Just wanted to give you an update on where we are and what we’re up to. We made it to Newport on Friday, almost exactly 24 hours after we left Ilwaco. It was an exciting and tiring trip that revealed to us both that a) being on the ocean will require quite an adjustment and b) we have a lot to learn. If you’re interested in hearing me blather on about next to nothing, you can check out the video logs I recorded while on watch (between heaping spoonfuls of extremely chunky peanut butter).
Actually, I lied, it takes forever to upload videos. Maybe I’ll get to that later.
Okay, it’s actually going quicker now for some reason…I’m on a steep learning curve with this whole youtube thing. Please note, I am not a cinematographer and I do not have a steady hand (think Blair Witch Project minus any and all excitement). Sorry, tangent.
Here is my recap of some things that went well and some things that went not so well. Jeff may have some thoughts to add…
What went well
- We survived! I was a bit nervous for the first couple of hours, but we were tied into the boat with safety harnesses and took every precaution throughout the trip. All in all, I felt pretty safe.
- The weather was great (for the most part), with a steady 15 knots of wind from the north for the first day and night, clear skies, a nearly full moon.
- We made 5-6 knots with a double reefed main sail and a full working jib (for those of you who have no idea what I’m talking about, we reduced the size of our main sail by about half to reduce our overall sail area – a good idea if you anticipate strong winds or just want a more mellow ride).
- We stayed on course, which is more than I can say for our last trip on the Pacific. During our last trip I decided we were too close to shore and I was just going to veer off by a “couple of degrees.” It turns out that a couple of degrees landed us about 8 miles from where we wanted to be. Which you wouldn’t blink at if you have a car…but it’s a gut punch when you crawl along at about 4-5 miles per hour. Our navigation instruments (namely my iPad) were supremely awesome on this trip.
- I didn’t puke! Wish I could say the same about Jeff…
- Tack is a great cuddle buddy even when the boat is bucking. He likes to crawl under the covers with us. Best little spoon ever.
- Jeff saw some porpoises and I maybe saw whales (or my mind tricked me into thinking I saw whales – either way, it was cool).
What didn’t go so well
- We didn’t really eat enough food or drink enough water. I was feeling queasy for the first 6 hours or so and had no interest in cooking. We also didn’t have enough foresight to boil water while we were still on land. I ate an apple, some string cheese and LOTS of peanut butter. Jeff ate some nutrigrain bars, some apples, some saltines and sucked on a tea bag (due to the lack of hot water…he said it ended up being more gross than not). We’re going to have to figure this one out. When I did finally get around to cooking breakfast, it took me two hours to make hot breakfast cereal and boil water on our diesel stove, mostly because it takes 1.5 hours to really heat that thing up.
- We didn’t sleep enough. I probably slept a total of 3 hours and I’m not sure if Jeff fared any better. It was hard to get over the tension and residual fear enough to calm down and relax. At some point exhaustion kicked in.
- I am terrible at getting out of bed for my shift. This was one of Jeff’s big concerns and it turns out it was totally well founded. I was consistently 15 minutes late for my shift…which is a pretty bad precedent to set. I’ll get better at this Jeff, I swear. Jeff was totally prompt. In fact, he would consistently be 15 minutes early (I think he was trying to impart a message that I didn’t quite pick up on).
- Personal hygiene is HARD when the seas are lumpy. That’s all I’m going to say.
- I only wrote one entry in our “log.” This log can be pretty important for giving us a dead reckoning should we need it (our latitude and longitude, compass bearing, speed, etc), but I really was not feeling motivated to put pen to paper. Next time.
- Our stuff flew EVERYWHERE. I think that’s why they call it a shakedown cruise, because everything shakes down to the cabin floor, where it proceeds to roll around and create a deadly obstacle course. Our first casualty was the bottle of dish soap which spilled its entire contents all over the sink, then dribbled into a puddle on the floor. Traction is key when you’re underway and soap is the enemy of traction. I also managed to spill an entire carafe of hot coffee all over our fridge and our newly cleaned stove. We’re working to secure all of the things that may fly around on the next leg of our trip.
- Crossing the bar into Newport was a bit terrifying, primarily due to the fog, the big swell, the dredger that was taking up half of the channel and the crab pots that were taking up the remaining half of the channel. We made it without incident, but we were both on edge.
Newport has been a great place to get ready for the next leg. We’re checking things off of our list and also managing to have a little fun and relax a bit (for the first time in over two months…maybe even a year).