published, Sunday, July 22, 2007 in The Arizona Republic. 
Meeting the Grand Poobah
“You’re doing great,” Richard encourages me during my turn as I reach for that afternoon’s record of 12.6 knots (only held for a few more minutes as it turns out). I’ll have bragging rights at the bar I am told. I am elated until I hear that means I’ll be buying the first round! I’m pretty relieved when I am bested.
By Sharon Drechsler 
Two familial groups are gathering mussels from the stony shore. They pause for the amusement we provide as Last Resort threads this way and that to avoid maze-like clumps of seaweed and drops her anchor once, twice, well…three times, until we are happy with the final location. 
La Bufadora By Sharon B. Drechsler
