A mellow crossing across the Gulf of Alaska from Seward to Dixon Enterance, a couple of days down the inside passage and we're out of the dreary north and back into sunny Washington. I'm home for 10 days or so, then it's off on another 40+ day run. The passage back was uneventful. 5-7 foot seas in the Gulf and then a lot of current to deal with on the inside passage, but it's all downhill coming home. Now it's time to drink beer and get soak in some of that sunshine and as an added bonus, I'm going to be home for the Subdued Stringband Jamboree.

Killer sunset crossing the Gulf of Alaska:

Gorgeous weather through Johnstone Strait:

Interesting note....I'm not sure what this says about my life, but I picked up the latest issue of Latitudes and Attitudes in Seward and it was basically written about me. There was Bob Bitchin writing about taking Lost Soul to all these spots in Mexico that I visited last year. Then I flip to an article about a project that a bunch of cruiser did down in Barra where they fixed up the elementry school and there's good old Shoot the Moon Dave in the picture. Finally I get towards the back and there's an article about Brian's boat burning down and the community effort to get him a new one overnight. I didn't get into town until 2 days after the fire, but I knew everyone in the pictures and knew the entire story firsthand. It was very cool to be on a tug up in Alaska and find this magazine that brought me right back to Mexico and helped me keep focused on the fact that I'll be right back living the life in another few months.

I can't remember the name of this one, but it's the biggest of the three volcanos on Unimak Island:

We had some good 5-7 foot waves to buck into heading north towards Cook Inlet. Nothing too bad, but with how little fuel we had on board it was a bit rolly. The Ocean Mariner carries upwards of 55,000 gallons of diesel, but we had to get our draft down to 12 feet to make it up the rivers. We had a couple of close calls with 0.0 showing on the depth sounder. Not a terribly fun feeling when 4000 tons of gravelly death is following 100 feet behind and won't slow down if you get caught on a bar. Anyway, we made it out of the rivers safely and made it up to Seward before any really nasty weather hit. We're here in Seward now, picking up some empty cargo containers to bring back to Seattle. The weather was supposed to be bad today, so we actually had a night off last night. Ahhhh my first beer in 31 days. How sweet it is.

Corey(the other deckhand), Mitch(1st Mate), and myself in Seward:

Seward Marina:

Spectacular scenery and of course cruise ships. I just can't seem to get away from these damn things:

We're leaving tomorrow if the weather clears up. Then it's 2 days across the Gulf of Alaska and 5 days down the inside passage back to Seattle. See you all in a week or so.

July 03, 2007

Until yesterday, tug boating was getting pretty routine. Cook a few meals, bake some treats, haul some lines, get sleep whenever you can. Just about what I expected. Yesterday was a bit different. First, Tom, the other deck hand, calls me to the wheelhouse to check out a pod of Belugas swimming by. They never got too close, but very cool to add a new whale to my list. We were heading out the Nushagak river with a barge full of gravel. It's a wide river, but there are lots of shoals and we're very limited with the tug and barge's 12 foot drafts. Nomally the tug draws more, but we're running without any fuel in the aft tanks to get the stern up, otherwise we couldn't make it up the Kuskokuim river to Bethel. So we're shooting the shoalest part of the Nushagak at slack high water, unfortunately this happens to coincide with a 4 hour salmon opening. I t seems like the entire Bristol Bay fishing fleet was in the river. There were easily 500 fishing boats, probably many more. Now if you think that dodging 500+ 32' fish boats is a fun job, add to that the fact that most of them have 600 foot gill nets strung out across the river from their position. Oh yeah, add to that the fact that there's a 3 knot current pushing us out and if we don't go fast enough the barge like to make random turns on it's own and take off to one side or the other. So we need to maintain 6 knots net boat speed to keep the barge tracking behind us. So for over two hours, Tom and I were constantly looking through binoculars while Arve, the captain, steered us through the labyrinth of gill nets all the while repeating how he was never going to do this again.

I got a chance to snap a quick pic backward just as we were coming out of the gill netters:

More impressive, here's the radar as we're coming out of the fishing grounds:

Later that night Arve called me up to the wheelhouse again, this time for a humpback that was playing around and doing tail slaps. He just sat there and slapped his enormous fluke at us while we steamed by less then a hundred yards away. I'm not surprised when they do that with a sailboat, but this is a 94 foot tug towing a 287 foot barge, still the whale was unflappable....except for his tail which flapped a lot.

Here's that Humpback smacking his tail at us while we motored by:

Here's the cooks cabin. The other cabins are quite a bit larger, but compared with sailboat accommodations it's downright palatial:

Here's the Galley where I spend most of my time. Not too bad, big fridge and freezer, dishwasher, garbage disposal, trash compactor, microwave. I've got it all:

And the other place where I spend a lot of time, the galley table. There's a TV and VCR/DVD in here so that we can watch movies, but we only really use them during meal time. Still we've powered through season 1 of “The Unit” and have started on season 1 of “24”

And here I am up in the Wheelhouse:

So we spent 4 days up in Bethel waiting for them to unload all the containers off our barge using a couple of big honking fork lifts. Then we did an overnight passage to Dillingham and as I'm sitting here writing this are being loaded up with gravel to take back to Bethel. I think that we're going to be doing this run a few time over the next couple of weeks. We may or may not make a run up to Nome. Either way the tug and barge need to be back in Seattle by August 1st, so I'll be up here working until at least then.

Gravel being loaded onto the barge, there's a big frontloader on the barge distributing the load:

And here I am poaching wifi off the fantail:

The Ocean Mariner

Here's the haulout and road trip north pics:

Here's the pics from fixing up Phoenix and some of it's subsequent sailing:

And here are all the pics from Barra, Mazatlan, La Paz, the Sea of Cortez and San Carlos:

The Mexican border with the alternating wall and 4' tall backyard style fence:

We drove through Arizona and across the south end of California to meet up with Tate at his field site (33°25’.55N, 117°11’.35 W) a little ways north of San Diego. We didn't get in until midnight, but Tate, his friend Ashley, and some of his co-workers were up waiting for us with a fine selection of IPAs. Ahhh to taste that bitter bite of hops again. Naturally music ensued. We woke in the morning, drank coffee, collected firewood, picked oranges, tangelos and avacodos from the groves around the field site and Mark, Tate, Ashley and I all took off for Joshua Tree National Park. It was Saturday morning and of course the park was packed. We drove around 7 different camp grounds until we got so frustrated that we just went and set up camp at a site that was already taken (34°00’.06N, 116°01’.15 W) , but did not have their ticket posted showing that they had paid. It turns out that they had paid, but the site was big enough for all of us, so we shared. The wind was blowing like crazy and the fire pit at our campsite was unusable due to all the embers that would fly off towards our neighbors tent. So we started walking around the campground and found a couple from LA who had a little fire going, but were low on wood. Naturally they wouldn't mind if we warmed ourselves by their fire right? Oh, let us bring over a truck full of avocado wood from Tate's field site. Oh and you don't mind if we bring chairs, beer and instruments right? Pretty soon we had started a party and were picking late into the night. The next day involved more music, watching all the climbers, hiking Ryan Mountain and another campfire, but this time in our own site as the entire park cleared out by Sunday afternoon.

Mark, myself, Tate and Ashley on top of Ryan Mountain:

My van with the Joshua Trees:

Morning pickin session at the campground:

Mark and I left Tate and Ashley at the campground and took off for Oakland. Amazingly we were able to skirt around LA with no traffic, though we almost melted from the heat. We had a nice uneventful drive up the PCH and arrived in Oakland late Monday night. It was too late for Mark to arrange for a place to stay, so we had a beer and watched the last quarter of the Golden State Warriors game and then spent the night in the Van....Down by the River (37°46’.46N, 122°14’.23 W) . In the morning, we found Mark a place to crash while he gets himself established for the Summer and I took off after the traffic had cleared out to try and make Portland.

Beth and Jason in Portland:

Driving north, I began to feel more and more at home. Finally trees, mountains and Mt Shasta glistening with snow. All through Oregon, the smell of pines and crisp Spring air. I'd become so acclimated to 90 degree weather, that I was shivering in the frigid 70 degree air, but ahh to see evergreens again. I got into Portland around 9pm and was able to get a signal from the Metro free wi-fi signal. Both Jason and Beth had emailed, so I looked up Jason's address on Google maps and 10 minutes later, I was hanging out at Jason's house (45°30’.4N, 122°37’.23 W) driking more IPA and playing music into the night. A lazy moring of drinking coffee, eating bagels and playing music turned into a lazy mid day of more music and Tamales at a local taco place and then it was off northbound before Portland traffic hit.

I got into Seattle around 6:30 and went to my brother Alex's place up on Capitol Hill amazingly finding a parking space right out front. My car-ma was great all the way north, no traffic, no tickets even though my spedometer is broken and now a parking space in an impossible neighborhood. We went out to Sushi and then hit a local pub where we met my youngest brother Trevor. I crashed out at Alex's place and slept in until the morning traffic had cleared and took off north for the last 100 miles of my 2500 mile drive up from Mexico. It's surreal, after all the last 8 months entailed, it seemed perfectly normal to be driving up through the Chuckanuts again and down Holly into town(48°45’.08N, 122°28’.17 W). I met up with my parents for the afternoon and then it was off the Boundary Bay for the evening to catch up with everyone's last 8 months and the next day hangover that is pretty much a given after too many local beers when you're used to Pacifico. It's good to be home again, but now it's time to look for work and save money so I can do all this again next year. I'll still update the blog if anything interesting happens, but it's going to be in semi-hibernation for the Summer.

Back home in Bellingham:

I don't know what happened, but my blog entry on hauling out in Guaymas disappeared. So here goes again. After spending a couple of days on the hook in 6 feet of water (Bodhran draws 5), they were finally ready to pull Bodhran out of the water. Gabriel isn't done building ramp at his yard where the gringo yachts are stored, so he's been using the massive 150 ton travel lift at the commercial yard next door. Unfortunately they'd be rebuilding the lift next door. When they hauled me out they figured that it was in good enough shape to haul my little 10 ton boat, but that they wouldn't haul one of the shrimper's with it....very reassuring.

The travel lift at the commercial yard:

I dinghy'd Gabriel out to Bodhran and he led me through the shoals into the channel to the travel lift. It was shoal the entire way. We never had more than 3 feet under the keel, but we never hit bottom either. The yard guys were concerned over how to fit my little boat in their gargantuan lift. Fortunately I had pictures on my laptop of a previous haulout up in Bellingham so they could figure out where to place the straps, but they tied and retied lines connecting the straps together 3 or 4 times to ensure that Bodhran wouldn't slip down between them. Once I was in the lift, it was no problem. They pulled me out and drove me up the road and next yard to the gringo yard.

Bodhran coming out of the water:

Going up the road to the gringo yard:

Bodhran and my new land yacht in the yard:

Then it was time to “Summerize” the boat. Heat, rain, UV and bugs are the enemy. It regularly gets up above 120 degrees in the summer and there are torrential downpours when it does rain that overwhelm cockpit scuppers and fill boats with water. I removed the pinrails, boom gallows, running rigging and anything else that would come off to protect it from UV damage. I filled all the thru hulls with scotchbrite pads to keep the bugs from nesting in them, taped bug screens over all the vents, and taped the seams around the companionway and cockpit locker. Finally I bout a section of billboard covering to use as a big tarp and tied it up to cover the aft half of the boat. There was much anxiety leaving, but I think that Bodhran will weather the Summer just fine.

This should be the end of the road for this year. Here's the final route on Google Maps

I've been sitting here at anchor in San Carlos (27°56’.41N, 111°03’.4 W) for the last few days after a beautiful night passage from Bahia Conception. It was sad to be making my last passage of the year, but the wind was a gentle 5-10 knots out of the east all night long allowing me to make 4-5 knots with the wind 60 degrees off the starboard bow. It was so pleasant that I stayed up almost all night just enjoying the ride.

Pleasant breeze for my last sail of the year:

My last sunset at sea for a while:

What the cabin looks like at night:

Chillin on deck making 4 knots:

I got into San Carlos about 10am, dropped the hook and took the bus into Guaymas to try and find the dry storage and my van. It's about 10 miles to Guaymas and as usual the bus system is a breeze and cost all of $.90 for the ride. Once I was in Guaymas, I had planned to take a taxi to the boat yard. This has always worked in the past, but to my surprise none of the cab drivers knew where the yard was. I had to track down an internet cafe and print off directions from the yard's website. Even with the directions and address, the cabbie didn't know where it was, but he drove me in the right direction and eventually we found it (27°53’.46N, 110°53’.27 W). I talked with Gabriel, the yard manager, who assured me that he be able to haul Bodhran either Monday or Wednesday so I'm still going to haul out in Guaymas instead of San Carlos. The yard is cheaper and I like the feel of it. It has showers, wi-fi and lets you work and live on your boat while it's there. I also paid the storage on the van and get it running. The van was a bit dusty from sitting in the dirt yard for 3 months, but it started right up and ran fine on the drive back over to San Carlos.

Landfall at San Carlos with the distinctive Tetas de Cabre:

Gabriel is supposed to email me tomorrow morning whether we'll be able to haul out Monday or Wednesday. Then it's a couple of days work decommissioning the boat and getting it ready for the hot summer. Temperatures get up over 120degrees, so everything that's sensitive to heat needs to be taken off the boat. You also get torrential rain storms, so you need to seal up the boat as best you can to keep it dry.

The anchorage at the north end of Bahia Coyote:

I left La Paz a little over a week ago in the company of Dave and Jan on Polar Bear. We made it all of 25 miles to Caleta Partida (24°31’.48N, 110°22’.41 W) and then hunkered down for a couple of days expecting some bad weather out of the north that never materialized. It certainly wasn't wasted time though. Dave's been filling in for Tate as my musical partner in crime and I spent most every evening over on Polar Bear singing away while Dave would accompany me on guitar or harmonica. We also took advantage one day and took a dingy ride through the pass between Isla's Partida and Espiritu Santo south for a couple of miles to the pinnacles. The back side of Espiritu Santo had some great geological formations, with layer upon layer exposed by erosion. The snorkeling was great at the pinnacles. Imagine enourmous granite pillars with perfectly square angels jutting up out of 15-20 foot deep water. Just swimming through the naturally angular channels was cool enough and then you throw in a whole bunch of cool tropical fish for good measure. Then it's back to Polar Bear for drinks and dinner. I know, I know, it's a rough life.

Dolphin riding Bodhran's bow wave off Espiritu Santo:

Dave and some of the cool rock formations on the backside of Espiritu Santo:

Snorkeling around the pinnacles:

Squid in the shoal water between Islas Partida and Espiritu Santo:

Bodhran and Polar Bear anchored in Caleta Partida:

Polar Bear and Bodhran both left Caltea Partida on forecasted light southerlies and had a slow but peaceful spinnaker run up to Isla San Francisco (24°49’.10N, 110°34’.03 W) . Wouldn't you know it, but right after I got the anchor down, Mike off the Sea Bird came motoring by to see if I wanted to come to the beach bbq that night and maybe play a little music. Mike is Tate's old bird guiding roommate from Ecuador and the Sea Bird is the sister ship to the Sea Lion, the Linblad Expeditions ship that Tate and I met up with in Ensenada Grande back in January and played at their bbq. I told Mike that I'd be happy to play at the bbq, but he had to invite Dave and Jan to the party as well. I really can't play unaccompanied. So I got yet another night of free food and drinks sponsored by Linblad Expeditions only this time they sent me packing with about 20 pounds of leftovers.

Polar Bear anchored off Isla San Francisco:

I awoke the next morning to fresh southerlies and just had to take advantage of the wind to make some northing. I would have liked to explore Isla San Francisco some more, but there's always next year. I had a great sail north. Sailing around here is like sailing through the Grand Canyon with all the reds and golds of the mountains and mesas that run right up to the coast. The wind died in the mid afternoon and I motored through most of the night up to San Jauanico, a little ways north of Loreto. San Juanico (26°22’.03N, 111°25’.5 W) was a pretty anchorage and I met up with Mark and Isabelle off the Follie Deuce. Mark is thinking of sharing a ride with me from Guaymas as far as San Francisco and I was glad to catch back up with him. The next morning I found Brent and Annie off Progression anchored behind me. This was a bit of a shock. Progression was on O dock back in Bellingham with me 3 years ago before Brent and Annie took it south. Unfortunately Annie is having some health issues and they are sailing Progression down around Cabo and up to LA to truck it back to Bellingham. It was nice spending a couple of days with them in San Juanico, but I decided to take off and try and make a little more northing before crossing the Sea.

San Juanico:

Progression, my old dock mate from Bellingham:

I took off this morning from San Juanico set for Bahia Conception. The wind was light, the sun was up and I was motoring along at 6 knots thanks to KC cleaning my bottom back down on Isla Partida. It would have been nice to be sailing, but I couldn't have asked for a nicer day. I saw some amazing fish boils while rounding Punta Pulpito. The sardines are in and a school of Yellowtail were herding them into enormous balls which would come boiling to the surface trying to escape the hungry tuna only to find a flock of pelicans ready to scoop them up. Really an impressive sight. I got a couple of hours of sailing in around mid day, but motored most of the way up to Punta Conception and then down the Bay to Bahia Coyote on the west side of Bahia Conception. I'll see what Don has to say about the weather in the morning, but from here I can sail to Guaymas in either a northerly or a southerly so the next time it looks like there's going to be 24 hours of reasonable winds I'll be leaving here and making the 80 mile hop across the Sea.

Fish boil off Punta Pulpito

I finally got a jumping dolphin pic:

I just put Jess in a cab for the airport, so once again I'm back to being a single hander. We've had a fun time the last few days in La Paz (24°09’.17N, 110°19’.42 W) walking around, doing the tourist thing and eating lots of tasty food. Yesterday we took the bus out to Playa El Tecelote for a day of snorkeling and hanging out at the beach. The snorkeling was no consolation for missing out on Los Islotes, but it was a lot of fun, and there was a great puffer fish with a psychotic smile that kept chasing Jess around.

Snorkeling in the beautiful clear water of El Tecolote:

Every body conscious woman in the world should own one of these shirts. It's impossible to imagine what the person underneath actually looks like:

I'm playing a set with Dave from Polar Bear at the Bay Fest music night tomorrow and then it's time to head north. We just finished up a week of freak southerlies which would have pushed me beautifully all the way up to Guaymas (27°55’.21N, 110°53’.12 W), but alas the wind has backed around out of the north again, so I may well be firing up the diesel for a good part of the trip.

Jess flew in on Thursday and after a night of checking out La Paz and eating Mole at Tequilla's, we motored off on a windless morning for Ensenada Grande (24°33’.29N, 110°23’.59 W) on Isla Partida. The forecast was for no wind for an entire week, so the plan was to make tracks up to the north end of the islands to maximize the time we had to lie on the beach, soak up the sun, do a little hiking and go snorkeling with the sea lions at Los Islotes. The windless forecast held true the first day and we made Ensenada Grande with plenty of daylight to spare. Dave and Jan on Polar Bear passed us on the way up the islands and we found them along with Moon Hunter, Boreas, and Imani waiting for us in the anchorage. Naturally some aquatic volley ball and then a beach party ensued. The only problem was the lack of wood on the desert island. There was one stick on the beach which was burned in stages to stretch the pitiful little fire through the night. Still a good time was had by all with music provided by Dave, KC, Ryan and myself and smoked Jack Corval made in Bill's homemade folding smoker he brought to the beach with him. The night ended with a plan to get up the next morning and take one of the boats out to Los Islotes to go snorkeling.

Dave and Jan's Tayana 52 Polar Bear passing us on the way up to Ensenada Grande:

In the middle of the night the wind picked up out of the south, giving us a rolly evening. Unfortunately the wind continued in the morning shutting out Los Islotes and it's deep unprotected anchorage from us. So we spent the day reading, swimming and sailing the dinghy around. Of course the wind died in the afternoon when we were on the beach and it took us over an hour to sail the dink back out to Bodhran. The next few days were more of the same. Friends boats would come and go, we'd hang out all day and then go over to Polar Bear in the evening to play music and make plans to go out to Los Islotes. Every evening the wind would come up and every evening it would shift more and more out of the west making each night rollier than the last and whipping up a sea that shut the sea lion colony off from us. After 4 nights we'd had enough of the pitching and rolling and we decided to make tracks back to La Paz (24°09’.17N, 110°19’.42 W). We did get in a good hike up the canyon at the head of Ensenada Grande, but we never did get out to Los Islotes to snorkel with the sea lions.

Jess at the top of the canyon on Isla Partida:

Windy anchorage down the canyon with three boats leaving for Isla San Francisco:

Brian sailing in on Phoenix our last night in Ensenada Grande:

So now we're back in La Paz for another 3 days until Jess flys out on Friday. Polar Bear followed us back here, so I'm sure that the rest of the week will be well spent.

Brian and Ryan sailing the Phoenix at hull speed in about 7 knots of wind: