I have a friend, Jim by name, whose character radiates with an evangelical glow; a winemaker in talent and by trade, he has taken to heart the Psalmist’s observation that “a day without red wine is a day without sunshine,” and has, twice now, ensured that this lonely sailor’s access to liquid warmth is not diminished by something so trifling as a remote location. He has sent wine. Red wine. In quantity. And always just in time.
For this I am ever grateful.
I only wish the retrieval were not so much like a pilgrimage.
In service to a higher calling is the Port Townsend Boat Haven’s flower-painted dock cart, which I was able to “borrow” for this sacred mission without notice of the harbor master. My holy task was rewarded by a parking space right out front.
Then began the long and lonely return with never so much as an oasis, not even a palm tree, in between.
On and on wound the hot road.
But the rewards were great. Jim makes wine under his own label, JW Wines, and for AMPHORA Wines. Note the box of Rose and the hat–excellent defenses both against our current heat wave. Many thanks, Jim.
Below are a few images of the Port Townsend Boat Yard complex, a place for any sailor to fall in love with.
Here one can find everything needed to maintain a vessel and sustain the life of her skipper.
Mechanics shops, rigging shops, welding shops, boat building shops, hydraulic shops, woodworking shops (many of these), a Co-op that does all of the above, a chandlery, and a lift that could handle the Titanic.
Facilities for the crew include hot showers, a laundromat, a taco hut, two cafes, a coffee roaster, and a brewery with live music and a ribs truck on the weekends.
I repeat, beer and BBQ ribs! Put down your paint brush, drop that drill–a pint is but a five minute walk; don’t even change out of your work clothes.
And the boats are works of art!
I have informed my wife that if she ever lets me retire, I will buy a sleeping bag and a tent and move here.
NOTE TENT.
Enter here all ye who dare.
Said my friend, David R Kelton, “It’s good you are breaking stuff now rather than on your big trip, but can you please stop breaking stuff already?”
—
Part of the reason for this summer’s long leaps is selfish–I’ve not singlehanded in quite awhile; I want to feel what it’s like to be on passage again. But part is to shake loose some of the weaknesses in the boat, her systems, and her skipper.
Along that line, here’s a list of what broke or has failed to perform up to spec since departure from Kodiak.
Sadly, it requires little insight to note a familiar refrain in the below, that being pilot error.
1. Broken Autopilot. This quit two days out from the Strait of Juan de Fuca, and as the wind quit a day later, I manned the tiller the last 50 miles into Neah Bay. Much of the next afternoon at anchor I spent assessing the issue. “Rudder Feedback Failure” was the warning sign, but no test revealed the source. An examination of the hydraulic ram assembly did reveal an oil reservoir nearly empty (note above reference to pilot error). Reservoir now topped off. The ram functions as should. I re-initialized the system. Result: now the Autopilot goes all the way to port and pops the clutch. I suspect the computer. A tech is coming out on Tuesday.
The hydraulic ram under the tiller…looking clean and new and not the least bit worried.
One of three error states in the controller.
The autopilot brain…AKA Hal.
2.Under-performing Wind Vane. In Homer, I renewed the Monitor tiller lines with 1/4 inch (zero stretch) Spectra. Result: I can’t keep the tiller line even remotely taught. At first I thought this was because my knots were slipping (Spectra is slippery stuff). After re-tying multiple times, same result. Finally “resolved” the issue by using parachute chord to pull the tiller chain links together. My best guess is that the line is not Spectra. Will replace while in Port Townsend.
Also, the Monitor tends to over-steer. Having used a Monitor extensively on Murre, I can’t think it a fault of the device, but rather my not balancing the boat correctly. Example, flying both head sails full in a steady 30 knots may be asking a but much of the dear (more on which, below).
The tiller lines from the Monitor with un-sailorly knots bringing the chain links together and STILL there is slack.
3. Broken Port Genoa Car. While learning how to fly these lovely genoa poles, I let the port pole rest too heavily against the forward shroud. This broke the plastic guard the keeps the bearings in place. The car is otherwise fine. The bearing guards cannot be bought. An entirely new car must be ordered; will arrive Wednesday from Selden North Carolina. At least it was in stock!
The black plastic covers on each end have torn, allowing the bearings to slide out.
4. A Cut Genoa Sheet. On my 45 mile run from Neah Bay to Port Angeles, the wind filled in solidly from the west. The day was clear, the radio, alive with gale warnings, and my two head sails out full. Wind built all afternoon, and I adjusted to it only by taking over from the Monitor when the wind hit 30 knots. The boat made a steady 7.5 to 8.5 knots and over 10 knots on the back sides of the steep chop. A Coast Guard helicopter came by at one point to check in with the only boat on the bay. I waved and smiled. What fun! I found I could easily keep the boat in control with all that pressure forward.
What was not so easy was rolling up those happy sails at the end of the day. I let the big genoa sheet out too far. It barked in the stiff breeze and quickly–and firmly– wrapped the stay. I had to cut the starboard sheet to loosen it and was lucky I didn’t have to cut down the sail. This drama played out in front of the Coast Guard station with me racing toward a lee shore. Damn!
5. Self-healing Wind Speed Indicator. It worked before the mast was pulled in Homer. It failed to work after the mast was stepped. It started to work again two days into the crossing from Kodiak. No idea why yet. Haven’t looked.
6. Depth Sounder Failure. This is due to a loose connection on the back side of the display. Remedied (for the moment) by unplugging and plugging it back in.
7. Engine Does Not Start. This turns out to be a faulty start switch, which only functions properly if turned to the right AND pressed down hard. Will be replaced while in Port Townsend.
8. Stray Current. I discovered this in Kodiak while doing the Nigel Calder stray current test on the house bank. I get 3v. But no amount of sleuthing, or generous amounts of advice from others on the dock, got me to resolution. This was one of the main reasons for coming all the way into Port Townsend, and am now working with the lead electrician at the marine co-op.
9. Miscellany.
-I tripped over the boat hook on day five and mistakenly kicked it over the side. I got to watch it bob in the swell as distance grew between us and thought, “there but for the grace of god…”
-Both temporary props holding up my two solar panels were washed away during our two days of being close hauled.
-The water pump in the galley is pumping poorly due to air in the line from our early sloshing around.
Not such a long list. But I am fortunate there is so much resource in Port Townsend.
In her Port Townsend slip …
Wind came up briefly after last night’s “No Report” report. But when it dropped with the sun, I still had 30 miles to the red buoy off Duncan Rock and another eight around the corner to Neah Bay. And I’d missed my tide, so made a whopping 3 knots over the ground the last several hours.
Never in life have navigation lights–the yellow of the separation zone, the white of Cape Flattery, the red of Duncan Rock, the white of Waadah Island–approached and sunk astern so slowly!
There is much to love about this boat, but man-handling the short tiller in a seaway with fog and shipping is not one of them.
The anchor slid off the bow at 5am local time and after ten straight hours of steering.
Slept soundly until 10am. Five hours of uninterrupted sleep may not seem much to you–purest luxury for me.
Now to breakfast (eggs and baked beans–bacon if I had it–in honor of Les and Ali on ARCTIC TERN) and to see if I can repair the autopilot.
Kodiak to Neah Bay
Miles: 1,211
Days: about 8
Avg. Miles per Day: 135 (including the motoring)
The last of the sun and wind.
The scope (Chart Plotter). I’m the white arrow surrounded by a compass rose. The promentory at bottom right is Cape Flattery. The gray and yellow triangles are shipping (as many as eight targets at one point). Note we are all converging upon the same area, a number of pink outlines defining the Strait of Juan de Fuca shipping entrance and separatoin zone just off Cape Flattery. My course, white line, runs right through this area, which is a no-no, but damned if I was going around!
First the wind died; then so did the auto pilot. Hand steering under power last 50 miles to Neah Bay.
June 27
Kodiak to Straits of Juan de Fuca
Day 7
Noon position: 49.51.54N by 129.31.53W
Miles since last noon: 128
Total miles of passage: 980 (200 miles to Cape Flattery)
Avg. Miles per Day: 140
Course: ESE (Changing this to cardinal points going forward)
Speed: 4 – 6.5 knots
Wind: 0 to NW 15
Sea: NW6
We motored under a sunny sky on a sea made of glass.
Leaning from the bow and staring into the abyss, I could see scads of small jellies, all translucent but in varying shapes. One looked like a deflated, stretched-out football, even to the sewn seams; it had a red spot at one end, and was always on the surface. Another just below it was round but with Dumbo-type ears it flapped slowly for propulsion. Others further into the water column were less distinct, but all suggested how little of the ocean is seen when we sail so quickly across its surface.
In the evening, a breeze began to fill in from the NW, and by 11pm we were was sailing quietly before the wind. I’d hoped to use the port genoa pole a final time, the one whose car I broke a few days go, but while lowering it, the car popped off the rail and the remaining bearings spewed out. So that was that. The pole is now lashed down on deck and awaits repair.
I put us wing and wing, the main boom held in place with the vang *and* a long line run from its bitter end to a block at the bow and back to the cockpit. With such security against a gybe, I didn’t notice that it had backwinded somewhere between midnight and 1am. When I came on deck we were held in place by a new and novel way of heaving to. I dowsed it.
Today we are 70 miles offshore and just south of Vancouver Island’s Brooks Peninsula. Winds have increased to +/-15NW, and I’ve run out the large genoa to get our speeds over 6 knots. But, holy mojito!–do we ever roll. The swell is all out of proportion to the wind–6 – 8 feet from the NW and steep with another two-foot
slop riding on top of it. All this knocks to boat around as if she were a piñata.
From on deck it looks like the boat is masterfully shouldering her way forward. It’s quite beautiful to watch. But below is a cacophony. Books slam from one side of the shelf to the other. The dishware in the galley cupboards cries out as if a Tasmanian Devil has been let loose in their midst. The empty (thank god!) pressure cooker, for days happily wedged uphill of the ice box, suddenly flies into the head. And there are deep and disturbing thumps from below, as if our cargo of Pacific Northwest logs has somehow come adrift in the hold.
My biggest worry is … Oh, and there she goes. The starboard pole just dipped two feet into the water. Not good. I best be on deck.
June 26
Kodiak to Straits of Juan de Fuca
Day 6
Noon position: 51.02.15N by 132.02.83W
Miles since last noon: 146 (Under power last hour of day)
Total miles of passage: 825
Avg. Miles per Day: 138
Course: 120t
Speed: A steady 7+ knots to 1 knot in the wrong direction
Wind: S 10 – 20 then SSE 5
Another solid day’s run spoiled by the wind!
We were tracking at around 7 knots of boat speed, close hauled and with a tuck in both sails, well into the night. But around2am things went sideways. I sat up with the vane for a couple hours as our breeze tapered, my hand on her control line. I recounted my favorite episodes of ALL MY CHILDREN to keep us both awake, and she told her stories too, but each one started with “I remember once when I had the wind in my face and…” She’s not much of a story teller.
By 4am the breeze had freshened just enough the vane felt confidently in control once again. I hit the sack. When I came on deck at 5:30, we were headed NE on a very light SSE’erly, and the vane saying repeatedly, “Gah! Gah!” I took over, but no matter what I did a full main and big genoa resulted in 2 knots NE or 1 knot (into the remaining swell) due S.
We’ve been motoring since 11am. In my book, motoring is as fun as riding the airport bus, but at least now I can do some cleaning without standing on my head.
We are about 70 miles SW of the southern tip of Queen Charlotte Islands, the lower of the two now being called Haida Gwai (my spelling may be incorrect), and have sailed into a stationary high pressure hole that likely won’t fill in for several days or until we’re even with Vancouver Island, some 100 miles SE. Then, if my GRIBs are correct, we should have brisk NW winds until Cape Flattery.
THE MORNING’S STORY, HOWEVER, IS WHALES. I’ve seen whale signs a few times on this passage, but never more than a column of white mist on the horizon. Around 10am today and as I tacked around trying to find a wind angle that made everyone happy, two large animals, I presume Humpbacks, came in to inspect this foriegner.
Larger than the boat, but not by much, they presented a remarkably slow version of Porpoises playing in the bow wave, which is, they sidled in cautiously over the course of three or four breaths (about 10 minutes), always parallel to the boat and matching its speed, sometimes on port, sometimes on starboard. One got to within 30 feet. He hung at the surface right alongside for a short time, his exhalation shockingly loud, and I could hear the water playing at his sides. When they sounded the next time, they did not reappear.
I wonder what they thought. Similar in its dark round sides, but with its large dorsal fin pointing strait down, the boat must have appeared deformed or dead. Likely they felt pity for such an ungainly beast.
As for myself. Both excitement to be that close to wildness way out here…and fear, fear of colliding with wildness and all that could ensue.
June 25
Kodiak to Straits of Juan de Fuca
Day 5
Noon position: 52.03.89N by 135.21.85W
Miles since last noon: 148
Total miles of passage: 706
Avg. Miles per Day: 141
Course: 120t
Speed: 5 – 7 knots
Wind: SW and W 5 – 15 to S and SSW 20+
The wind vane and I are still coming to terms.
(Those who are curious but unfamiliar with wind vanes, mechanical self-steering devices for sailboats, can visitwww.selfsteer.com to read about how they work. This boat sports a Monitor, which I’ve used before and adore, to varying degrees depending on…)
If the first four days of this passage saw trade-wind like winds, the fifth has been anything but. On the first two we had vacant, powdery blue skies and consistent northwesterlies, and on the following two, a sky battleship gray and texture-less with consistent southwesterlies.
During this time I barely touched the wind vane.
I’d come on deck at 3am, for example. “Status report, please,” I’d say.
“Who are you?” would ask the vane.
“Why, I’m the captain of this fine ship,” I’d say.
“Well, I’ve never heard of you and I’ve been here since the beginning. Now, why don’t you do something useful; go back to bed and leave the sailing to us.”
And I would.
But yesterday everything changed. At sunset a break in the cloud formed astern. Sun streamed through, golden and warm, and though very far away, I thought we might see fine weather by morning.
At 3am I came on deck to find we were heading NE for Haida Gwai. “Status report, please.”
“Where is wind?” asked the vane, wide-eyed and pale.
“Why, it’s right there, you ninny. Look, that little luffer just whaffed you in the face,” I said.
“Wha … I didn’t feel a thing!”
The problem was the “apparent” wind. Wind vanes use wind direction, and to some degree, velocity, to determine the ship’s course. The dude in charge (that be me) sets the vane into the wind, and then any time the ship veers from course, the vane dips and moves the tiller, and thus the boat, back to my desired angle off the wind.
But in light, inconsistent winds off the boat’s quarter the wind direction the vane perceives (apparent wind) changes dramatically with boat speed. As boat speed increases the apparent wind direction moves forward…a lot…such that a gust can send the boat dashing off irrecoverably for Never Never Land with the vane none the wiser.
So, I sat up for several hours last night holding the dear’s hand.
When I woke this morning my meteorological skills were proved: the sky was low and ragged and squally; wind southerly and on the build. Clearly, we’d missed sliding under the Gulf of Alaska low.
I had a quick cup of coffee and then started to work by swapping out for the smaller genoa and putting the boat back on course close hauled. Then I reefed the main. Then I reefed the genoa. Winds were up and down, but usually 18 to 23 knots at 40 to 60 degrees off the bow. Though she could handle it, the boat seemed to be laboring still. So I put a second reef in the main, and there we have been all day, the boat at or around 7 knots of speed depending on which side of a rain squall she’s rounding.
This is the rule I learn so slowly: it takes surprisingly little sail area to get a good boat to steady going.
June 24
Kodiak to Straits of Juan de Fuca
Day 4
Noon position: 53.23.92N by 138.36.82W
Miles since last noon: 157 (same as yesterday, pooh!)
Total miles of passage: 558
Avg. Miles per Day: 139.5
Course: 120t
Speed: 5.5 – 6.5 knots
Wind: SW 10-20
Woke to dense fog which has lifted only to be replaced by heavy rain.
I’m disappointed in the daily mileage, though winds went light overnight, and an average of 6.5 knots isn’t terrible. Still, I counted *ten straight hours of 7 plus knots* of boat speed with wind abeam, main reefed and smaller genoa, full. If I’d “raced” the boat after dark (I opted for shut-eye instead) we might have done better.
Sleep. Must admit I’m not doing well at this yet. My habit is to sleep in one hour intervals. At each hour I rise and have a look around–scan the horizon for ship glow; check the chart plotter; course, set of sail. If all is well, and it usually is, I go right back to my berth.
I say “habit” because there’s no evidence rising at all during the night is needed in this quadrant of ocean. The horizon is consistently and utterly empty, and the boat, plugging away without need of advice from Capt. Groggyhead.
I’m not sleeping well for two reasons. Heat and noise. Getting dressed 6 – 8 times a night is a pain, so I hit the bunk fully clothed. Jacket stays on. Harness stays on. Boots stay on. Wool hat stays on. I brought one ancient but thick down bag and so, though I go to bed with cold hands and feet, I’m quickly too hot.
The other reason is cannon fire in the bilges. The boat’s metal hull and insulation mean she’s still as a church relative to outside sounds; the rush of water, the rattle of sail, hardly noticeable. But her water tanks, built into the keel, appear to lack baffles, and even in the lightest of weather it sounds like the battle of Gettysburg is going off just below me. Kathump! Kawhap! Kathump!
So, I’ve been napping during the day propped up in the nav station.
Weather. One reason for speed is that a weak low is dropping into the Gulf of Alaska.
I access weather forecasts via the Iridium GO! and am currently using Saildocs as the data source. One bit of learning when researching the GO! was that Saildocs is not limited to SailMail (The SSB email/weather application I’ve used till now) but can be gotten via email…for free!
Each morning, I send simple text queries via email to query@saildocs.com and get weather in return, like the attached wind and pressure map (called a GRIB File) at the bottom of this post (caution: I also need a GRIB viewer, available in the Apple app store).
If curious, full instructions at: Info@saildocs.com. Send a blank email, anything (including nothing) in the subject line.
In any case this weak low is going to take the westerly component of my SW wind away by tomorrow afternoon unless I can get down near the latitude of Haida Gwai. Another 150 miles might just do it.
June 23
Kodiak to Straits of Juan de Fuca
Day 3
Noon position: 54.57.17N by 142.03.39W
Miles since last noon: 157
Total miles of passage: 401
Avg. Miles per Day: 133
Course: 120t
Speed: 6.5 – 7.5 knots
Wind: SW 10 – 20
Right after sending last night’s missive, summer ended.
All day I’d been tracking a gray line on the western horizon, more like haze than cloud, that hadn’t appeared to moved except possibly to slip toward the north. I’d convinced myself we would clear it. Then I looked up from writing and it was upon us, a low thin fog racing over the top of the mast, which, within an hour had ascended and solidified into a dull gray sky from one horizon to the next.
And that we’ve had since.
All night we sloshed along under poled-out headsails, but when I climbed on deck at 3am for my hourly check-up, I found the wind had backed into the SW and the boat, heading east for Sitka. I was sleepy, so let this stand until 5am when there was light enough to work the foredeck.
The broken port pole went home without too much convincing (a relief), and within ten minutes we were on a beam reach (same course: SE) under large genoa and a main with single reef. Almost immediately we were touching at 7 knots.
Back below, I found the cabin was a brisk 52 degrees, which called for some adjustments. The boat has two heaters. One uses engine coolant to heat a radiator in the navigation cabin. But I’m not running the engine. The other is called a Refleks heater and uses diesel burning from a small pan to heat cylindrical metal surfaces. The pan does not have high sides, and as we are now healed over, I’m unwilling to try for fear of getting lit fuel where it shouldn’t be. Besides the main hatch is always open as I’m on deck so much.
So out came the long johns, the Ugg boots, and down jacket. If this doesn’t sound like foul weather gear to you … well, it’s not . But then the weather isn’t foul, it’s just cool. And who would wear heavy rain gear and clammy rubber boots if he didn’t have too?
Even more warming was a breakfast of fried eggs on buttered toast and Marmite. One of the benefits of an English wife–one of countless benefits, I should hasten to add–is that I’ve developed a taste for delicacies more civilized peoples hardly recongnize as food. Marmite being one.
I’m very pleased with how this boat shoulders her way forward. Average speed over the last 24 hours was 6.5 knots, and that was without trying. Now that today’s wind has stiffened its resolve and I’m flying the smaller headsail, reefed, and a main, also reefed, our speed over the ground has been above seven knots for the past five hours.
This is not just fun, it’s important for the Figure 8, whose course requires I average 130 miles a day for many months. Tony Gooch, a previous owner who circumnavigated non-stop via the southern ocean, Victoria BC to Victoria BC in 177 days, averaged 137 miles a day, and had a slow start in his run down to the Horn. That and evidence from this small cruise suggest that with careful management, I should be able to achieve the Figure 8 speed requirements.
No ships. Rarely a Storm Petrel. The ocean goes on and on. Slate gray waves push northward as far as the eye can see. All is perpetual, unstoppable motion, a motion that, without landmarks, gives no evidence of progress, just motion.
…of sweet sailing makes.
June 22
Kodiak to Straits of Juan de Fuca
Day 2
Noon position: 55.53.94N by 146.04.96W
Miles since last noon: 136
Total miles of passage: 244
Avg. Miles per Day: 122
Course: 110t
Speed: 5.5 – 7 knots
Wind: NW to WNW 10 – 15
I’m measuring days noon to noon; so, though it’s technically my third day at sea, noon today represented my second full day.
Surprisingly little has changed.
Except for the temperature, 52 degrees before the sun warms the cabin to the mid 60s, this has felt like a trade wind passage. The wind went soft as the sun dipped below the horizon last night and has returned today, building slowly and veering west. By now (4pm) we’re back to winds touching 20 knots and boat speeds over 7 knots are usual.
And we’re still before the wind with the two poled out headsails that I’ve barely touched since setting them. All I’ve done: as the wind has gone into the west, I’ve let forward the windward pole and pulled in on the leeward so that even though wind is now almost 60 degrees forward of dead astern, we’re still “wind and wing.” It’s odd looking, but surprisingly stable. A first for me.
I hadn’t wanted to buy a sloop. Too simple, boring; not enough sail combinations. But I hadn’t counted on the excitement, not to mention efficiency, of a double headsail sloop with twin poles. And somehow, I’ve ended up with just as many lines to pull on as I had with my little ketch.
Not all has been rosy, however. On day one I realized the AIS wasn’t working. While resolving this by sticking my head deep inside the electronics cabinet, a lurch sent my left hip hard up against the engine panel and I broke the ignition key off inside the switch. This required figuring out how to turn the engine off without a key and extract the offending part without the tweezers I have specific memory of buying…but clearly did not.
Those are the easy ones. Today I noticed that I’ve broken the rail car on the port genoa pole, which became apparent when it began spilling its bearings onto the deck. On closer inspection, I’ve found that the top and bottom bracket (made of plastic) which hold the bearings in have split. I’m guessing I did this when jamming the pole hard up against the foreword shroud–a mistake not easy to spot from the cockpit where the pole is worked. I now dash forward each time I set the pole to make sure it’s not on the shroud. But too late… This likely means that when a shift of wind requires me to dismount the poles, that one is not going back up till it’s fixed. A right bummer, as we say in British Pubs in California.
We’re passing south of the Alaska Seamount Province, specifically we’re about 25 miles below and between Quinn Seamount and Surveyor Seamount. For reasons unknown to me, this region is completely empty. After half a day of intense birdlife, now not a one. No ships, no jet contrails. Nothing but me, the boat, and the most expansive horizon you’ll ever see.
June 21
Noon Position: 56.52.48N by 149.28.15W
Miles since departure: 107
Course 110t
Speed: 6-7 knots
Wind: NW15-20
Departed Kodiak for the SE at 9:30am on Monday into a clear sky and the promise of a brisk westerly. All morning the windmills above the town had been spinning powerfully and pointing west, but in Chiniak Bay there was not a breath. It will fill in past the lee of the headland, I thought; then, past the lee of the island, I thought. But it did not fill in. By sunset at 11pm, Kodiak was a few blunt, black teeth upon an open-mouthed horizon and the ocean so much grease. The moon came up full. I prepared my sea berth, and still we motored.
This had been my experience of weather forecasting on Kodiak. In Shelikof Strait the predictions that called for SW winds at 25 had a chance of success. All others failed. One day I motored for hours in dead calm from an anchorage behind Dry Spruce Island in Kupreanof Strait out into Shelikof expecting (fingers crossed) the foretold SE winds at 20 and a reach to Geographic Harbor. What I got was no wind at all until I was back inside Kupreanof that evening, and then it in came strongly from Geographic.
Weather wasn’t the issue, however. My heart wasn’t in this kind of exploring. Not now. Too much engine and windlass and timing of day’s runs. All glorious adventures in the king of cruising grounds, Alaska, but what I wanted was space, an open horizon. I wanted to stretch my legs; to feel that long-winged flight again.
This morning there was an urgency on the water and after breakfast a wind touched down that began from the west and then veered a little north. I poled out the large genoa to port, set up the wind vane (non-electrical steering device), then poled out the smaller headsail to starboard. I left it pushed a little foreward so that we could take the coming breeze on the starboard quarter and keep my course for the Straits of Juan de Fuca.
All day the breeze has slowly built and the sea has stood up to meet it. Under a sky that disproves the existence of cloud. Under a dome of egg-shell blue and a sea as blue as the sky, we now race. The wind vane steers the boat, the sails embrace the wind and we fly with the grace of an Albatross. Speeds of seven knots are common and we’ve surfed some of the waves at well over eight. All I do is work to keep things in balance and hold on.
When I raised the second sail, the boat charged, and I laughed like a little boy.
How does one explain… I don’t know… It doesn’t matter.
The only sadness of the day is that as we passed from the Kodiak banks into very deep water (avg. depth now is 14,000 feet) we left the Blackfooted Albatross and the Northern Fulmar behind. I guess they prefer the fishing further north.
For now we are alone on the wide ocean.
My small cove within this bay (58.26.47N by 152.42.33W) is like a room within a room. Almost entirely surrounded by fir trees and rock, it has two windows. One is a low cut to the north that is mud and boulders at low water, but at the high it fills in and gives me a glimpse into Shelikof Strait. Since the morning of my arrival, Shelikof has looked itself, that is, dark water and whitecaps enough to remind one of San Francisco Bay on an August afternoon.
To the south of me is the cove’s entrance. This window is framed by fir trees on either side and looks out on the the lake-like calm water of the larger bay. An island entirely of firs can be seen in the foreground. But what really catches the eye is distant Red Peak, a pyramidal mountain of black, rusty rock with Appaloosa spots of old snow on its flanks. Two bald eagles dog fight above me. A gull calls. An otter scratches its head.
Protected as this cove is from the mess of Shelikof, it is not protected from the wind. All day and evening the boat swung as if she were the “partner round and round” at a square dance. At night I slept lightly as the wind increased, and I rose when one particular tug felt as though we had pirouetted a complete circle. We had drug anchor, though not much. I let out rode to 240 feet and sat up watching in the comfort of the pilot house until 2am.
Today’s forecast is for SW20 diminishing to SW10 in the afternoon. I will depart for the near term goal of Geographic Bay, 70 miles down strait on the mainland side. I won’t make it today as what’s ahead is a dead beat to windward. But which of the three interim options (two in Malina Bay and one in Raspberry Strait) we make is yet unknown.
Port Graham has been all southwest wind and rain since this morning, confirming the decision to stay. After breakfast I got the dinghy over the side for an extended row and a few short walks, and out of those activities came two lessons.
Lesson One: Bear Spray works, even on humans.
I’m carrying bear spray for trips ashore in remote parts of Alaska. For those who don’t know, let me say that 1) black and brown bears are the dominant species up here and one should expect to find them outside of areas of dense human population; i.e. almost *everywhere* in this thinly populated state; 2) an increasingly recommended form of protection against bears is bear spray, essentially pepper spray in a hair spray sized bottle.
I decided to test my bear spray while ashore today. I’ve not seen anything but otters since arrival, but better to be safe…
Once on the beach, I put my back to the wind, popped the safety, pressed the trigger, and WHAMO! Out came a 30 foot stream of what appeared to be rust-orange spray paint. If graffiti had been my mission, I’d have been golden.
Some tiny amount of this spray paint got caught in the backwind created by my turned body and bit me in the eyes and nose something fierce. Immediately I had a sneezing fit of vast proportions and watery eyes I was afraid to touch. It was as though I’d stuck my head into a vat of powdered wasabi.
Briefly I thought I might need to call for help. Then I remembered. Ain’t nobody here but me.
Lesson Two: A 25 foot rise of tide rises quickly.
On my row I beached several times for a hike, a walk of maybe 20 minutes. It was flood tide, and a biggie, so I pulled the dinghy many feet up the shoreline. The water was alway right up to the dinghy when I returned.
Big tides are the rule up here. I’ve been watching them these many months in Homer. But I’ve never had the experience up close. For example, it had never occurred to me that to rise 25 feet in a tide cycle (about 6 hours) means the average rise per hour is … 4+ FEET! More, actually, during the middle parts as the distribution of rise is weighted toward the middle third.
So, practically speaking, if you stand at the tide line during a flood, the water will be over your boot tops in fifteen minutes. Tide comes in so fast, you can watch if flow in over the low beaches like a river. I got to where I’d pull the dinghy up and if I got back too early, I’d just wait (not too long) for the tide to float it.
Port Graham is a pretty place, but lonely on a gray, wet day. The otters, rafted together in the middle of the bay after their morning feed, quietly dispersed as I approached for a chat. The guillemots too. Wind is rising. Best to put the dinghy away and prepare for tomorrow.
We departed at low slack, 10 o’clock on the morning of June 5th, and just moments before a turn of tide that would have held us pressed to the dock another six hours. Wind, calm. Sky, partly cloudy.
In some ways it had been a near miss. The gods, in their wisdom, conspire to keep a boat in harbor, and today’s example of conspiracy was merely one of many. As my last task before letting go lines, I topped off with water. I put 44 gallons in the aft tank only to find quantities of it spilling into the bilge. The engine was already running. The sail covers were off. And I had a leak! Tightening the tank lid gasket took only fifteen minutes, but if it had taken half an hour, we’d have missed our tide.
Homer had been a stroke of luck. I could have bought a boat in a much remoter place; Grenada or Cambridge Bay, to name just two. But in Homer I made a friend, Adam, who lent me his truck while he jigged for cod in the Aleutians. Mike Stockburger offered sage solutions to many problems while he and his crew at Homer Boat Yard sandblasted Gjoa’s bottom with skill and for a reasonable rate. Eric Sloth at Sloth Boats gave me a corner of his shop so I could execute the spreader repair out of the rain. The food in town was good. And the bay, windy but flat and a perfect place to learn to sail.
But it had been time to go since the first cruise ship arrived, and now there had been three.
Out in the bay I found a southerly breeze coming down off the mountains, now only snowy at their peaks, and set a course southwest … for somewhere. Close hauled and with a bone in her teeth, the boat charged off as if somewhere could have been Hawaii or Patagonia or the moon.
Near Seldovia, the wind died and then filled in from the northwest, fresh and cold from the higher mountains of northern Cook Inlet. Again, we charged close hauled but on the other tack.
By 2pm we were rounding Pt Pogibshi when the wind died for the last time, and I motored into Port Graham, keeping well off the outlying rocks of Dangerous Cape, invisible under a calm sea. I dropped anchor at 5pm, having made 30 miles of westing, into 60 feet, mud. Scope, 200 feet.
We will be here two nights, tucked far up into the nether end of this wide bay. A strong southwesterly is predicted for tomorrow, and since our target, Kodiak Island, lies in that direction, we will await Tuesday’s easterly.
We are alone, save for the otters. Otters, bald eagles, high-walled mountains with waterfalls. It may not be the goal, this bay, but it is certainly somewhere.
Just back from another four-day test sail on Gjoa, all within the beautiful and beautifully protected Kachemak Bay.
On Thursday last we made the few, short tacks to Halibut Cove to escape what has become non-stop bustle in Homer Boat Harbor. The crack of welders, the bang of chipping hammers and rattle guns, big-boat generators in chorus; and what’s not being worked on is on the move–water taxis, day fishermen, gill netters, seiners, even the large crab vessels, like Time Bandit–in numbers to warrant a traffic light at the harbor entrance.
Next to this, Halibut Cove’s hardly used public dock is a library of quiet, and here I spent a day installing the boat’s solar panels.
How to power Gjoa has been a problem without easy solution. She has an engine, of course, and even a gas generator, but I’ve wanted something that could provide more continuous power while on passage.
My first choice was a tow generator, the kind made by Ampair (Aquair-100), Aquagen, or Hamilton Ferris.
Pros
- Simple: attach to rail and battery, through propeller over the side, and done. No regulator tech required.
- Productive: twenty-four hour power as long as your boat is at speed.
- Calibrated: unlike the Watt and Sea-type, these tow generators produce maximum amps at speeds most likely achievable for small yachts, 4 – 6 knots.
- Quiet.
- Inexpensive: $700 (Hamilton Ferris) to $1400 (Aquair-100). Compare Watt and Sea at $3000 to $5000.
Cons
- The only one that matters–these units are simply not to be had! Apparently this “old” technology has become so unpopular that the supplier companies are recently out of business (Aquair) or have pulled the product (Hamilton Ferris).
Needing something now and something I understand, I’ve opted to add 300 watts of 12v solar. This addition comes in the form of two 100 watt Renology glass and aluminum frame panels hung off the rail either side of the cockpit, a 100 watt off-brand, flexible panel attached amidships to the dinghy, and a Morningstar ProStar 30-amp charge controller (exactly the rig, though with more power, that I had on Murre).
This is not a perfect solution for a voyaging yacht as solar is not at its best in a seaway, and it is not a solution at all for the Figure 8’s Southern Ocean, but compared to anything else it is inexpensive and will get me home.
(What to do for the Figure 8 is an open question. Most likely it will be a combination of technologies, one of which will be a wind generator to replace the satellite compass atop the aft arch, a job I wanted to avoid doing here as it necessitates rewiring the autopilot.)
The trip out had three other goals: raise the main without a hitch, literally; fly the genoa poles without losing them or self overboard, and commission/test the monitor wind vane.
I had thought that in moving from a ketch to a sloop I would be acquiring a less complicated rig. Not necessarily so, I learn. On a good day I can have more line tossing about on Gjoa than I know what to do with (see photo below).
And even the simplest, most usual tasks are challenging when the boat’s size and configuration are unfamiliar. The first time I raised the main I got it fouled in the lazy jacks; the second time, fouled in the running backstays; on the third try a double wrap around the halyard winch’s tailing claw meant double the effort and nearly gave me a heart attack before I sussed the problem.
Main sorted, it was time to attack the poles, devices that hold the twin headsails out wing and wing, and which Tony Gooch, highly experienced previous owner, states are a super solution for the Southern Ocean.
Rigging these three and four times took us to Bear Cove at the upper reaches of Kachemak Bay, a lovely anchorage, except that wherever I moved to found the wind barreling down from the snowy mountains within the hour and putting us on shore. This too was good practice.
Next day the Monitor came to life for the sail back to Homer.
Now the To Do list is less than a page long.
Can we bug out of here before the next cruise ship arrives?
This is the public dock at Halibut Cove. Note: no one else there…and this is Labor Day weekend. Got plenty of quite time and a place to lay out the solar panels for drilling and wiring.
Panels installed–relief. Halibut Covers are a private people. A large sign at the head of the dock invites visitors to resist exploring the private trails and private roads that make up the private village. Only half of those who pass me wave, and the only person to say hello this trip was the woman who lives in the cabin on stilts at the top of this photo. This woman apparently has no road to her home, for each morning she rows to the dock to go into town, where ever that is.
Not beautiful yet, but secure. And if I’m not mistaken, the poles, though wonky looking, are at roughly the angle that Tony flew them.
What the cockpit looks like just after the poles go up and just before I begin coiling down!
Sunset at Bear Cove. I’ve just knocked off work for the day. Dinner is nearly ready and I’m looking forward to enjoying the evening, when I realize … it’s 11pm! The sun will be back in six hours.
If the forecast calls for SE winds, why are they now starting to fill in from the NW? Within the hour they are 20 knots from the wrong direction, and I have to move the boat over near the red barn.
Back to busy Homer. A cruise ship is in. The town’s entire fleet of school buses has turned out to trundle people to their sights. Wind is 25 knots SE. I’m planning for a flying landing!
Back to rafting up with Bluebird. Time Bandit is aft with the cruise ship in the outer harbor. Note Bandit’s American Flag is straight out. My flying landing went off swimmingly.
How easily I forget that not talking, a favorite activity, fails to communicate what I am thinking. Example: I was surprised when, last week, my wife asked if she could be informed of my intention for the coming months of passage-making. How could she not know? Are we not married? Gently she reminded me that it is easier for her to hear what I am saying when I open my mouth.
So, having cleared that up, here’s the plan.
First off, the Figure 8 Voyage proper is scheduled to begin in the fall of 2017, not 2016. This year is about learning to sail this boat and to prepare her, and me, for the much more arduous, coming adventure.
As to this year’s itinerary, consider the following a sketch rather than a blueprint, as where the boat and I find ourselves between now and home will depend on issues that crop up along the way, especially in this first month of cruising.
But, assuming all goes well:
-June: Depart Homer, Alaska at the beginning of the month and head SW into the islands. I’d love to make it as far as Dutch Harbor, but Dutch is some 650 miles off as the Raven flies, and one could easily spend the entire, brief northern summer exploring the intervening coast. So, if I only achieve Kodiak Island in the few weeks allotted for westing, that too will be success.
-Late June: Depart for first long passage. Most likely this will take me to the Straits of Juan de Fuca entrance (1000 miles, give or take) and the Seattle area.
-July: Depart for Hawaii, specifically Hanalie Bay on the North Shore of Kauai. Routing for this passage stays well offshore but on a line mostly SSW in the prevailing north westerlies until I enter the zone of the north east trades somewhere around 25 or 30N, at which point I can shape a more westerly course for the islands.
Why the loop rather than a straight shot?
In the middle of the Pacific is a large high pressure system and in the middle of that is not enough wind to shake a stick at. Think of high pressure systems as massive mountains of still air. For sailing ships, they have as much attraction as a lee shore.
Thus to sail the distance, some 2600 miles, the boat and I must go around the high.
Complications: hurricanes. The North East Pacific hurricane season starts in May and continues until November. Hurricanes in Hawaii are very rare, but my route, especially that part of the route east of 140W lays me at a 90 degree angle to the hurricane track. Early-season hurricanes tend to recurve back into Mexico or die-out in the still cool waters of the north, so the risk in July is much lower than in hotter August and September. Support: the famous Transpac race from Los Angeles to Hawaii is a July race.
-August/September: Depart for San Francisco. Again, the looping course is required by the North Pacific High, which, with some luck, will have shrunk and moved south a bit by that late in the season. No guarantee, of course. On my first passage home from Hawaii, this in early August of 2005, the high was still a whopper, requiring we sail all the way to the latitude of Seattle before making the turn east.
Complications: hurricanes, again. August and September are typically the more active hurricane months. The advantage for us is that we will be heading north and within a week’s sailing will have moved well out of reach of all but the most aggressive late-season boomer. As fall approaches, one’s chances of encountering a North Pacific low increase, but if boat and skipper are not ready for a low by that point, we might as well stay home.
In truth, all this still seems very far off. Priorities of the moment include learning which lines to haul first when the boat comes about and where on earth (in Homer) to find canned butter and quantities of full-fat powered milk.
Sea trials kept me out four days.
The plan (I had a plan) was to motor a bit past the breakwater, to give the engine a good run under load (she’s been idling on the hard this last month and can’t have been happy with the low rpms), and then head back in to my slip for dinner, assess findings, and move to sailing on the morrow.
But there was wind on the water. The open sky and full sun made the day feel almost warm. The vast range across the bay, crystal clear, enticing. And, did I mention, there was wind?
I’ll just pop the jib, I thought.
And with that we achieved lift off.
For those readers who are not sailors, let me remark that the sensational difference between motoring and sailing a boat is like the difference between taxiing and flying a plane. Motoring is going, sure enough, and going is part of the equation, but subtract the engine and add in wind and the sum isn’t going of a different kind so much as of a different order. It’s a dimensional shift. Same boat, same bit of water; but with sails full and the vessel healed and hunting, the motion becomes fluid, intentional, animated. Think galloping horse and add soaring flight. Now place before your bows an uninterrupted horizon and suddenly aiming for the setting sun with the idea of achieving Mars seems perfectly reasonable.
But I get ahead of myself.
Wind was SE at 10 – 15. I put the boat on a reach; she healed gently, and soon our speed was 6 knots. She slid through the water as if her hull had been greased.
A few tacks later found the main going up, and then she charged. Winds in a “slot” east of the harbor increased to 25, boat speed went well over 7 knots. Rail down. The resulting crash below reminded me I’d not released the stove to its gimbals. A pot of lentil soup did a Jackson Pollock.
I put in a reef, tacked back and forth across the bay, working the boat but not paying much attention to position, and by 8 0’clock in the evening, found we were off Halibut Cove.
I’ll just tuck in and have a look, I thought.
The tiny public dock was empty. That and still water below a big, black rock mountain covered in snow erased any reason to return to Homer that night.
Next day very light westerlies allowed me to put the boat before the wind, set the autopilot, and rig the Genoa poles. What an advantage, autopilot. Flip a switch and suddenly one has a (silent) crewman at the helm; flip the switch again and he goes away. Magic. Especially helpful when there are so many new lines to run, get wrong and run again.
By now I have raised the main four times, but still haven’t got it right. I forget to release the lazy jacks or the sheet jams or the crutch bars are up or the tack from yesterday’s reef is still in and suddenly the boom is pointing to heaven. The running backs get stuck tight and can’t be released or my neat stowing solution for the spinnaker halyard succeeds in getting it wrapped around the head of the jib foil. So many mistakes absorbed without consequence by a forgiving boat (for now) on a gentle bay.
By evening we were off Bear Cove at the head of Kachemak Bay. Here we anchored behind a point on the NE side in 50 feet, sand and mud. Next day, I rigged the dinghy for its innaugural row and launched immediately. While in the middle of the cove, a small whale breached but a few feet away. In the afternoon, rigged the vang and restowed the aft port locker.
Departed next morning for the climb, tack over tack, back to Halibut Cove. And next day, Homer, where the bustling harbor with barely enough boat-lengths for my big bird to turn around reminds me why I left. Just time for this note and some groceries…
—
Please forgive lines all ahoo and sails poorly set in the below photos. We’re just getting going…
… Finally arrived.
I’d been both desiring and dreading it, dreading because it seemed the opportunities for error were great while no single error would be of small consequence.
And because a friend of mine sent, the night before, a video demonstrating the results of one specific error.
Here.
I shared the video with the launch crew, Todd (in red) and Randy (in gray). Their expressions suggested it was bad luck to show disaster footage to guys who knew full well what disaster looked like and who we’re working hard to forestall what they couldn’t absolutely guarantee against.
As it turned out, they launched Gjoa with great care, and the operation went off flawlessly.
I’m ready just 20 minutes before the crew arrives.
Todd and Randy setting up the trailer. The sliding bunkers have to come all the way out and then be repositioned once the open end of the trailer is by the keel.
Randy signals the trailer astern.
Repositioning the bunker under the keel.
And so Gjoa departs for…
…the airstrip, of all things. Using Homer’s Municiple Airport is the only way for tall boats to avoid the power lines (18 feet high) on the main road in town.
“Flight 142 H-E-A-V-Y cleared for take off. Wind 27 at 10. Caution, white turbulence; a reef suggested, and do avoid the bald eagles.”
On Homer Spit Road. Not another power line until Seattle.
Turning into the small boat harbor.
The ramp looks much steeper when you own the boat.
Getting ready to let go the forward straps.
The question now is can we get the trailer in deep enough to float the boat without putting the truck in the water too. Josh, from the boat yard office, came by to lend a hand.
As it was, she slid right off at just the right moment. And that was that!
The only kindness this day extended, I reflect, was to announce early its intention to be disagreable.
I’m seated at a bar in Anchorage. It’s nearly midnight.
A two week repat to California, just time enough to be remined of home’s attractions (wife, friends, garden, a heater that lights itself and access to a toilet across the hall rather than a ten minute’s hike) has passed quickly, and I find myself, again, at the Oakland airport bound for Homer.
My inexpensive flight to Anchorage, thusly priced due to its inconvenience, not efficiency (it routes through Los Angeles and then Phoenix), places me, each leg, near a Mormon Tabernacle Chior of babies, whose hosannas would make even the devil wish for a grave he could turn in. Napping isn’t on. Neither is reading even one page-long sentence from the only book I brought, Lord Jim.
Wheels down in Anchorage at 11PM, and I go in search of a burger and a beer to wash from my soul the songs of the righteous.
“Kitchen’s closed,” says the bartender at Moose’s Tooth as he lays the pint in front of me.
I’m chewing on my Bear Spit IPA, happy to be back in the rough-and-tumble North, when the kid walks in.
He takes the stool next to mine and quietly signals for a beer. Alaska must have a lower drinking age than the rest of the country, I think, for this person looks to be all of twelve. His is slight and pale. He sports no tattoos (this is how I know he is 12 and not 16). His short hair is artfully mussed and his five o’clock shadow appears to have taken a week to mature. He wears Converse high tops below fashionably tight jeans.
He pulls from his coat pocket a copy of Bukowski’s Pulp and begins to read, begins to read, mind you! And Bukowski, of all things. Grumpy old man Bukowski. Savage dog, pock-faced, raging metro-drunk Bukowski. Skid Row Bukowski. Being read in a bar in Alaska, land of Jack London’s Call of the Wild, by a mere puppy!
What is this world coming to that Alaska’s children are allowed to read Bukowski when they should be gnawing at the hind legs of a wolves and starting fires with gold shavings and salmon oil on the back side of yonder snow drift?
I grab a bag of peanuts from the motel vending machine and called it a night.
Next day, shopping. An all-day provisioning run to Costco. When I could no longer shut the gate of the pickup bed, I stopped.
…or, Why I like to Fly Alaska Airlines.
Today I am returning to Homer after a two week repat to the San Francisco Bay Area, and unfortunately I am not, as has become my habit, flying on Alaska Airlines.
On my first trip to Homer as Gjoa’s new master, this back in March, I had filled two large suitcases (50lb limit each), one carry-on (30lbs), and a small backpack with equipment for the summer’s voyaging. Fleeces, foulies, gloves, thick socks, hats, and three kinds of boots; first aid kit and emergency meds, for starters. Then sextant and site reduction tables; pilot charts, fids, an extra sailor’s palm, twine and wax; flashlights, headlamps, rechargeable batteries, an AM/FM radio, spare GPS; several types of knives; favorite pens and pencils, blank journals and log books, and a label maker.
Anything that could fly and had a use went in.
I’d taken that quantity and weight of bags because they travel free on Alaska Airlines for those flying within Alaska.
Initially I planned to board only with carry-on for today’s trip. But during my two weeks at home, more “absolutely necessary” items shot their way into the return pile as if magnetized to it. The cold-water wet suit and weights, plotting paper for sextant work, a box of electrical connectors, fuses, cable clamps, heat shrink, spools of red and black wire; miscellaneous shackles and Monel seizing; black, blue and silver tapes; spare prescription glasses and a handful of readers, Spectra line in various sizes not available up North, a collection of pocket-sized books, like Captain McClintock’s Voyage of the Fox, Elisha Kent Kane’s Arctic Explorations, and the poems of Robinson Jeffers.
By the morning of departure, I was full-up and actually pairing down.
Dragging my three suitcases and a backpack, I lumbered like a two-legged elephant up to the non-Alaska ticket counter in the Oakland Airport, and here I received a lesson in why I like flying Alaska.
Months ago when checking in here for an Alaska flight, I left my wallet at the counter. Just as I was entering the security line, I heard my name being called, and turning, I saw the Alaska agent running after me. She’d abandoned her station to return my wallet. “Sorry sir, but I believe you’ll need this…,” she said, smiling. (Note the courtesy of an apology for something not her fault and the smile.)
This morning, another bonehead move on my part. After heffalumping my bags to this non-Alaska ticket counter and making my payment, I succeeded in leaving my boarding pass in the ticket machine. When I returned some minutes later, saying to the un-Alaska agent that I was missing my boarding pass, she said, “I know. I threw it away,” with an air suggesting she had done me, and the environment at large, a favor.
Having retrieved the necessary document, I returned to security, passing the Alaska desk in the process. The agent heading up their line stepped out towards me and beaming, he said, “Hope you have a great trip, sir.” About gave me a heart attack! Apparently one does not have to be a customer of Alaska Airlines to receive their kindness.
On Alaska, attendants welcome you aboard and offer to freshen your coffee with what feels like real hospitality. Even on the 6am run to Seattle, “Enjoy your flight, Mr. Reeves” has the ring of a personal and heartfelt invitation rather than what I’ve come to expect from my experience of other airlines, something more akin to a recital of scripture with downcast eyes.
In an industry optimized for the sleekly appointed business traveler, this rumpled, lonely (forgetful) adventurer, who needs more than a laptop and noise cancelling headphones for his survival, finds Alaska Airlines a welcome relief.
Homer is the hailing port of the Kilchers, the family whose adventures in homesteading are featured on the long-running TV show, Alaska: The Last Frontier. You’d never know it from the show, of course, where story lines and careful editing leave one with the impression that the Kilchers live moose-miles from the nearest telephone pole, but that sense of remoteness is manufactured.
Things have changed in Homer since the clan patriarch, Yule Kilcher, arrived on the peninsula from Switzerland in the 1940s. Back then the unincorporated area, referenced in a 1920s census simply as “Homer Spit and Vicinity,” was a mere 300 hardy souls scattered over 100 square miles of mountain and bog. Services included a couple general stores, a dock, a dirt airstrip for bush planes and generous helpings of nothing else.
Roll forward 75 years and the town is a small city known widely as “The Halibut Capitol of the World.” The year-round population of some 6,000 is connected to Anchorage, Alaska’s supply hub, by a wide, well-maintained highway and an airport that lands four or five commercial flights a day. Homer has grid electricity, city water, a small fleet of snow plows; a modern public library with computer stations and WIFI; regular UPS deliveries and even access to Amazon Prime.
Ten minutes from the Kilcher Ranch is a Safeway and a McDonalds.
In effect, then, what homesteading the current generation of Kilchers do is largely voluntary. “Getting in your meat,” a phrase used to describe the fall big game hunt intended to stock the winter larder, once key to surviving the long, dark, frozen months, is now sport, and if you forgot the steak sauce, you can dash into town.
This is not a deprecation of the Kilchers or their hybrid way of life. For all its conveniences, Homer is still 250 miles into the back of beyond. And the work involved in voluntary, fame-generating, reality TV homesteading is, nonetheless, hard work. I’ve dug through the Gear Shed bolt bins along side Eivin, whose hair is as rumpled and hands as dirty off camera as on, and shared a stool at the Honda Parts counter with Otto Senior. The ranch still takes running, and to all appearances, the Kilchers run it.
But it does beg the question, is honest-to-god, make-or-break homesteading still alive on the Kenai peninsula?
In a word, yes.
Meet my neighbor, John.
John lives in a blue school bus across from where Gjoa currently sits on stands at the Homer Boat Yard.
He’s from Juneau, and has been at various times a salmon fisherman, a jewelry maker, and totem pole carver. For a month he’s been camped in the yard busily outfitting his bus for a journey that will commence at the next exceptionally high tide. It’s the rarity of these “King” tides that are keeping John captive. His carefully timed, early April arrival in Homer was a day too late. He missed that month’s great surge, and the next opportunity won’t come till May 5th.
On that day, John will drive his bus onto a barge in the harbor and be transported north overnight to a piece of coast on western Cook Inlet only briefly accessible at maximum high water. Here John will drive off the barge and pick up a dirt road that extends for sixteen miles into the interior before dead-ending at Lake Illiamna. John will then splash the dinghy that lives on the roof of the bus, fill it with supplies, and row the ten miles across to a beach on the lake’s north shore. And when he gets to that beach, he will have arrived at his property. He and his relatives own several hundred acres here, but none have ever laid eyes on it. None have been willing to make the trek before John.
John will homestead the old fashioned way because he has no choice. He will built his shelter, hunt and grow his food, and be his own entertainment in a location that is, without doubt, moose-miles from anywhere.
And John is doing this alone.
Some evenings we meet for coffee in his bus, stacked to the ceiling with containers of rice and beans, boxes of tools, five sleeping bags, three rifles, two generators, and a chainsaw. If the day has been cold enough, he will run the engine for its heat while we talk, though he can hardly spare the fuel. And on these evenings, his undertaking often weighs on him.
A typical theme is how he’ll build the log cabin, his first major project: how he’ll select smaller trees that he can move himself, how he’ll cement the cracks between the logs against the wind, where he’ll cut for the window, how he’ll make a wood stove from a 50 gallon drum. He savors over the wood stove. But here the conversation falters; he’s not solved how to loft the cabin roof on his own. He lights a cigarette. “This is some serious shit,” he’ll say. “Gotta have a cabin for winter. Guess I could always retreat to the bus. But man, this is some serious shit.”
I find admirable Alaskan willingness to tackle the unknown. One could argue that this “last frontier” requires it of them or that the requirement draws those so inclined, but whatever the reason, Alaska is a land of generalists, generalists with heavy equipment and a will to get stuff done. Need a new barn on your property, or driveway or septic system? Build it yourself. Don’t know how? Well, give it a think and then give it a try.
How many afternoons have I watched Mike Stockburger of Homer Boat Yard move large, ungainly boats with nothing but a flatbed trailer and some ingenuity. Sailboats are especially difficult. Tall of keel and with vertical topsides, they appear to fight the process by design. But what Mike does so well is work the problem, and by means of blocks and straps, infinitesimal adjustments to trailer height and uncommon persistence, Mike usually wins.
—
“Not sure we’ve stepped a mast that big,” said Mike as I sorted out the lines and wires and double checked attachments. “How tall did you say it was?”
“62 feet before antennas. How tall’s the crane?”
“80 feet, boom and jib. That’s assuming the jib will extend. Sometimes it likes to stick half way.”
“Think you can get the mast over Gjoa’s rail?”
“Well,” he said, thinking, “we’ll give it a try.”
The crane arrived at 9 o’clock on Tuesday morning, and the operation proceeded as follows…
Mike Kennedy moves his P&H 20 ton crane into position as Randy, Mike Stockburger and Josh look on.
Crane at full extension but not yet full lift. Mike is measuring maximum height available.
The lift begins. Josh and Randy work to keep the foot of the mast from digging into the sand before we can get the stick fully air born.
The mast is flying now. Josh has jumped aboard the crane to eyeball how much more lift is needed to get over the rail. Behind the crane, Todd and Randy pull smartly on two guy lines to keep the head of the mast off the crane boom, and Mike is dashing up Gjoa’s ladder to catch the mast as she comes aboard.
At this point photographing stopped and real, sometimes urgent, work began. Guiding the mast through the deck and onto her step while keeping the head of the mast and its delicate parts (the windex and wind speed indicator) off the crane boom took four men on deck and one in the hole. Randy and Todd pulled at the guy wires from the stern; Josh held the foils at the bow while giving direction to Kennedy, who could see very little of importance from his position in the crane; Mike guided the mast into the deck and I was below easing her foot into place.
For an hour we juggled increments and inches. Three inches up and one inch over; two inches down; now two inches right. No, right! OK, one inch down. Easy. EASY!
Finally the shoe fit and the pin slid home.
We had not been absolutely successful as the operation had bend the wind speed indicator slightly. Here Josh has climbed the mast and is setting it right.
Gjoa’s mast is stepped.
A happy owner buying lunch for the crew. Starting left and moving clockwise: Randy, Todd, Mike Stockburger, Mike Kennedy, and the climber, Josh.
Some water below the keel remains the only requirement for a good long sail.
