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The Canadian flag is ready to be hoisted as we approach the end of our journey across the Pacific. Canada will be a first time country for both of us and apart from admiring several musicians who hail from the country, I’m ashamed to say I know very little about it. I wish I’d have thought to buy guide books and maps on both the US and Canada to find out a bit more about the places we’re going to and their locations. In a way though it’s quite refreshing to arrive with no preconceptions. Naturally, as soon as we’re in a town which offers tour guides and maps, they will probably be the first things I’ll buy (if they’ll accept Paul’s US dollars). For now, though the only information we have to hand is that within the navigational chart map and pilot guide for sailors. Along with the towns and villages in Raban’s book, I’ve been looking at the names of places on the chart: Port Hardy (where we are headed), Port Alice, Queen Charlotte Sound, Hope Island and Shushartle Mountain are among the names that jump out at me. The majority of these were named by the explorers who discovered them, (often obliterating the names that Indian tribes had given them) as explained in ‘Passage to Juneau. Even without reading the details of their origins, however, it’s easy to imagine the states of mind of the 18th century captains and sailors such as Captain Vancouver, when the names allotted to certain places were Desolation Sound, Cape Disappointment, Deception Pass, God’s Pocket and Cape Caution. Raban describes leaving Misery Island to head for Cemetery Point, passing Bittersweet Rock on the way. Johnny Cash, or Nick Cave could have found a wealth of inspiration for a ballad or two just by following the coastline around here.
We added another hour to the clocks to bring us in line with North American time this week and as I type this it’s 10pm and still daylight outside! With the moon almost full, it’s still quite light at 3am so it’s darker inside the boat during the night than outside. We will be resuming four-hourly watches soon. In fact, after reading about all the potential hazards that might be in store in Paul’s blog earlier, I’m not sure I’ll sleep until we’re in a marina! This last week at sea has been mostly calm – too calm at times when the wind was absent. Without the aid of my journal, Paul’s log and the blog posts, the days would be pretty much indistinguishable. The weather hasn’t changed much either, apart from becoming milder – still no sign of a clear blue sky…or whales, dolphins and sharks for that matter. I hope this disappointment will be eclipsed by the sight of bears on the beaches. I know they have been branded as a nuisance in the same way that urban foxes in the UK have, due to their habit of visiting places where humans leave rubbish. This has given rise to their being labelled as garbage-bears but if there are bears to be seen, I would love to see one (from a safe distance on the boat as we traverse the inside passage preferably). In the Alaskan town of Ketchikan, Raban describes reports of them roaming through backyards, upending trash cans, diving into dumpsters and harassing old people on their way to the post office! The rest I can picture, but harassing old people! Why single out the elderly and why only as they walk to the post office!! They make them sound like a sinister band of ursine robbers straight out of Grimms Fairy Tales whose sole intent is to hoard the money of Ketchikan’s pensioners. There are actually strategies in place to curb their visits, which require people to put some thought and effort in to the way they dispose of food waste and cans, wrappers etc. That sounds more like the appliance of common sense to me, and would save wildlife from receiving undeserved vilification.
For most of the week we were able to move around with ease and I managed to bake some bread, some loaves of which were more successful than others. It’s hard to convey how much of a luxury it will be to go into a shop or a bakery and choose some wholemeal rolls and loaves; loaves with a good texture, unsweetened and baked by someone else :-). Meals this week have been about using up what might be frowned upon by customs inspectors. It’s possible they may just have a cursory look around, but Raban had to undergo a very thorough inspection from Canadian customs which culminated in three ‘elderly’ potatoes being confiscated and his having to pay a hefty duty on the wine he had on board. They’ll find no wine on this boat! I used up the last of our potatoes the other night in a rather indulgent dinner of burgers, ‘chips’, beans and eggs. The fridge is ready for a good clean now that it’s almost empty – ready to be restocked with all the delights we’ll find in Canadian and American supermarkets.
Anticipation is building now and I’m hoping we’ll see land soon. I left off typing at midnight last night at the end of my watch and when I woke this morning, the moderate rocking motion had gathered momentum. It’s almost 9am and we’re experiencing 15-20 knots of wind with very high waves rolling us from side to side, or should that be heaving and surging, in the parlance of sea state components (I’ve yet to discover exactly what state ‘yawing’ describes). Paul had predicted this change from the forecasts so it was no great surprise. What I did find surprising as it got rougher was how I’d got so used to the stable state, I kept forgetting to hold on to the ‘grabbers’ as I walked around. I have a few bruises to show for it, and suspect we may be having pot noodles for dinner if it keeps up.
After my lamentations concerning the ever-changing ETA last week, Paul turned off the little LED display and put markers on the chart instead which was much better because it was more realistic. Now, though the ETA is back on and showing me we have about 24 hours to go. We, or rather I, have had to put the heating on this morning and it’s pretty grim out there. The worst part is that it’s foggy and impossible to see more than a mile or so ahead. We’re still too far out for fishing boats but cargo ships are beginning to appear on the AIS more frequently. I have a feeling I might get quite emotional at the sight of land. It will make the watches more interesting anyway – a welcome change from sky and water.
I’m very pleased that I won’t be writing a week six blog entry. We’ve notched up over 4,300 nautical miles and have been at sea for 37 days, and despite my little bout of cabin fever last week I have loved the experience. I think I’ve earned a glass of wine or two when we hit land tomorrow.
Kathy

Day 37, Thur 26th July. 51-02N, 130-12W. Daily Run: 111 NM. Weather: 10-20 Knots NW, Foggy,Cold & Sunny, 106 NM to go
We finally escaped the clutches of the high pressure system late yesterday afternoon, however the high has pushed east after us and squashed up against a low pressure system, creating packed isobars off the coast of Vancouver Island, causing a gale warning to be issued for the southern part of the island. So we have had good strong winds and a rising sea for the last 20 hours or so. I have had to reduce sail down to just a double reefed main, and no headsail to keep our speed down to 5 knots. I also had to hand steer a few times during the night as on this course, the boat is swaying around a lot with the waves and every now and then the auto helm just gives up and lets the boat turn into the wind where it stalls and we are basically ‘heaved to’ . I expect if I had more sail up, and the headsail, we could make 8 knots or more and the steering would be more effective. However this would have us arriving in the night near the channel entrance/bar, which we don’t want.
Of course today is the day things decide to break, our last day in the ocean and the fresh water isn’t working. It doesn’t take me long to find that there is no power getting to the pressure pump. The radar also stopped working last night, so I was hoping for a common connection failure affecting both, this was not to be. The radar was fixed easily, there is an inline fuse fitted behind the main switchboard, a little twisting of this and power was restored. I remembered this has happened before, and I really must replace that fuse holder. The water pressure pump however will take some time to trace where the cable is broken, and I will probably just run a new cable from the switchboard to the pump. In the meantime I have borrowed the supply to the water maker pump, which handily sits next to it, and we have running water again, even if the tank is very low. Of course I can’t run the water maker now.
I have marked on the chart waypoints for 18:00 22:00 06:00 etc so that I can pace our arrival at the channel for 8AM tomorrow (Fri). Conditions won’t be great there, but if it’s at all feasible to enter the channel, we should have a brisk 3-4 hour run down to the marina, and be there by this time tomorrow.
We have dug out our Canadian courtesy flag which I will be hoisting later, I also need to get the red ensign out and the Quarantine flag.
I’m beginning to wonder about the coast to coast radio programme, as last night was all about witchcraft, with witches phoning in. The program is interspersed with Bloomberg financial reports and adverts for such dodgy things as shares in companies that own mortgages, enabling you ‘to have a stake in the property market’ I’m sure a similar thing was around in 2007? The fact that the program goes out after midnight might be a clue.
Everything else is great, I managed to bake a nice loaf yesterday, even if I did overdo the sugar a bit in order to help the yeast along. I can’t wait to get updated instructions from Tim about the chemistry I so obviously don’t understand. It’s too rolly today for Kathy to do any cooking, so at long last we are going to break open the reserve supply of pot noodles. I used to quite like the pot noodles we had back in the UK, but our stock here are all Asian, and the first ingredient they put in, I’m sure, is a sachet of ‘blow your head off’ spice. So it can be a bit hit and miss. We have tried to buy the blandest looking ones for me, Kathy is fine with the spices.
I’m very confident that this will be the last blog update I write from a rocking and rolling boat this year, and tomorrows entry will be from the peaceful dockside bliss of Port Hardy, Vancouver Island, BC. Assuming they have a space 🙁
Paul Collister

Day 36, Wed 25th July. 51-13N, 133-09W. Daily Run: 92 NM. Weather: 0-6 Knots SW, Foggy but Milder, 220 NM to go
Becalmed again, but as Kathy puts it, “the fuel fairy came in the night”, as witnessed by the fact the fuel gauge is showing higher today than yesterday, so we are motoring, albeit at quite low revs. I have just downloaded the latest weather from PredictWind via the sat phone and I have a choice of four different models, 3 of them say we should have 10-15 knots of wind now, the fourth (PWG) says about 7 knots, but in reality we have zilch. Also the wind gauge (anemometer) seems to be playing up, yesterday it was showing 0-1 knot of wind, yet we were making 4 knots over water, scientifically impossible I would have thought.
One of the things I’m looking forward to is sorting out these anomalies when we get settled into the USA or Canada. Over the next 9 months I plan to do major upgrades to the systems, including a new set of Wind/Speed/Compass instruments. Added to that some luxuries, like a fuel consumption display, hopefully I can get all of these feeding back to my computer. The fuel gauge is annoying, something I didn’t pay enough attention to before, like most tank gauges you get on boats, it uses a float that goes up and down a pole inside the tank. the float has a magnet that connects switches on its travels changing the resistance, and hence the display on the meter. The problem is that there are just a few switches, maybe 6 on the cheaper ones, meaning that you get the appearance of a linear scale on the meter, but in fact it only has 6 possible readings. I’m not sure if the 1/4 empty mark is the last reading before empty, or if I have more. The reason being I never let the tank go below 1/4 full, usually 1/2 full is my limit. Also I don’t know what nasties lie at the bottom of the tank. My other problem is that the tank was replaced on the boat with two separate tanks joined by a hose at the bottom, that must affect the dynamics of the sensor I would think as they both have sloping bottoms to fit the bilge. They are both difficult to access as well. All good fun and games to look forward to. I also wondered why the starboard water tank was emptying so quickly compared to the port tank, again a bad assumption on my part, I assumed they were similar to the ones on my baba 30, both identical in size, but I think the starboard tank is somewhat smaller than the port one. Not that it matters, I put an extra 40 litres in yesterday from the water maker, and made another 10 litres to keep as spare in a jug.
We passed the 135 deg West line yesterday, which meant another hour change on the clocks. We are now on PST, the same time as Vancouver and Seattle, so no more time changes required for a while.
Despite a poor showing by the wind, we are making decent progress towards Vancouver Island. Last night I spent a few hours going over the charts and the tide tables for our destination. My job now as a navigator changes a little from before. Up until now the course only needed to be approximate, and there was little chance of hitting anything, from tomorrow onwards the course needs to be quite precise and there are lots of things to hit. The passage planning and pilotage for the last 100 miles requires us to make our way to the safe water mark near the entrance to the Goletas channel. From here we have to consider several things, firstly there is a ‘bar’ which means a shallow patch at the entrance to a river, where the tide, over time has built a sandbank at the river entrance. In bad weather, especially if the tide is running fast, it can be quite dangerous, with big steep waves. The west coast of the USA has many ports whose entrances have serious bars, and with the prevailing Pacific storms, are quite dangerous. Youtube has a stack of videos of poor yachtsmen coming to grief trying to get into the harbour through huge surf created on the bars.
We have to time our passing of the bar to coincide with slack water, which in our case is around 8AM on Friday. The next obstacle is that the current runs fast in the channel, up to 4-5 knots. If we go with the flood tide, i.e. the low tide rising, which happens to start at the same as the 8AM slack tide, then we will get a good push along the channel. To complicate matters a little, the channel is 20 miles long, and the time of slack water is different as you go along, also the tide turns at different points. The easiest way I have found to deal with this is to divide the route up into smaller chunks, in this case just 2 2 hour chunks, which means we need to travel at 5 knots to cover the channel in 4 hours, with the current pushing us, this means we have plenty of scope for error. In fact I’m looking forward to seeing if my math work (is that the correct pronunciation over here, I can’t see it), as we pass along the channel, using little engine power, if any. The other worry is stray logs, this is serious logging country, where logs are felled and chucked into the water to be rafted up and towed away. There are always strays, and they can be massive, I believe some of them can float vertically, making them hard to see, either way, hitting one might do more than scratch the gelcoat on the hull. So we won’t be doing night sails once we reach the sound, and will be keeping a constant lookout.
Another disappointing aspect is that the constant fog we get means I don’t think we will see land until we are right under it. There are some off-lying islands I would like to see, but probably won’t. I can see clouds and the sun above, but no more than 1/2 mile along the water right now.
We are picking up Coast to Coast AM Radio on the SSB, last night we heard a program all about the supernatural things, with experts testifying on the different types and their relationship to each other, the previous night was all about UFOs, and had people call in who had actually seen aliens in their garden, or watched their spaceships hover over their house with aliens at the spacecrafts window. It’s an odd station, the adverts are very funny, there are just so many things available now that will change my life, I had no idea, and can’t wait. It must all be true as well as they also have experts on the adverts.
Not long now, 200 miles to the harbour, 150 until we enter Queen Charlotte Sound, just as well, the potatoes have run out, soon we move onto the emergency food of pot noodles and Tinned Tuna, of which we have a few months supply 😉
Paul Collister

Day 35, Mon 24th July. 51-59N, 135-13W. Daily Run: 93 NM. Weather: 0-6 Knots SE, Sunny and cold, 306 NM to go
Becalmed for 5 hours in the night, I dropped the sails and we drifted aimlessly for a few hours before I decided to put the engine on and risk getting very low on fuel, putting the sails away and turning the engine on usually brings the wind, and this was no exception, in a few hours we had 5 knots of wind, and we have been crawling along ever since. Our target for today will be missed by a few hours, but overall we are doing better than I first hoped for. Our daily run of 93 Miles includes a few miles heading due north in the night.
It seems the yeast we have isn’t working too well, and Kathy’s loaves from yesterday make great toast but probably wouldn’t win first price in a baking contest. I had a go and gave the yeast a lot more time to work, and it seems to help. Sadly there is a shortage of offshore yeast suppliers in this region, so we will have to make do for a few more days.
The weather forecast I download each morning shows what I know, i.e. that we are still plagued by this high pressure system, and like yesterday it tells me it will end shortly. It’s not much of a forecast if it’s only ever correct in hindsight. All the forecasts show big winds in the charlotte sound/strait, I bet it’s beset with calms from this High by the time we get there. But that won’t mater as I have assumed we will need to motor then anyway, either against strong tides, or if needed, in weak winds, and so our reserve 20 litres will cover us for that last stretch I hope.
I have just read that the risk from stray logs in the area we are heading is very high, and a sharp lookout with no nighttime sailing is highly recommended, this adds a further complication to my tidal passage planing, but that’s a job for tomorrow, when I have a better idea of our arrival time.
So right now we are making about 3-4 knots in 6-7 knots of wind, close hauled, heading ESE, with only 300 miles to go, we are almost there.
Paul Collister

Day 34, Mon 23rd July. 52-11N, 137-41W. Daily Run: 112 NM. Weather: 5-10 Knots SE, Sunny and cold, 400 NM to go
A disappointing 24hr run of just 112 NM, I had hoped for more, as we had passed the top of the high, but that was an illusion, the high has moved east and the top extends up like a little poking finger, and we have to face the vertical edge of it, hence the light headwinds we are seeing. The forecast says it improves Tuesday midday, and then we should have the high behind us and we can get a better course, right now we are back to a NE course which is taking us the wrong way. I’m not impressed with the forecasts at all.
We were becalmed for an hour in the night and I had to sheet in the main and furl the headsail to cut down on the racket they were making, we have a bit more swell now. The barometer has dropped now to 1030, down 5 over 24 hours, so that’s promising. However one forecast from NOAA for 96 hours on, has 30 knot winds in Prince Charlotte sound, which is a bit much for me given I don’t know the waters at all. We have to travel down a channel called Goletas Channel, it’s only about 1 mile wide and 25 long, and has fast currents flowing, I expect it is foolish to try to navigate it with 30 knots of wind being funnelled down in an opposing tide scenario. On the other hand, maybe it’s sheltered from the NW winds, and is perfectly safe? Whatever happens we will have to play it safe , always with a plan B.
The distance to go is just 400 miles now, it would be less, but I have added on the distance to port Hardy. The latest shift in wind has me wondering if we can make land by Thursday, more likely to be Friday now.
Paul Collister.

Day 33, Sun 22nd July. 52-12N, 140-34W. Daily Run: 117 NM. Weather: 5-10 Knots SE, Sunny and cold, 479 NM to go
A lovely 24 hours of sailing, after reading up I did a bit of sail trim, and managed to squeeze an extra 1/2 knot out of the boat, but better still, the sails look like textbook examples right now with the slot between the main and genoa running parallel / even, those who sail will know what I mean.
So we are just north of the centre of the high, and have quite light winds, generally between 5 and 10 knots apparent, yet we are maintaining about 5-6 knots of speed most of the time. It just shows how a flat sea makes such a difference. We are not quite close hauled, and I don’t want to go closer to the wind as it will slow us a bit and not really get us there any quicker, as it will just get us into calmer winds sooner. Instead the wind vane is keeping us about 60deg to the wind, and from our track you can see how the wind shifts keep sending us north of the direct route to Vancouver Island. I’m banking on the wind veering a lot as we pass east of the top of the high, and with strengthening winds we should reach then broad reach at some speed towards our destination.
I plan to head for Port Hardy on Vancouver island, the only problem is that the channel to it has strong currents, given that we will be near spring tides when we get there, they could be formidable, 3-4 knots against us, I don’t want to sail at night, so timing will be everything, and may delay our arrival by a day so we can get the tides with us in daylight. We always have bull harbour where we can wait at the entrance to the channel if needed.
I was explaining to Kathy yesterday that sometimes there are big solar flares that can wipe out HF Radio propagation, and that might have happened, explaining why we couldn’t receive anything, I quipped that it could also be the fact that the antenna wire might have snapped off, so just to reassure myself I checked the wire, which had indeed snapped off. What had me doubting this in the first case was that the antenna was tuning with a SWR of 1:1 which would indicate it was fine, however this just shows how good the ATU is at tuning a few feet of feeder wire. Apologies to those who don’t know what an SWR is, but it’s not that interesting really.
I managed to cook our favourite Sunday breakfast of poached eggs on toast this morning, and with some lovely new french coffee it’s been a good start to the day, the sun seems to shine more each day as well, ensuring an ample supply of power. We haven’t needed the engine, so we are using the fuel keeping the cabin warm. The eberspacher truck heater works a treat.
I had made a brief recovery on the scrabble front, curbing Kathy’s breakaway freak streak of 7 games in a row, with my own run of 3 wins, however that came to an end yesterday. I need to find more words made entirely of vowels.
Currently we are hoping for an ETA of Thursday, possibly Friday depending on the tides.
Paul Collister

Day 32, Sat 21st July. 51-52N, 143-38W. Daily Run: 92 NM. Weather: 5-10 Knots ESE, Sunny and cold, 592 NM to go
A lovely 24 hours of milder weather, calms seas and a gentle breeze pushing us along at 3-4 knots. It’s not exciting, but makes for a very pleasant passage. I have spent a few hours in the cockpit now looking for whales, sharks etc, but nothing. It’s mostly clear now, with the odd bit of fog rolling in.
There’s very little to report, we are passing over the top of the high pressure system, and despite the weather forecast of no wind here, we haven’t been becalmed yet. Furthermore, the near gale force winds around Prince Charlotte Strait seem to be abating so that will ease our passage into Canada.
Our gas bottle ran out last night, so we moved onto the spare one, which is only 1/3rd full, but that’s more than enough to get us to Canada and probably onto America.
At 5AM this morning the AIS alerted us to a large Chinese registered container ship due to pass within 0.5NM of us, in 180 minutes, I kept an eye on it, and about 20 minutes before it’s approach, it altered course so that instead of passing within 0.5 NM it would pass us about 1.5 NM away. This was a nice gesture I thought, as it made me feel a bit easier and also showed me that he was aware of our presence. A few minutes later he called me on VHF Ch 16, I wondered what on earth he might want? Also this was the first sound to come out of the VHF in 4 weeks, thereby proving that the VHF was still working and also that our AIS transmissions where going out as he had our ships name. Anyway, he just called us to say hello and wish us a safe journey, which was very nice. He is heading for Vancouver, but he was going directly there, whereas we are going quite a roundabout way now due to the wind keeping us pointing ENE as we go over the top of the Pacific High.
So yesterday was one of those rare days where nothing broke, and nothing needed repair except for the clock which Kathy returned to the master watchmaker, unhappy that the hands weren’t lining up properly, apparently it’s important that at half 5, the little hand is halfway between the Five and the Six, a small detail in my mind, but something that had to be corrected it seemed. All is well know and the clock is back on the wall. Poor Kathy has had a hard time (again no pun intended) with the the clocks, she has to constantly know the time in Uk and Milan for her family, and the fact that I only use Local and UTC confuses her no end.
For the last 24 hours I have been unable to pick up my main radio fax stations and last night the BBC World Service couldn’t be heard on any of its frequencies. Today isn’t looking much better. It’s interesting to see how the conditions on the short waves change so much.
Today I’m going to be re-reading my books on sail trim in the hope of squeezing a little bit more energy out of the breeze we are getting. Unfortunately there’s lots of talk of tightening my Cunningham or loosening the kicker, both of which this boat doesn’t have! However it’s worth a play, you couldn’t wish for better conditions for playing with sail trim; a close reach in a calm sea with a steady light breeze
Paul Collister

Week Four
It’s more of a philosophical than practical entry from me this week (you get a lot of time to think and reflect on a journey such as this). We experienced what’s known as being ‘becalmed’ earlier in the week. I’d known about it, knew what it meant, and even looked forward to it because it would allow me to move around more freely after the turbulence that had restricted mobility. What I hadn’t bargained on was how demoralising it was. It was quiet, almost flat calm, there was no wind and no movement forward – well so little as to be negligible in my view. I spend a fair bit of time while on watch, looking at the screens in front of me with the various ETA and TTG (time to go) predictions and had got used to seeing 24th or 25th July as the expected arrival date. To see it displayed as the middle of August, or beginning of September as we moved slowly, or in some instances stopped altogether, was dispiriting to say the least. The course line went from a neat ‘as the seabird flies’ straight line to a higgledy piggledy wiggle. We have to use the engine sparingly to save fuel, and the sails, protesting at the lack of wind began clanging and flapping and banging above – these the only noises breaking the eerie silence outside. After a while it felt akin to being stuck in a traffic jam whilst the outside of the vehicle was being pounded with sticks. When I asked Paul if this state could go on for a prolonged period, he said it was all just part and parcel of a sea passage – or words to that effect (at least he didn’t tell me worse things happen ;-)). I took it as a ‘yes’ anyway, so I went to bed thinking we might be at sea for weeks longer, and I have to admit that the prospect didn’t cheer me. That’s not to say I’ve been discontented – far from it. I think impatience is a more apt word for the trait that had made me so despondent. The fact that my wine supply was running low had nothing to do with it; it’s simply that I’m eager to get there, and the windless calm had impeded our progress.
The following morning (Tuesday 17th), after talking more about it with Paul, I realised the situation wasn’t as bad as I’d thought. I’d forgotten that we’d covered so many miles in the early stages of the trip, that in the overall scheme of things we were still on track to arrive during the third week of July. The wind was predicted to return, and we’d probably only lose half a day or a day at most. For the rest of that day we made little progress but I felt reassured and more positive. It got me thinking about the difference in our attitudes and how our optimist/pessimist outlooks have a bearing on how we deal with certain situations. I’ve watched Paul fix pretty much every breakage, overcome each difficulty and think through problems with logic and patience until he finds a solution. I, on the other hand, tend to give up at the first hurdle or assume something is unachievable and don’t bother trying. My reaction to the technical problems we’ve been having is a case in point. The iPad hadn’t been performing as it should since it fell from Paul’s lap onto concrete while we were in Japan. A repair at the Apple Store hasn’t lived up to expectations and it soon became apparent that merely touching it would cause screens to appear or disappear randomly, while emails would vanish with an unprompted swipe of a screen. I found this infuriating and saw it as another ‘thing’ stacked up to make life difficult – along with the facts that most of our phone chargers stopped working and the clock broke. Small irritations I know but frustrating nonetheless. Paul got round these problem by taking screenshots and setting up a system whereby we can transfer text via notepad on the laptop when we send emails, took the clock apart and fixed it and as for the chargers: I should have known there would be bag of (new) spare ones on board. I’m still disgruntled about the emails though.
So we were indeed, as in Coleridge’s poem ‘as idle as a painted ship upon a painted ocean’ with no birds, sea life or other vessels nearby. I thought about the beginning of Jonathan Raban’s book ‘Passage to Juneau’ where he ponders ‘the peculiar attraction that draws people to put themselves afloat in the deep, dark, indifferent, cold and frightening sea’. I had asked Paul this question recently, although not in such lofty language. He hardly needed to consider his answer. This ocean passage is something he has always wanted and intended to do. Despite the lack of whales, he told me a few days ago that he is making the most of every part of it as a once-in-a-lifetime experience. I’ve watched him working out the weather and wind predictions, study charts, plan routes and much more, relishing the challenges they present. Clearly for him, it’s the ‘getting there’ part that appeals: the knowledge that his skills and expertise will transport us over 4,000 miles across a vast, potentially dangerous expanse of water. For me, lacking those skills but not the desire to do the trip, it’s more about destinations. It’s hard to beat the thrill of anticipation and sense of privilege when you arrive at a place by boat, especially after long passages. Watching the coastline of a new town, city or country get closer and knowing you’ll be exploring new environs in a few hours by merely stepping off the deck just doesn’t compare with all the hassles involved with arriving by plane. Remembering this was enough to chase away any remaining blues about our stationary state, and sure enough we were speeding along again by mid morning on Wednesday.
Raban’s book promises to be of practical use to us as well as an enlightening read about the sea in general and the area we’re heading for in particular. I’ve made notes of the places he visited on his journey in the late 90s so that we can compare changes and look for landmarks he describes. The subtitle of his book is ‘A Sea and Its Meanings’. For me, writing about the sea and often struggling to find words to describe its state, it has been interesting to read the adjectives he chooses (lumpy, bouncy, wavelets, wave-trough to name but a few), and fascinating to learn that the motion of a ship in a seaway has six components, which are known as the six degrees of freedom. These are; pitch, roll, sway, heave, surge and yaw. I could identify with his claim that his boat took every one on the menu at the same time during one heavy weather period -that is the state I term bucking bronco and it should surely be the seventh degree on the list. I think for the duration of the passage (about a week left as I type) I shall adopt the philosophy of an elderly French wheat farmer whom Raban meets on his travels. On the subject of weather predictions and forecasts, he tells Raban, ‘I expect nothing. So I am never disappointed’.
Aside from all the introspection, life onboard carries on pleasantly enough with the daily pastimes of watches, Scrabble (7 games in a row for me now), cooking, reading, writing, listening to music and sleeping. Meals last week included Spanish Tortilla made with potatoes, onions and eggs with the last of the fresh salad, a Spinach and Courgette Risotto (packet mix) with roasted mediterranean vegetables, and Spaghetti with meat-free bolognese sauce. I also managed to put together a ’roast’ dinner (breast of chicken for Paul, nutroast for me) complete with stuffing and gravy and fresh vegetables. We had this on a night when the motion allowed for meals on plates as opposed to high-sided bowls. Yesterday (the 19th) we added two hours to the clock to bring us in line with the Alaskan time zone. It wasn’t a straightforward action, due to confusion arising from daylight saving time and for a while, time was literally all over the place as I altered my iPhone clock from one zone to another. It was a most disconcerting feeling, especially while trying to check the times in the UK and Italy at the same time. It made me realise how much of a factor the ‘time’ is for me, even out here where it doesn’t matter as much. Years of keeping to time-regulated routines for work and home life are hard habits to break it seems.
I’ve ventured outside a couple of times to help Paul with the sails. Once, he had to go halfway up the mast while I stood poised below to pull the mainsail as he unjammed it. It made me dizzy looking up at him, and even more so when the boat heeled from side-to-side and he only had one hand gripping the mast! The second time was to steer head to wind so that he could put a reef in the main sail. Even with a coat, scarf, leggings etc it was perishing cold out there. I was glad to get back inside to thaw my hands. It will be nice to be in the cockpit, or stand on the deck again…once the weather warms up. Maybe next week sometime, and maybe we’ll even see some whales. But I’m expecting nothing! 🙂
Kathy

Day 31, Fri 20th July. 51-39N, 145-58W. Daily Run: 121 NM. Weather: 8-12 Knots ESE, Sunny and cold, 680 NM to go
The barometer is reading 1034mb which is as high as I have ever seen it go, this is because of the pacific high. We are crossing it to the north right now, and despite the wide spacing of the 4mb isobars here, indicating low wind, we are seeing around 10 knots most of the time and a very calm sea. Consequently it’s lovely sailing, we are gliding along at around 5-6 knots with a full set of sails up. This morning we hit a pocket of still air and drifted north for an hour, I started the engine to push us on a bit, in the hope wind would arrive, and also to get some hot water made for the shower, then just an hour later the wind returned and we have had a lovely calm sail since.
Yesterday I repaired the homocidal genoa sheet car/block. It used a special bolt/screw to keep it all together, basically it is a piece of studding 1” long and maybe 1/4” diameter, with an imperial thread, and no head, but a hex recess in the end for an allen key, I suppose thinking about it, it’s a very long grub screw. This had somehow left the block and fled overboard. My skills don’t extend to fabricating one of these, but I did find a bolt I could cut down to size, and once fitted I filled the head down so it wouldn’t chafe the sheet, that’s the theory anyway. However fitting it all back together presented another problem, as the base of the car , a substantial steel moulding had been bent by the forces acting on it so that the holes no longer aligned for the steel rod that the block is fixed to. Out came the heavy tools to bash it back to shape, and now it’s all together and should be good for some time. I will replace it as soon as I can though.
That was about the total of my activities yesterday, I have given up trying to understand the weather forecasts, The detail on the current situation is always quite accurate when I download the forecasts, but never what they said it would be 12 hours prior. I just tend to go for the bigger picture now, we will follow this high, heading mostly easterly now. And as we go east the wind should veer , we gan gybe, and head directly to the North of Vancouver Island, we may well be becalmed for a day or two over the next few days, but by early next week we should be on the home run proper, hopefully this is our last Friday at sea.
All other systems are running fine, we are getting more sunshine now and the batteries are getting their full charge before midday.
Paul Collister