Sailing Korvessa

I scribbled a quote on a sticky note and slapped it up on my inspiration board. On a yellow square with dark Sharpie the words stared back at me: There is nothing permanent except change. Other poems, quotes, and essayettes that had spoken to me plastered themselves across the same corkboard. In the past, before calling on my printer and push pins to capture all these words, I would save these gems in some other way – tuck them away in memory or save them in an electronic folder that might as well have been a black hole. Each message was ephemeral and fleeting. They served a purpose at the time – a little strength boost here, encouragement there – but in a time of change, it can be helpful to have something more solid. The Solid for me was the words of others I returned to time and again. Words that helped me slow my breathing, interrupt the narrative in my head, or just re-ignite the pilot light of hope. I needed the words of others because I hadn’t yet learned to find strength in my own.

There is nothing permanent except change. Greek philosopher Heraclitus wrote that circa 500 BC – or so Google tells me – and I find comfort in its truth. In the natural cycle of life and death, so painful and so real. The words of Clarissa Pinkola Estés echo immediately after those of Heraclitus: “When one breath runs out, another begins…. What must I give more death to today in order to generate more life?” It is the death of something that provides fertilizer and space for new things to grow, transition, transform. That initial Change, so scary and overwhelming, reaches a tipping point and becomes Transition – still scary, but also exciting and new and full of possibility.

In the last few years, life has thrown us a lot of changes. In their own time, following their own paths, they are growing, transforming and becoming transitions. The biggest transition: Tom and I are getting divorced. Please allow us grace as we navigate this particular turning point. Such a route is never easy, and we have had no charts to keep us off the rocks. The kids, for their part, are showing understanding and resilience in this transition that gives me faith in the future. I find comfort reminding myself that there is nothing permanent except change, and that sometimes things have to die to generate more life.

This change was made all the harder by the passing in January of our beloved Demon, whom you all followed with us on our trip. Grief consumed us. Demon was 20.5 years old. She was a feisty and talkative ball of gray fuzz, perhaps somewhat more like a skeleton of gray fuzz toward the end, but her feistiness never faltered. She passed away with both mine and Tom’s hands touching her matted fine fur. She will live in our hearts forever. Or to use Andy’s own words shortly before her death: “We will never have a replacement for Demon because she is so unique. There will never be another pet like her.” Wise words. And flowers now grow and bloom on Demon’s beautiful grave, death giving life to something beautiful. There is nothing permanent but change.

This will be my last post on Sailing Korvessa. It’s been more than two years since my last post here and approaching three years since we returned to land from our epic trans-Pacific sailing trip. The sailing trip is over. The difficult re-entry period is over. I never retired this blog because I knew there would be more stories. I knew there would be moments of joy and hardship that I would want to try to capture in words. But because there were so few outings on Korvessa and so few stories that had neat plots and happy endings, I somehow didn’t feel I could put anything out there. I realize now that there are no neat plots and no happy endings other than what you read into them, and certainly no stories neatly tied up in a bow because things are always changing. And yet there are so many beautiful everyday adventures that I want to capture in words as I try to turn myself into a writer. So, as I retire the narrative blog of our epic sailing journey and let it live on in the book I’ve written and will eventually publish, I’ll continue my writing in a different venue, The Crazy: Finding Meaning in Everyday Adventures (which will go live by June 25).

Just as our sailing routes had to adjust to the perpetual dictates of wind, weather, and tides, so it is time for my writing to adjust. It will not be the regaling with tales of harrowing waves or cultural missteps a world away, but the gentle weaving of stories, images, and meaning that come from our everyday adventures, the everyday changes we might not even notice if we didn’t jot down that little note to say, “This. This is beautiful. Be aware of it. Describe it. Tell the story. Show the wonder and the crazy in all the everyday adventures that make up our lives.” Maybe through the telling, I’ll deepen my awareness of life around me. Maybe I’ll even learn to find strength in my own words. Maybe there will be someone someday who tacks one of my stories or black sharpie quotes up on her wall and whispers to herself, “Maybe I can tell my story, too. I’ve been afraid, but I can change.”

Six months ago we arrived back in Anacortes after a trans Pacific journey that took us from Canada to Mexico to French Polynesia to Hawaii to Alaska and back to Washington, a journey upwards of 13,000 nautical miles. A week ago, we stood on a grassy knoll in Washington Park and contemplated whether we could manage the five mile trek to James Island, which we could see from our perch, right there in front of us. “Oh, how the mighty have fallen,” Tom half-joked.

But it was time to get back on the horse, so to speak. Six months to the day from the moment we returned from our long sailing trip, and almost a year to the day that Tom left Mexico for French Polynesia, we departed Skyline Marina and took the 50-minute trip across the Rosario Street to James Island. It was a victory.

Yes, we were rusty. Yes, we made amateur mistakes. Having forgotten to unplug the power cord from the binnacle where it has to run through the steering wheel, we found that the wheel wouldn’t move when we needed it to as we backed out of the slip. I forgot to bring up the fenders until we were midway across the Rosario straight, which is the sailing equivalent of having toilet paper stuck to your shoe all day. I brought a spatula along to make sure I could flip pancakes in the morning, only to find that there were already three spatulas aboard. Having lost their sea legs momentarily, the kids both got a few head bumps. And they did have to be reminded of a few basic rules they had conveniently forgotten: life jackets on deck when we’re underway, no camping out in the companion way, and no toys on the stairs lest you want to hear the wrath of the captain.

Yet despite our rustiness, the short voyage was still a victory. In more ways than one. It was a victory to get off the dock in the middle of winter. It was a victory to re-discover our own watery backyard. And it was a victory to pull the kids away from their ever-present screens and get them exploring again.

More than anything, though, it was a victory of spirit, over the forces of frustration and depression and mental health demons. For all that we were happy to arrive home six months ago, it has been a difficult reentry as we have all struggled with our identities and relationship to the boat and to boating. Korvessa and Tom did everything they could to get us home with a failing transmission and semi-functioning bilge pumps. With no slips available in the area, we put Korvessa up on jackstands in a boatyard, where she received precious little attention from us, dirty dishes from the final voyage still festering in the sink. Attention had shifted instantly to work and school with no transition in between. I made periodic trips to the boat to retrieve things and to make sure the wind wasn’t wreaking any havoc, but there was little time or ability to do anything else. And Tom’s sporadic visits to Korvessa in between his long work stints in Arizona had resulted only in strong emotions and paralysis.

So once the transmission had been rebuilt and reinstalled, it was a victory for us all to get back to the boat, to start sorting through what was there (expired cat food and green salsa, anyone?), to start figuring out what still works (the fridge!) and what doesn’t (the forward heater), and to start the process of turning Korvessa into something that resembles more a boat and less a foreclosed home abandoned in haste.

We fell into rhythm with the small waves and hum of the engine. The surface of the Rosario Strait was glassy and smooth. The Olympic Mountains rose snow-capped in the distance to the south. The San Juan Islands layered different shades of gray to the north and west. Dylan wanted to learn to steer Korvessa, and he navigated us through the current as the strong ebb pulled us south. Andy immediately reverted back to his habit of playing Legos at the upper dinette table. Tom and I stared out at the water and the islands just enjoying the moment. At James Island, we explored beaches and hiking trails. We excitedly started a campfire with a long-expired flare and roasted hot dogs and sausages over the embers. We didn’t sleep well, having lost our familiarity with the rocking of the boat, the pitter-patter of the rain, and the constant knocking of sticks and debris against the hull. But it was beautiful. A beautiful, green and gray, Pacific Northwest victory.

Perhaps we were once mighty. Perhaps we have fallen. But if we were going to fall anywhere, I’m glad we fell here.

I am barreling eastward down Highway 20 toward Skagit County’s free Covid testing site, because runny noses and coughs are no longer a symptom that can be casually shrugged off as the bimonthly occurrence they once were. The kids sit in the back seat with their headphones, both engaged in their small-group school Zoom meetings for remote school. “Zz… aa… pp. Zap. Bb…. uu… gg… Bug,” I hear Andy drone in the background. He’d read me a chapter book about dragons if I asked him to. But I don’t. And feel all the more guilty for it. “We’re going to get tested!” Dylan says in his loud Zoom voice, aka his everyday voice. “Yeah, just in case,” he confirms to his classmates. I look in the rear view mirror, and there they are: panda headphones on Dylan, who is scribbling away doing his second grade math, writing numbers of his own volition that I could never get him to write when I was trying to teach him. Black headphones with a mouthpiece on new-kindergartener Andy, who, when he is not practicing his short vowel sounds, is drawing his own comics and monster books complete with measurements and multi-layered, nuanced colors. And I don’t know what to do with him.

And me, well, I’m mentally preparing the agenda for a meeting I’m facilitating next week, making a vain and completely fruitless attempt to get at least a little work done while driving down the highway. I have my computer with me, thinking there will be an hour wait in line at the testing site, but we begin to move forward after only a five minutes and twenty words into an email I’m writing. I realize far too late that I would have been mentally better off just leaving it at home.

My eyes are still puffy from the torrents of tears that erupted while watching the Art of Racing in the Rain last night. Cucumber slices didn’t help. I have recently finished a session with my therapist in which I bemoaned my complete inability to focus. Thousands of miles away, our Capitol is being stormed by white rioters who care nothing about truth and the democratic process and the wars we fought to ensure that authoritarianism could not take hold here. Tom is in Arizona working. I get an email letting me know there might be a bobcat prowling our temporary neighborhood. I turn off the radio. And I surrender to the day.

I feed the kids fish sticks, packaged carrots, packaged apples, and packed yoghurt for dinner while the TV blasts in the background. They confiscate the boxes from the new couch that has just arrived and turn the living room into a massive fort. All the while munching on more packaged food. Packaged yoghurt covered pretzels. Packaged bars. Packaged gummies. What floor is left is littered with plastic packages. I’m horrified, but I look away because I have already intentionally surrendered the day to the forces of sanity and self-preservation. I curl up on my lovely new green couch and stare at the pattern on my old Turkish kilim.

It has been one day of many in these last four months since we arrived back from our sailing trip. The kids started school remotely. Then there was in-person classes for half days for a month. Then back to remote learning. And they will start back again in-person on Monday, pending negative Covid tests, of course. We lived gratefully in Tom’s parents’ basement apartment for three months while we got our feet underneath us, then moved into a short term rental. In five months, we’ll be able to move back into our own house. Korvessa sits on stilts in boat yard weathering the winter wind storms, and the kids are beginning to talk about missing the boat. They have been remarkably resilient during this all, and, except for a downturn in Dylan’s behavior in the last couple post-holiday days, they have actually managed the transition better than Tom or me.

Tom continues to return to Arizona for work. And while it helps us get our accounts back in order, we look forward to a time when he won’t be gone quite so much. On the plus side, he was able to get his first dose of the Covid vaccine and is eagerly awaiting the second. He said he could practically feel the science entering his veins.

I am over the moon to be back at Community Action of Skagit County as the Data and Assessment Manager and working every day to support people experiencing poverty in Skagit County. And I love working again. I only bemoan that damned inability to focus, though I know I’m not alone. How does one balance full time work from home with kids who are being juggled between home, four grandparents, and learning pods? Oh yeah, and I’m trying to write a book.

Some days it seems impossible. Some days it all goes smoothly. Some days I write 2,000 words. Some days I write 50. Some days I read the kids bedtime books for an hour. Other days they get five minutes before I drag myself to bed and put on an audio book so someone can read me to sleep. But work is getting done. School is getting sort of done. The book is getting written (170 pages so far, in fact), not least due to the support and encouragement of a great writing coach and group of fellow writers I’m working with. Some days are really good. Some days are really bad. And some days surprise you. Tonight, as I tucked the kids into bed in their massive fort in the middle of the living room, Andy said, “Mommy, I’m kind of sad this day is ending. It was a really great day. We got to do all sorts of fun stuff like build this huge fort!” I took a picture of them curled up in their self-made cubbies. And that is the snapshot I want to remember.

There is a line in my hair that marks the day we left Mexico. Sun-bleached, split-ended, blonde hair hangs below that line, and seven inches of brown roots and healthy locks grow above it, unaffected by the North Pacific and the Alaska summer. It looks like the hair of someone who hasn’t been to a salon in over a half a year. That would be true. It also looks like the hair of someone who has had a drastic change in her life. That would also be true.

That line marks the day our lives pivoted. They pivoted north instead of southeast. They pivoted toward home rather than away from it. They pivoted toward figuring out how to get home and what our lives might look like in a new Covid World. For all the tumult and chaos and change of plans, though, we have been happy to be making our way home. We have been happy to start shifting our mindsets to a different life.

I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t posted our arrival due to lack of time. I’ve had plenty of time in the past two weeks since we made it back to Anacortes after the (not uneventful) 6-day passage from Sitka. Somewhat intermittent time, but time nonetheless. More often than not, I have used that time to read, nap, organize, stare at the wall, cook, or watch a movie with the kids. No, it’s not about lack of time.

It’s not writer’s block, because I’ve been spending an hour or two a day working on my book, managing to get 300 to 600 words off my fingertips each day. What sweet satisfaction to feel the story emerge.

And it’s not about a lack of emotion, because there’s been plenty of that. The surprise of seeing our friends arrive to escort us in to Anacortes. The relief of pulling into the dock. The happiness of seeing our family awaiting us. The apprehension of dealing with the prospect of online school. The suffocation of not being able to get together with a whole bunch of friends to celebrate. The mixed emotions of hauling Korvessa out of the water. More relief than sadness, really, with that one. Relief that we and the boat all made it back safely. But seeing her blocked up on land the other day choked me up. And for all that we talk about coming “home,” we know very well that Korvessa was our home all along. The kids are the first to remind us of that. No, there have been plenty of emotions to write about.

My delay in making a “we’re home” post has been much more about not knowing where to start, not finding quite the right words. How do you write about homecoming after a voyage that has upended and changed your life, your perspective, your confidence? How do you give that moment the weight it needs?

The answer: you wait until you have had the chance to process it. And that time is not now. That’s what the book will be for. I’m learning and realizing lessons even as the story spills off my fingers. I’m processing it as Tom and I revisit various memories. I feel and see the story more as I make my way through journals warped by salt water and the buried stores of cans and jars with Spanish labels, slightly rusted and disheveled from a Pacific circumnavigation. As are we. No, it’s not time to sum it all up. It’s not time to talk about all our lessons learned and transformations we’ve been through. That will come.

In the mean time, know that we are home. That we are happy to be home, along with all the other emotions. That I will continue to post stories up here that never got written, such as the case of the disappearing cat and a summary of boat-school (which may give me a mild form of PTSD for years to come). And know that I will finally get Tom on the blog to write about some of his own wickedly funny and harrowing stories; he has lots to tell about fishing, alternators, transmissions, and cat feces. Remember, our final passage from Sitka to Anacortes was NOT uneventful. A story will eventually follow.

My hair tells a story. Tom’s hair, cut oddly by my inexpert hands, tells a story. Andy’s haircut, thickening by the day, cut into an awful bowl cut from another century, tells a story. And Dylan’s hair – that bright blonde hair bleached white by the Mexican sun now darkening at the roots as mine is, that hair that sent him into hysterics when it was touched by too many well-wishing hands – that hair tells a story. And we will continue to write our story as we live this adventure of life.

In an hour or so, we’ll leave Sitka to start the six or seven day passage home to Anacortes. The engine is fixed, the galley is stocked with healthy meals and unhealthy snacks, and the wind looks favorable. The kids are nervous but stoked, Demon the Cat is clingy and anxious sensing that something is about to happen, and Tom and I are happy to have our friend John on board to help us take the boat home. Hopefully a week onboard with our two kiddos won’t dissuade him from his plan to take his own family out on an epic voyage.

There’s little time to write about any reflections now as our impending departure can be counted in minutes now, but know that we are happy to be headed home.

You can follow our journey at share.garmin.com/Korvessa, which updates our position every four hours.

If the Kenai Fjords had us craning our necks up to look at the sharp icy peaks and down to gaze into the endless depths below us, Prince William Sound gave us the opportunity to explore the world within arm’s reach. We walked along rocky shores, explored tidepools on intertidal islands, and walked through countless moist meadows looking at the tiny bits of beauty at our fingertips and toe-tips.

Tidepools and Beaches:

A Walk Through a Meadow:

The islands of Prince William Sound were dotted intermittently with dense shrubs, soggy meadows, bogs, and rocky outcrops. At first glance, everything looks to be a monochrome greenish-brown, but a closer examination reveals so much color and diversity of flora!

When we approached one of our first huge meadows on Glacier Island, Andy – who has recently been married to his tablet, which has worried me to no end – exclaimed with awe: “Look, an open field!” and went bounding into it. I guess all the screen time recently hasn’t damaged him too much if he can still feel the thrill and excitement of an open field. Mom guilt assuaged for now.

Shoreside Life:

Life ashore was somewhat easier to manage in Prince William Sound than in the Kenai Fjords, but we did see bears almost everywhere, so a lot of our shore time was spent on islands instead of the mainland. Still, we made the most of the beautiful terrain around us.

Other Animal Sightings:

Those these pictures aren’t great and can hardly do these beautiful animals justice, they represent some of the other wildlife we saw on a regular basis and that symbolize the richness of life we were surrounded by.

Next up: Our “urban” experiences in two of Prince William Sound’s towns, Cordova and Valdez and the psychological toll of injuries, waiting, and homesickness.

We pulled away from the dock in Seward one Friday afternoon, excited to begin our adventure in the Kenai Fjords and see the famous glaciers and icebergs – all the cold, icy stuff that had filled our daydreams during scorching, sweat-drenched days in Mexico and French Polynesia. We had wisely predicted that we would be leaving too late in the day to make it all the way out of Resurrection Bay and that we might need a closer and tamer place to anchor than the wilds of the fjords on our first night at anchor together since late January. How well we knew ourselves.

We were giddy as we pulled into the absolutely magnificent Thumb Cove, seeing the grandeur of this coast for the first time (the mountains having been mostly covered by fog, rain, and clouds when we passed this way two weeks prior). We picked a spot to drop our anchor, following the directions of our awesome guidebook and giving an appropriately respectful distance from the one other boat in the cove.

But as we neared the shore and the depth-sounder continued to read well above 100 feet, we began to get nervous. By the time we reached 70 feet of depth (the deepest we would have ever anchored) we were awfully close to shore. We dropped the anchor and chain, but as we backed up on it to set it, our stern was already in 10 feet of water. Far too shallow with the tide fluctuations of 10-15 feet here. And we didn’t even have a full 3:1 scope out yet (this is an acceptable minimum in a situation when you’re anchoring really deep and have an all chain rode, but it’s still not ideal).

I should include for the boaters out there that we have an 85-pound Mantus Anchor (which we love!) that is attached to 300 feet of 3/8-inch chain. We estimate that we have at least 1000 nights at anchor and can boast that we have never dragged anchor. I attribute that to Tom’s conservative anchoring practices (7:1 scope when possible, 10:1 in high winds, use of a range finder to gauge safe distance, etc), unwavering commitment to make absolutely sure that the anchor is set, and – in the difficult conditions we encountered up here – simply having the patience of Job.

We motored around the bay to check out two other suggested spots, neither of which would give us a shallow enough option to be able to have a decent amount of scope. We motored grudgingly back to the original spot and decided to try dropping the anchor in 80 feet to see if that did any good. It may have, but the anchor didn’t set immediately in the loose gravel, and as we reversed to try to set it, our stern again found its way into shallow water far beyond our comfort zone. So, I pulled it up again, only to see the windlass’s solenoid beginning to smoke. Awesome. I still have 250 more feet of chain and an 85 pound anchor to pull up and our windlass is about to fry itself (Tom measured the temperature at 425 degrees). I pull it up slowly, a few seconds at a time, waiting for the smoke to start then pausing to let it cool, a process sped up by the fact that a cold rain was beginning to fall on top of it. Lucky for us, Tom had asked me to order a new solenoid while I was back in Washington. Unlucky for us, this meant a two hour motor back to Seward in the now-pouring rain and a call of shame to the marina to ask if we could come back to the same slip that we had just vacated. And so went our first anchoring attempt in Alaska.

With a new solenoid and renewed motivation, our next anchoring attempts were more successful. Well, successful in that we got the anchor to set, but it took no less than three attempts each time before we got the anchor to set properly. It wasn’t until our tenth (and last) night in the fjords that we got our anchor to set in less than three attempts. So, feeling humbled by our experience, we thought we’d share a little about what we learned about anchoring up here:

• Anchorages can be really deep. For safety, having A LOT of anchor rode is vital. We thought our 300 feet of chain would be plenty up here, but Tom said he won’t return to the fjords without a full 600 feet next time. We didn’t have to try our backup plan of attaching our 300 foot anchor rope to our 300 foot chain, but we were ready to do so if we needed to. We like to anchor with 7:1 scope, but up here we generally couldn’t get more than 4:1 out. That’s still safe, especially with all chain, but we wouldn’t have wanted to sit out a 50-knot williwaw with that scope. (A williwaw is a katabatic wind that whips down the steep hillsides and into the funnel-shaped coves. We were lucky we did not encounter any williwaws during our ten days in the fjords.) We ended up choosing anchorages where we were most likely to be successful anchoring and skipped the ones where we knew we did not have enough rode.
• Have multiple ways to check your depth. We have two depth-sounders, one near the bow and one near midships, but because anchorages are so “steep-to,” anchoring in the Kenai Fjords required knowing what our depth was at the stern below the rudder. On numerous occasions, we took out our handy dandy lead line and measured our depth the old school way.
• Back down on your anchor well. This is always a good idea, of course, but in the Fjords, most bottoms are rocky and covered in thick kelp, both of which are notorious for making you think you set your anchor, but the minute the wind picks up, off it comes. There are no anchors that are great on such rocky bottoms; it just requires skill and patience. We backed down hard, with me on the bow watching and listening for the anchor chain to stop vibrating (indicating the anchor and chain skipping along the bottom), and Tom at the helm watching our numbers to confirm when we stopped moving.
• In sum, be choosy about where you anchor, be smart, be patient, and don’t be afraid to pick up and move to a new location if one isn’t working.

Ironically, even though we were always excited to get the anchor set so we could go explore, a lot of our exploring happened on the boat, rather than off it. On the boat is how we were able to see so many icebergs, growlers, and brash ice. It’s how we could get up close(ish) to glaciers to see and hear them calve and rumble. It’s how we saw most of the animals out there: Minke and Humpback whales, harbor seals, sea otters, and all kinds of birds that make these rugged capes their homes. It’s how we collected bits of ice with a net to melt and drink and how we got to see views down steep and stunning valleys filled with ice rivers and hidden waterfalls.

It’s how we got to go investigate a white-ish discoloration in the water only to find out that it was a massive swarm of baby moon jellies! It’s how we got to see animals sunning themselves on icebergs and how we saw animal shapes in the icebergs themselves: That one looks like a dragon! A whale! A walrus!

Of course, with so much time aboard the boat, the kids did have to find a way to entertain themselves when there wasn’t something immediately available to ogle at. They discovered the joys of swinging on the staysail sheets up on the bow (only intermittently paying attention to our rule to keep feet flat on the deck). I wish I could say that this is what took up most of their time, but it didn’t. They were just as often glued to their tablets or occupied with Legos down below, but at least they generally came up top when we had a whale, a puffin, or a particularly interesting iceberg to report.

When we did make it off the boat, life ashore was beautiful but did not leave a lot of room for exploration. The sheer cliffs, steep valleys, and dense shrubs left us little room for movement, especially movement that a reluctant 5-year-old was be up for. Additionally, there’s that little problem of the bears. Every walk included bear spray, and our watchful eyes became even more vigilant when we watched a black bear in Abra Cove swim from one side of the cove to the other, then meander up and down the beach all afternoon.

I haven’t found the right words yet to describe the Kenai Fjords; for now, I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves. I can say that the experience was phenomenal. I had thought we would need a month to explore this area and was worried when our time constraints would only allow us a week or two. But the thing is, it is so intense, so beautiful, and so awe-inspiring, that ten days (and perhaps much less) is plenty to experience the intensity and the power of this remote, rugged, steep, deep place that works its way into the depths of your soul.

Informational addendum: I’m a little behind on posts, which has not been helped by the fact that my computer is trying to break, cracking and making horrifying sounds every time I open or close it. But there’s lots to share about Prince William Sound, Cordova, and Valdez, and I’ll get updates out as my ailing laptop will allow. For now, we’re in Sitka, enjoying neither the rain nor the transmission trouble that just cropped up. But we’re enjoying the boat-watching, the meandering, and just being in Southeast Alaska, which feels so much closer to home. The rest of the week will include a few educational field trips for the kids and me and hopefully some positive progress on the engine front for Tom. All good vibes and crossed fingers would be appreciated.

Brief breaks on land and away from the boat – especially after difficult passages – are always welcome, and this land break in the Alaska of my childhood took me on a hike down memory lane.

Our parents (bless their very brave hearts!) took the kids for a month while Tom and I made the journey north from Hawaii to Alaska. They primarily stayed with Tom’s parents, while my parents filled in for some respite care when the Yorks needed a break. And at the end of that month (everybody still alive, if somewhat fatigued by the nonstop energy of two young boys), my parents took the kids for their required COVID-19 tests to enter Alaska (all negative, obviously, or our logistics would have gotten a lot more complicated) and flew them up to Anchorage.

Not two hours into their time in Alaska, while walking through Earthquake Park, the kids got to see their first moose! A mama and a baby, just hanging out on the other side of a pond. An appropriate welcome to this wild and wonderful land.

Tom and I had hoped to take the famous Alaska Railroad up to Anchorage to meet them all, but due to changes in tourism this year, the train wasn’t up and running yet. Instead, grandparents and kids piled into the rental mini-van and headed down the Turnagain Arm on a 2.5 hour drive to pick us up in Seward.

We packed the car full of dirty laundry and drove immediately back to Anchorage with a short stop in Girdwood to walk around Alyeska ski resort, where I had learned to ski 36 years ago. It turns out that it looks really different without snow. And the place where you could get cinnamon buns the size of your head seems to be gone. Sad. Anchorage itself brought back almost no memories, except for those of the relief and joy of reaching the final leg and finish line of the 510-mile Alaska AIDS bicycle ride I did here twenty years ago. But Anchorage was never my stomping ground; Eagle River was, fifteen miles to the northeast.

Going for a hike through the Eagle River Valley with my best friend from grade school, Catherine, was the highlight of the visit. What a wonderful gift to reconnect and and reminisce about old times and old friends! Walking with a friend through the boggy alders and slapping at mosquitoes while gazing up at the magnificent peaks around us was, very simply, a gift.

I was able to navigate us without trouble back to my old house, where we met the current owners, who also happen to be the same people that bought the house from my parents thirty-some years ago. They let us poke around in the backyard, which brought back years of memories even though it looked very different than it did when I lived there (more fenced, more groomed, less wild, less big, and fewer nooks and crannies for childhood imaginations to explore).

I navigated us map-less to my old school and enjoyed watching my kids play on the playground, which didn’t look so much different than it was when I was there, except perhaps for some new fancy play equipment and the spongey soft rubber padding under everything, because, you know, law suits.

We ventured back into the neighborhood to see if I could find the trail I used to take to walk to school. I found the small bridge that crossed over a creek, almost unchanged except that the bridge looked a lot sturdier. This is the place I loved most. The dense foliage was filled with the scent of damp, decaying leaves and fragrant wet cottonwood, a smell that, wherever I am, still brings me back to this small creek in southern Alaska.

Before heading back to Seward, we made stops at the Alaska Aviation Museum, Moose Tooth restaurant, and West Marine to swap out our broken chart plotter. The Aviation Museum was a huge hit with Dylan, whose imagination went wild as he gazed up into the engines of retired aircraft.

Back in Seward, we played tourist more than anything else, partaking in a few nearby hikes, a visit to Exit Glacier, an afternoon at the Sea Life Center, and a small (just us) 4th of July BBQ on my parents’ hotel patio.

Informational addendum: Despite its recent spike, which has just recently brought the total count of cases to just over 2,000, Alaska has been pretty impressive about how it has handled Covid-19. It shut its borders for quite a while, requiring a 14-day quarantine for all incoming visitors. They then allowed incomers to show a negative Covid-19 test and get a voucher for a second test to be used within 14 days, which was wonderfully logical. Businesses were allowed to reopen as they saw fit, and we have observed pretty good mask compliance on the part of both businesses and customers. The state has not required masks, but most businesses do require them and have big signs stating so. The restaurants we have been to have been careful to seat people far apart from each other, and all staff have been wearing masks. And when there was a small spike of cases in Seward, the city immediately cancelled all 4th of July activities. Alaska seems to be finding a nice balance between public health and keeping the economy running, though the recent spike (pretty small in comparison to many other states) is surely going to have them analyzing how to best to maintain this equilibrium.

We are now in Cordova (eastern Prince William Sound), waiting for a weather window to cross the Gulf of Alaska down to SE Alaska and head home.

Tom and Roberto sat in the cockpit in Hawaii contemplating the prospects of travel in a time of pandemic. “I think we just need to go someplace isolated, without people. We’re going to Alaska for the scenery, not the people,” Tom said.

“No,” replied Roberto. “You have to go to Alaska for the people. You can not experience Alaska without getting to know the people.”

How right he was. And Kodiak alone proved it to us. It was hands down the friendliest place we have ever been. Upon arriving in the drizzly, chilly evening gray, we were greeted by the smiling faces of friends and a neighborly fisherman, Gene. We headed out to find pizza and beer for takeout, but were welcomed to sit down in the empty cafe almost at closing time. The waiter was one of the most friendly and open people we’ve ever met. The next day, he not only greeted us by name, but remembered what we had ordered and asked if we wanted the same again. A large fishing boat pulled in next to us and handed Tom a big King Salmon; Tom tried to pay him for it, but he refused. “Nah, I just don’t feel like cleaning it,” he winked. The giant fish fed us for days in the form of sashimi, baked salmon, salmon burgers, and salmon and pea pasta. At the marina, one of the staff offered to drive me the two miles to the laundromat, only to find out that it was closed. She paused, and then said, “You know what, you can do your laundry at my house. I’ll drop you off, and my daughter can drive you back when you’re done.” Wow. “And if you need to borrow the car for a shopping trip sometime this week, just let me know.” Wow again. Upon arriving back to the dock, Gene greeted us, “Want some Pacific Cod?! I just fried some up fresh.” He handed us some steamy, fried pieces of cod straight off the grill on the back of his boat. Oh, my goodness, it was so good it was worth the slightly burnt tongue that resulted.

One sunny afternoon while walking back to the boat with a six pack of beer, Tom passed a guy who smiled and said “I should be going in your direction.” Tom laughed, simultaneously noticing that the guy was carrying a fancy Fluke multimeter. “You a marine electrician?” Tom asked. “Yeah, mostly refrigeration, but also some electrical work,” he said. “Can I give you a call to help with an alternator wiring problem I’m trying to solve?” Tom asked. “I imagine I can. When are you leaving?” he asked. “Um, day after tomorrow,” Tom said apologetically, knowing it’s the busy season for boats. “Sure. I can’t today, but I could come tomorrow. Give me a call.”

A marine tech available the following day during the high season?! Awesome. Juan came by and spent hours with Tom trying to troubleshoot some wiring questions about our perpetually problematic alternator. They worked the problems. They broke for lunch, then reconvened in the afternoon. After some progress and some new understanding, they solved the wiring and gauge problems, but still deduced that the alternator was fried again, which couldn’t be fixed at that time. When Tom asked how much he owed him, he said “Nah, you don’t need to pay me. We weren’t able to fix the problem.” “No way,” replied Tom. “You just spent half the day with me and helped me troubleshoot a major puzzle.” He handed him a few hundred dollars and a six pack of beer, and then we proceeded to spend the next hour and a half knocking back beers and talking about life. He waved happily and tipsily as he left, but not before he offered us his car to use if we needed it.

A knock on our boat the next day brought out Nancy, Kodiak born and raised, whose parents had come to the island as missionaries in the 1940’s. She said that our friends in Anacortes, Junko and Eiji and their kids, had lived with her for a while in Kodiak while they were in the process of sailing from Japan to the US. Junko had told Nancy that we were in town, and she had come and found us! She took us out for coffee, told us all about what Kodiak used to be like, drove us over to Near Island, and then brought us a bag full of books for the kids and other Kodiak paraphernalia. What a beautiful gift!

I can’t finish up without mentioning one more person who dropped by the boat to talk and also offered us her car if we needed it. Did I mention that the people of Kodiak are the friendliest in the world?

And to top it all off, just as we were about to leave the next day, two of four dock lines already untied, our neighbor Gene shouted over: “Hey, you want some halibut?” “Um, sure!” He ran over and handed us two huge frozen halibut steaks as we untied the docklines and pushed the boat off the dock from the town that had become one of our favorite on Earth.

We waved goodbye to the island that had welcomed us with such open arms. Kodiak drifted into the distance as a small pod of fin whales hunted the reefs in the distance and horned puffins played chicken with Korvessa. What seemed to be mini-orcas leapt through the water beside the boat, so we pulled out our beloved Whales, Dolphins, and Porpoises book: Dall’s Porpoises! A first for us.

Tom looked up and shouted, “Icebergs!” I couldn’t tell if he was joking. “Uh, you mean glaciers. That’s the end of the Kenai Peninsula.” The curvature of the earth allowed us only to see the tops of the glaciers on the south end of the peninsula 70 miles away, making them look like icebergs. The glaciered mountain peaks of the Kenai poked out from above that curved horizon of the now-flat water, and further to the west emerged even more magnificent ice fields on the stark Alaskan Peninsula that becomes the Aleutian Island chain. If only the idyll of that passage beginning could have lasted.

By 3am the perfect southeast wind behind us had built to 22 knots. No worries, that was what was predicted in the forecasts. By 4am it had clocked around to the northeast, putting us nose-in to the wind and giving us an apparent wind in the high-20’s; this was not in the forecast. I was beginning to get sick as the waves increased and the motion worsened. By 5am we were close-hauled and I had already thrown up before I realized I should take some medicine, which I took and then promptly threw up. By 6am I couldn’t keep us on course anymore without heading straight for the rugged, rocky coast (still three miles away, but we like our sea room). I took down all the sails and motored straight into the wind, waves, and wicked current at 3 knots.

At 6:15 am, the chart plotter died. I ran down below, started plotting our location on the paper chart, and turned on Tom’s tablet which has our back-up electronic charts. For the first time on Korvessa, I was properly scared. But a few deep breaths and reminders to myself that the boat was made for this and that we had already made it this far helped to alleviate the fear.

At 8am, Tom woke up for his shift. I threw up again and crawled straight into bed. Tom held down the fort as the wind built and the waves became angrier. A few hours of sleep helped my state, but as I crawled out of bed and into the dreaded bathroom I felt the seasickness resurface. My body wanted to throw up again, but there was nothing left. I braced myself against the sides of the tiny head as I spit into the small sink. Defeated, I crawled back into bed and stared at the hatch above me. Are those snowflakes? I heard the wind screaming. It must be over 30 knots now. Gale force. This was so not in the forecast. Tom eventually came down and let me know he needed a break. “Do you think you can manage for an hour or two so I can get some sleep?” “Yes, I can do it.” I got up and hauled myself again into the dreaded bathroom. I immediately got sick and emerged pale-faced and sweating five minutes later.

“I’m fine,” I told Tom. “I can do it.” And I did. Well, there wasn’t really much to do except keep the boat from hitting shore and taking over if the autopilot broke (which, thank goodness, it did not). There was little I could do about the waves, which hit the boat with a ferocity we had never experienced. They would bash into the side of the boat with a load bang, and periodically we would take a massive one completely over the bow that would crash straight into the pilothouse windows. The waves weren’t as big as the ones out on the ocean, but they were way more violent, way more unpredictable. We were in the great washing machine of a Gulf of Alaska gale. I sat on the top step of our companionway in my full foul weather gear with my face into the rain and wind. I drank in the fresh air. I let the rain and the salt water calm my clammy skin. I took deep breaths and watched the violent water.

We inched our way towards the mouth of Resurrection Bay. Tom (awake again after his short break) called one of the tour boats nearby to ask if they could see us on AIS (a transponder system that shows other boats where you are) and if they could avoid us since our ability to maneuver in these seas was restricted.

“Abolutely. How are you guys doing?” the captain asked. “We’re okay, just really uncomfortable and looking forward to getting out of this,” Tom replied. “If you come in closer, you can tuck behind Cheval Island and get a respite. And the water west of Cheval is a lot more benign. I was going to tuck back in there soon, too, to give my guys a rest,” the captain said.

Respite, benign, rest. Those words were all music to our ears. We headed our course towards Aialik Cape and saw one of the most rugged points in the country emerge from the rain and fog. Birds flitted through the air and over the waves, not in the least bothered by the tumult. We sneaked inside Pilot Rock and saw Cheval Island appear in the distance before us. Slowly, ever so slowly, it neared. And finally I could see the line where the waves stopped. That line: dark, calm, and inviting.

And the stillness of motion finally arrived. The relief of a brain that could now focus, of a stomach that finally growled for some calories that it promised to keep down. Tom chatted with a friendly tour-boat captain whose boat had been built in Anacortes. He then disappeared down below while I went above to take us the last few hours up Resurrection Bay to Seward. The waves were dissipating, and once beyond the barrier islands of the eastern side of the bay, they disappeared entirely. The water became glassy, and the clouds began to lift, exposing snow fields and glaciers in the nooks and crannies of the 4- and 5-thousand foot mountains that rose out of the fjords around us. The jaw-dropping majesty of this wild corner of the planet became obvious. It is rugged, magnificent, awe-inspiring, and full of watery, cold life in sea and air. But there is a price of admission to this striking land, and we just paid it.

Informational Addendum:

More major things broke on this 34-hour passage than on the rough passage from Hawaii to Kodiak, and more broke on that passage to Kodiak than the TWO prior ocean passages to French Polynesia and Hawaii. Let that sink in. (Tom says I’m not supposed to use that word on the boat.)

The chart plotter was a major casualty, especially being only two months old. The pin came out of joint that holds our main boom in place. How? We have no idea, but we can only assume that the repetition of the violent waves for 12 hours knocked it out. There is also a new crack in the deck where the mizzen sheet attaches, but it mirrors other cracks that were there when we bought the boat (signs of huge stresses, but not a concern for failure). Our boarding steps on both sides of the boat are completely toast from the repeated beatings they took, our bow-thruster is broken (we think just the switch), and our anchor windlass switch (that allows us to raise and lower the anchor) is completely rusted through and non-functional from all. The alternator hasn’t worked since Mexico, so that is a story on its own that Tom needs to tell in his own words someday. There might be some swearing. Have we mentioned how much we love and appreciate our generator?! May it last us the seven weeks we need to get home to Anacortes.

So, our time in Seward has partly been repairing things and getting the boat ready to be back in anchoring mode: getting the anchor and windlass ready, getting Tinker back in his deploy-able position and getting him outfitted again with his own little anchor, paddle, motor, and safety equipment. We haven’t anchored as a family since Playa Bonanza on Isla Espiritu Santo in Mexico in late January. Life has thrown us a few curveballs since then.

Tomorrow we’ll set out for the Kenai Fjords and then make our way up to Prince William Sound and then across to SE Alaska, from which point we’ll be making a fairly quick trip of it back down the coast to Washington. Please wish us fair winds and following seas (not beam seas or head seas, please!) and no more gales. We’ve had enough of those for a lifetime.

In the next installment: More on land life in Seward, Anchorage, and Eagle River!

There is no single word to describe this passage, but if I had to choose one, it would simply be: Hard. It is the only word that encompasses the mental and physical demands required and the need for flexibility, creativity, endurance, and endless tolerance for boredom and monotony. It was a marathon, not a sprint, requiring the same mental toughness, training, pacing, coping, and perseverance demanded of any long distance athlete.

Though I can only provide snippets and snapshots and very unpolished descriptions of our days, I hope this account of our passage paints a picture of our joys and challenges and of the overall experience. I think there is something in it for fellow-sailors and landlubbers alike. And while I hope I have captured the range of our human experience, Tom and I want recognize the unsung heroes of this journey:

• Crazy Ivan, our tireless autopilot, worked 24-7 to keep us on course and help us navigate through the steep and irregular waves. Autopilots regularly break on passages like this; neighbors of ours here ended up having to hand steer for eight days swapping one-hour watches, which incited a level of exhaustion that we can’t begin to imagine.
• Korvessa, our stout and sturdy boat that was made for passages like this, did not let us down. We never felt unsafe, we had a comfortable pilothouse to weather the winds and chills in, and with four sails, in-boom furling, and an electric winch, we had a full range of sail combinations at our disposal.
• Our engine and generator proved to be two reliable workhorses that we could not have lived without on this journey. The engine kept us moving forward in light winds, more stable in heavy winds, and secure in the knowledge that we had the power to make it to land. The generator’s role in keeping the batteries charged was indispensable, especially since we didn’t have a functioning alternator…. And the solar panels were minimally functional, as the skies were foggy and gray for the second half of the trip.

This passage was an exercise in teamwork. We commend and are awed by the single-handers who do this alone. But we don’t have a full understanding of how they do it. For us, we had to rely on each other. We had to trust that we were each going to do our parts and that we would ask for help if we needed it. We had to check each other as we changed shifts and as our fatigued brains and judgment eroded. And in the spirit of sharing and teamwork, we want to share a raw picture of the 18 days we just spent at sea. Revel in the peaks and wince at the troughs along the way, just as we did. Enjoy the journey.

Day 1: Yay, we’re off the dock! Six hours later: I’m going to lose my dinner. Yup, there it goes.

Day 2: Still sick, but I must stand my watch. Oh my God, I shouldn’t have eaten breakfast. Yup, there it goes. Note to self: puke over the leeward side of the boat next time. We chose this time to leave because of the good easterly wind it would give us to help us sail north, but the waves it has kicked up are close and steep, and the wind being slightly more northeasterly than expected means that we are sailing a close reach into 22 knots of wind. No wonder I’m sick.

Day 3: Feeling slightly better as long as I stay outside and stare at the horizon. On the plus side, it means standing watch is not a problem. Going down to use the head, however, is. I really wish I could pee over the side of the boat like Tom.

A boobie landed on Tinker, our bright red dinghy hanging off the back of our boat. He has a beautiful blue-gray beak, yellow eyes, and gorgeous, mottled, brown and white feathers. His feet are green-ish, as his light yellow skin forms a film on top of his blue legs and toes. He seems to be settling in for a ride. Tom has named him Alfred.

Day 4: Alfred spends his day preening, napping, and examining us. Tom spends his day bringing me food and drink because I am still too scared to go down below to do anything but pee and sleep. Speaking of pee, using one of her stronger forms of communication, Demon has clearly peed on the bedding in the aft cabin again. It reeks. She spends the rest of her day making herself look as miserable as possible and shedding all over our clothes.

Day 5: It’s still hot. We thought it was going to get cooler sooner than this. But at least nights are comfortable. I spend my whole night watch in the cockpit, sometimes standing, sometimes sitting, sometimes lying down on the thermarest and letting my eyes close ever so briefly. I listen to audio books, scan the horizon, and take in the simplistic beauty of it all. The moon is waning, but is still almost full and bright as day. I can almost read by it.

Tom and I tried 5-hour shifts, but that didn’t give either of us enough sleep, so we’ve settled in at 6-hour night watches – Tom from 8pm to 2am and me from 2am to 8am – which seems to be working well enough. We then swap naps all day. I send Rick (our weather router) our position and weather info at 7am, we snack and have happy hour at 4:30pm, Tom checks in with the Pacific Seafarers HAM radio net at 5pm, we have dinner around 6pm, Tom rests a little, then I crawl into bed at 8pm. Since we’re still on a starboard tack, our go-to bed right now is the single berth in the sauna. With the lee-cloth up, it makes a cozy and safe place to try to settle in and catch whatever dreams and rest we can.

Alfred left us this morning. We miss him. We don’t have a lot of company out here.

Day 6: We took advantage of the calmer waters today to spend hours fixing the reef in the mizzen sail (the sail on the mast at the back of the boat). Only a few hours out of Honolulu on Day 1, we went to put up the mizzen with the second reef in, but the line slipped completely through the sail and the boom. Since shoving a thick rope back down an 8-foot boom is no easy task, we had to tackle some major surgery. Tom took apart both ends of the boom, then we experimented with different ways to pull the rope back through the inside of the boom. In the end, we were able to take some stiff electrical wire and force it through the boom, then tape the rope onto the wire and pull it back through. After that, Tom reassembled both ends of the boom. We raised the mizzen sail back up, happy in the knowledge that we were now better prepared for the strong winds headed our way. Or rather, that we were headed towards.

Day 7: It is finally getting cooler. I actually had to wear my foulies (foul weather gear) in the cockpit last night to stay warm. The water temperature has dropped significantly, too. It’s down 6 degrees in less than 24 hours – from 80 to 74. Demon is eating and drinking again but is still very unhappy with this state of affairs.

Day 8: The sea is so flat. I had no idea the ocean could ever be so flat and glassy. It turns out that the Pacific actually can be pacific at times.

The cable to the Pactor modem that allows us to get weather files and emails just died. Damn. Thank God for Rick’s frighteningly accurate weather forecasts and routing. Even more essential now than before.

Day 9: Tom taught me a new word today: piloerection. No, it’s not what you think. It’s the mechanism that causes your hairs to stand on end when you get cold. So, Tom is now standing out in the cockpit in his underwear, arms out in his best Kate Winslet Titanic impression, trying unsuccessfully to get a piloerection. He wants so badly to be cold.

Day 10 (aka The Midway Point, or The Most Up and Down Day Ever):
GOOD: Exactly half way there at 0715. 1120 nautical miles exactly to Ala Wai Harbor and Kodiak Harbor. A raft of 40 albatrosses helps me celebrate as I poke my head out the hatch. For once, there is something other than water to see. You can’t let yourself think too much about how far you are from anywhere. From other people, from help. You just have to keep moving.
BAD: The generator automatically shut off from over heating. This is very bad because Tom wasn’t able to get the alternator on the engine to work before we left, and we have been counting on the generator to keep our batteries charged. He immediately shut off our fridge, freezer, and radar in hopes that the solar panels could keep up with the remaining electrical needs. We planned out how we were going to eat up the remainder of the food in the freezer.
GOOD: After some exploring, Tom discovered an air bubble in the generator’s sea water cooling intake line. After bleeding it out, the generator was up and running as normal again. Whew. Fridge, freezer, and radar back on!
BAD: I am feeling sick again.
ALSO BAD: Due to our low battery power our fuel gauges weren’t working properly, and Tom accidentally transferred too much fuel into the starboard tank, the extra of which was pumped overboard by the engine. Damn.
GOOD: We still have plenty of fuel if we need to use it.
GOOD: Tom saw a whale! He identified it as either a Sei whale or a Minke whale. No doubt our budding cetologist Andy would have been able to figure out which one it was.
BAD: Said whale cut across our course right in front of us, almost giving Tom a heart attack. He was still amped up on adrenaline at 2:00 am when we changed shifts.

Day 11: In celebration of the generator working, Tom turned on the water heater and we each got the fastest shower of our lives. Though we have plenty of water left, we still need to make sure it lasts us at least another week. The Gulf of Alaska is no place to have to pause to pull out the water maker for a few hours. We’re slowing down a little and heading east to let a low system pass to the north of us.

Day 12 (aka The Day the Shit Hit the Fan):
I guess we didn’t go slowly enough. We’re definitely catching the edge of this system even if we’ve avoided the worst of it. The wind has picked up to a sustained 27-31 knots with gusts up to 35. Gale force. Crests are blown off the tops of waves, and the slate gray ocean is now covered in a whitecap frosting. Twelve-foot walls of dark water approach us, rising well above the cabin-top, lift us, and let us slide down. But every few minutes a cresting wave misses the rhythm and slams the hull with a loud bang, forcing the mast hard over. Korvessa, sturdy cork that she is, bounces right back up. We, on the other hand, are not so buoyant. We pour hot water into dehydrated meals and brace ourselves as we dutifully eat. I crawl gratefully into bed – which is now a nest of cushions in the v-berth since we’re now on a port tack and heeling the other direction – but I don’t sleep well as the boat yaws and pitches through the near-gale conditions all night.

I officially miss the kids. I keep having images of just hugging them and cuddling them in my lap.

Day 13: We are clearly now in the middle of a tanker and cargo highway. We have seen five or six ships a day for the last two days, a few of whom we have had to call to make passing arrangements. It amazes me that in an ocean this big, we can still end up on a collision course. The wind has calmed to 15 knots, but the sea state is still big and uncomfortable. The helmsman of the cargo ship MSC Lauren, which is passing us astern, calls us to ask how we’re doing. “All is well,” Tom says “though yesterday was rather uncomfortable.” I imagine the helmsman nodding. “You’re very brave to engage with the North Pacific in your boat in these conditions,” he says. Brave indeed, and maybe a tiny bit crazy.

I am so ready for this to be over.

Day 14: Tom made a note in the log that there is a “black evil cloud wall of death” approaching from the west. Great.

Today Tinker (our dinghy) tried to escape. Generally on a passage, people stow their dinghies on deck rather than on davits at the back so they don’t get swamped in case the boat takes a large wave over the stern. But being a 40-foot-deck cutter-rigged ketch (two headsails and two masts), we don’t have room on our deck for our dinghy; instead, we secured him vertically from the davits up against the Korvessa’s transom so that he couldn’t get swamped. Tom looked back at one point to see Tinker hanging precariously from only one of the davits. Eek. We figured out quickly (and luckily) that it was only the the shackle holding the block and line onto the davits that had broken, meaning all we had to do was retrieve the block and tackle with a boat hook and snap it back onto the davits with a new shackle. The tricky part is that this requires leaning quite far over the stern of the boat to reach the far end of the davit. Tom and I both clipped in with our tethers (out in the ocean, if you fall overboard in these conditions and in these cold waters, you’re unlikely to be recovered). I held a firm grip on the back on Tom’s life jacket while he reached precariously over the boat and used both hands to get the shackle back in place. Bad Tinker. Stay.

Day 15: Tom and I swap notes in the ship’s log because we don’t necessarily trust ourselves to convey all important information at shift change. We are now booking it north to our next waypoint so that we can outrun the next low system that is supposed to pass to the south of us. Gale dodge. Fun stuff.

It was 53.9 F in the pilothouse when I came on shift. Brr. On the plus side, there are actually stars out tonight! We haven’t seen those in a few days.

Day 16: I have forgotten what it feels like not to be tired. I have never known fatigue that is so bone-deep, soul-deep. And I’m the parent of two kids, so I do have some experience with deep fatigue.

I played dodge-squall all morning. And then when one just formed on top of us and spit out a mediocre amount of rain without the expected winds gusts and downdrafts, I decided it wasn’t really necessary to dodge them. I did, however, learn how to better tune the radar so that rain doesn’t look like land and waves don’t look like a small army of ships. A helpful new skill to learn.

Day 17: The Gulf of Alaska is known for its fierce storms, but not today. Today it is calm and gentle. And I am grateful for that.

Day 18: It did not get fully dark last night. I came up at 2:00 am for my watch to encounter a giddy Tom, who was like a child who got to stay up all night. He was so excited to report that the light never left the sky, a light just strong enough to navigate by and to kick in the adrenaline we would need to get through our last day of the passage. The light is especially important, by the way, because we are now on log-watch. We’re back in Pacific Northwest coastal waters, which means propeller-eating logs could appear without warning anytime.

The hours between spotting land and arriving in Kodiak were among the longest of the whole trip. Due to fatigue and poor brain functioning, we ended up running air into the fuel lines and had to bleed the engine this morning, a thankless task for an already bruised and exhausted captain. But once Tom got the air bubbles out, we motorsailed the agonizingly slow last miles. Turning into Chiniak Harbor, we were greeted by a humpback whale that spouted mere meters from the boat! But as we navigated through the rocky islets of the bay, we spotted an unmarked rock that was not on any of our charts. As we watched breakers wash over this outcropping, it took both our tired brains to figure out what we were looking at. Safely past the rock and wide-eyed as we carefully followed each navigational marker through the labyrinth of shoals, we made our turn into Kodiak Harbor. And there awaiting us was a happily-snacking, fuzzy sea otter. A good omen, we decided.

Our final turn into the marina brought on a wave of pleasure for all the senses. A fluorescent green hill towered above the marina. Cobalt blue fishing boats, pink fenders, yellow-buoyed fishing nets, and pink and purple houses flooded our eyes. The smell of fish and salt filled our nostrils. A light drizzle began to tickle our skin and wet our faces and oily hair. Eagles and seagulls cackled above as the boat slowly rumbled into the slip. Smiling faces of friends made in Honolulu waved to us from the dock. The experience was only dampened by a unfortunate miscommunication, which perhaps only the boaters here will appreciate fully. We had been told by the security guard to prepare for port tie, only to see at the last minute that it was, in fact, a starboard-tie, which meant that Tom, exhausted and brain fogged, had to turn the boat around and reverse, in a direction counter to our normal prop-walk, into the awaiting slip. In my blurred judgement, I stepped onto the slippery wooden dock too soon, spilling myself all over the wet wood, but managing to hold on to two of our docking lines, one of which our friend Helen gracefully took from me. Our blue-water experienced friends offered helping hands and no judgement on our fatigued docking blunders. And as fellow passage makers, they offered words that we were so happy to hear: “Welcome to Kodiak. We’ll see you tomorrow,” knowing that we were too exhausted for more interaction at that moment. We turned the engine off. And there was silence. And stillness. Beautiful stillness.