Sat phone

3/28/11

Yeah, I got one, with 500 prepaid minutes - problem is, it comes out to about $1.60 per minute, so that 500 minutes can be used up pretty fast.  So if you're going to call me, make sure it's important.  I may or may not have the phone on, it depends if I'm in cell phone communication.  So try my cell phone first.

Cell Phone # - 831-332-0496

OK, here's the instructions on how to call on my sat phone.

Dial (+) 1-480-768-2500; when you hear "Welcome to the Iridium Satellite Global Network", enter this number: 8816-3256-3848.  That's it!

If your communication isn't that important, just e-mail me.  I should get it within a week or so at the very least.

Nanaimo boat basin, functional but costly...

Well, I should be getting a mechanic tomorrow so I can hopefully leave in the next couple of days.  It's raining, it's about 5:30, I'm going to have dinner, then I will walk a bit around the town (the Nanaimo basin is in downtown, so lots of places to visit...maybe I'll find a jazz club).

2nd Half of the Gulf Islands Tour

3/27/11

Interesting geographical formation

What a doofus!  Now that I’m truly cruising and not near any marinas with shorepower for a week at a time, I’m finding that I’m running out of electricity.  The reason: my alternator on my diesel is not charging!  It’s probably been doing that for a long time, and I never knew it. Sigh!  This boat is a lot more complicated than my old boat Bokonon (we’re talking prehistory here), which never had a generator that worked, with no electronics, and kerosene lamps for light – call it pre-Model A.  But having been exposed to modern technologies while working with West Marine, I should know better. 

Oh well, I’m sure this won’t be my first mistake.

Well, my aim now is to get that fixed and make sure it will remain reliable.  That and fix the turn-off switch which is now no longer intermittent, but plain-old not working.  And replace the manual shut-off switch as well.

One comment about this particular blog:  I really crammed a bunch of pictures in it, but the gmail blog edit system makes it really hard to place the pictures with any accuracy, if not down right impossible. I try and drag the pics where I want them, but it often doesn't respond.  If any of you know how to manipulate them, please let me know.  If I was a book publisher, I'd be tearing out my hair about now.  Oh, also, if the pics are not very clear, double-click them, and they'll enlarge to look - at least better.

I’m now in Nanaimo after a pleasant week of cruising through the Gulf Islands.  I would have spent it more leisurely, but since I was low on electricity, it would have been really hard to pull up the anchor chain with no windlass…I could have done it with a combination chainhook, some line and one of my jib winches, but it would have been time consuming.  But I will have to set up a jury rig system in case my windlass gives up.  This morning pulling up the chain, I had to help the windlass with some extra muscle on my side, using a winch handle to supplement the windlass.

South Gulf

North Gulf

To give you a better idea on where I’ve been, here’s a map of San Juan Islands, Sydney, and the south Gulf Islands, and where I’ve been. And here’s another map of the north Gulf Islands and Nanaimo and where I’ve been.  I’m not sure where I’ll go after Nanaimo.  It depends on what gets done here.  But I still may go to Vancouver (the city), or at least Bowen Island, both 30 miles away across the Strait of Georgia.

Deadhead ahead

One comment that I need to insert in this blog is how I am always on a lookout for deadheads.  Deadheads are big logs that have mostly escaped from loggers’ rafts (logs tied together in bunches), or, it occasionally might be a whole tree.  These get waterlogged and you can barely see them above the water, much like small icebergs.  It makes it easier to see them if seagulls are sitting on top, but that often is not the case.  If I’m on autopilot and need to do something where I can’t see where I’m going, often times, I will slow the boat down to a crawl or heave to if I’m sailing so I don’t run into one of these things.  I would say that’s the main drag in cruising in these waters, as running into these could ruin my whole day.

An otter on the dock at Ganges

Ganges Harbor

The last blog, I had just arrived at Ganges harbor, after a short stay at Selby.  Ganges, which is on Saltspring Island, reminds me a bit of Friday Harbor, but with many more stores on the waterfront, as if the waterfront was a major tourist destination.  Auto traffic is much more intense – one has to be careful crossing the street – with lots of people walking around.  It seemed to me that there were more young people here than Friday Harbor. Certainly the population on Saltspring Island is more – 10,000 people.  The café that I went to send my last blog was filled with people not much older than 30-35 (yeah, I was the old guy), and most of them reminding me of the late 60’s and early 70’s in their dress and characteristics (ie: hippy). That seemed unusual until I found out that Saltspring has long been an artists’ haven with art galleries concentrated all over the port of Ganges.  Just walking around the town, I saw lots of shops with locally made, handcrafted jewelry, clothing and folk art.

With so many people in town, I was still amazed to see a river otter eating some mussels on an empty dock when I was walking back to my dinghy.  I tried to take a good picture of it, but it decided to scram when I got closer to get a better picture.

Canada comment: every town that I go to has an inordinate amount of book stores – people love to read in this country.  And since I also do a lot reading, I usually visit those stores, which I did here in Ganges, which had 3 bookstores!

Montague Harbour

My next stop the next day was Montague Harbor.  It was another resort/marina and like Otter bay, it was closed, but unlike Otter bay, it was completely deserted – nobody around.  I took the dinghy to the resort and walked about 2 kilometers to a park, not seeing anything exciting, but good to be stretching out my legs.  The boats around where I was anchored were on moorings with no one around.  There was a Hillyard 9 tonner (it could have been a 12 tonner), same as my old Bokonon, but with an aluminum spar and a radar on it - hull still made out of wood.  Another boat was an eyesore plywood trimaran with tons of solar panels and wind generators – obviously a cheap residence for someone.

Princess Cove - QUIET!

Next day, I left (early again, as the currents were going my direction) and stopped at a really nice spot called Princess Cove, which is on skinny Wallace Island, a marine park.  The cove itself is skinny too, but had enough room that I could swing on a single hook.  I noticed hanging along the cliff shore on both sides were chains marked with bright-colored ribbon where one could tie stern to, with their front anchors out, thereby allowing much more boats to stay there, which I’m sure happens during the summer a lot.

This place was so scenic, that I had to take my kayak and paddle inside and outside the cove, finally stopping at a public dock to get out for a hike.  I saw a river otter (very briefly), and raccoons, one standing up to look at me before running off before I could take any picture.

Overlooking Blue Bossa on cliffs in Princess Cove

It’s obvious to me that I’m going to have to be much more clever in taking wildlife shots.  There are a lot of geese flying around this time of year, and I guess they are in migration.  My point is that I still haven’t gotten a good telephoto lens shot of them zipping by, squawking, usually in twos. 

There was one house overlooking the bay, with what looked like an old gentleman living there.  Other than one sailboat that briefly anchored before heading to what I think was Nanaimo, since it looked like a charter boat, I was totally alone.  During the night, it was REALLY quiet.  I could hear the occasional soft rumbling of the anchor chain as it would shift with the boat’s position to an occasional puff that would come from the south, and occasionally some rustling of bushes overhead above the cliffs and a raccoon call.  Princess cove was definitely my favorite spot in the Gulf Islands.

Looking west from Wallace Island

I would have liked to stay for another night, but with my electrical problems, I weighed anchor and left to go to Nanaimo, where I had to time my approach to Dodd Narrows.  It states in the guides that you have to be there during slack tide (no currents going one way or the other), so I motored slowly to it so I’d get there a half hour before, which I figured was close enough that I wouldn’t get into trouble.  No problem, as it turns out, and I headed to Nanaimo.

So here I am, batteries charged up, and waiting for tomorrow (Monday) to start calling.  I hope that when I get these problems fixed, this will be the end for a while; but, knowing Murphy’s Law (if it can break, it probably will), I’m not holding my breath.

Leaving Dodd Narrows

South Gulf Islands Part 1

Sydney - boring, but a good place to get stuff done on a boat

So we left March 20^th to Sydney, after saying goodbye to some friends on the docks (specifically Nick and Gail_, who have lived in Friday Harbor for over 10 years, having done a lot of trips to Alaska and back, and who had a ton of info on where to go, weather maps, etc.).

It was a cold North easterly, and we were bucking a head wind until we got around the top of San Juan Island.  Once we got around and had some clear wind, I unrolled the big jib (a 150 genoa) and got a lot of horsepower from just that sail alone (remember, I couldn’t use the mainsail, as it was ripped and I didn’t want to rip it anymore).  But since I didn’t leave until 12:30 on a Sunday (to have the tide run with me), I needed to get to customs before they closed as well as the marina to check in.  So I kept the engine on, but at my economic speed and moved along at 7-8 knots through the water.

Got to Sydney, checked in with customs (the lady there gave me a hard time for being single-handed, and I just told her it was a challenge…), and got checked into the Sydney Marina.  The biggest problem was that I couldn’t turn off the engine…the electric push button wouldn’t work, so I ended up having to open both hatches in the main cabin (which entails unscrewing the table from the floor) to turn it off. 

The next day, I called UK sailmakers and they quickly had a guy down here to help me unroll the main, pull it down and fold it up, and he took it to the shop where they replaced the rotten Dacron along the leach with sun-resistant Dacron and resewed some stitching, doing a nice job, but costing an arm and a leg. 

That day, I also turned the engine on and could then turn it off using the switch.  Don’t you just hate it when problems are intermittent?  It makes one feel like a fool.  I still called a mechanic to come down and check it out.  He fixed a problem that I was having with the engine throttle control in the pilot house, but he couldn’t find anything wrong with the engine electrical cut-off switch, but he did mentioned that I had a mechanical shut-off switch located in the starboard cockpit locker…duh!  Did I feel stupid.  But even more stupid, the next day I found out that the cable for the manual shutoff was frozen and would need to be replaced.  Oh well, I can probably do that myself when I get to a place that has parts (Nanaimo).  In the meantime, I set up a lanyard system where I could shut off the engine with just opening one hatch, which didn’t entail taking the cabin apart. 

Boats.  They can be frustrating.

A few observations about Canada:

Canadians, at least in British Columbia, are really nice.  Since I’m a “foreigner”, I’m required to fly the Canadian flag on my mast (called a courtesy flag), and show the US flag on the stern.  When I dropped into Tsehum Harbor, just a little north of Sydney, to pump out my sanitation tank, there were at least 2 people who waved to me from their boats and say “welcome!”  Like the English, they are quick to give directions.  And in shops and restaurants, they are unfailingly polite.

Because the Canadian dollar is the same as the US dollar, I’m getting blasted with sticker shock…now it costs $50 a day to stay at a marina. I told the Sydney West Marine manager (yes, West Marine even has stores in Canada) that staying at a marina costs as much as staying at a motel (of course, my idea of a motel is Motel 6).  He laughed and said, “Not if you compare it to our motels!”  Everything is expensive here, including food.  I will need to watch expenses, giving me plenty of reason to anchor out as much as possible, and staying away from marinas as much as possible.

What irritates me about Canada is its insistence that it be a bi-lingual country (English and French).  Normally this wouldn’t affect me, but it does tweak me when I’m listening to the weather report on the VHF…half of the time, they talk in French, which means it takes twice as long to hear the weather report.  Oh well, at least they have good weather reports.

Otter bay marina/resort - BB is way over on the other side of the bay

March 23: After studying the charts and looking through some cruising guides, I decided to dive right into the Gulf Islands and head towards N. Pender Island, to anchor in Otter cove.  It was a beautiful sunny day…almost warm!  What a nice change!  Maybe Spring is just around the corner.  But it was bad timing, tide-wise, as we were bucking against some wild currents ranging .5 to 2 knots.  We still made it by 2:30 and anchored towards the south side of the bay.  Otter Cove has a pretty marina/resort on the north side.  I took the dinghy over and walked around a bit.  There were lots of activity, getting ready for the season, as they were busy doing roadwork, and remodeling their store, which was closed.  There looked to be a lot of rental houses or look-alike vacation homes along the cliff side.  At anyrate, it wasn’t all that interesting and I got back to BB to relax and read.  The ferry landing is just right around the north point, and the ferries leave small wakes, which rocked the boat a bit, but not enough to bother me. 

With sunny weather comes nice sunsets

March 24: Our next stop was to Provost Island to a sheltered narrow little cove called Shelby. The cove is surrounded by cliffs, with one house perched on the west side. It barely has enough room to swing on an anchor (I guess when it’s crowded, people tie their sterns to shore). Luckily I was the only boat here.  Very quiet, very scenic, very cold.  Time to catch up with my reading, which I did until the NW wind started coming up, blowing right into the cove.  I decided I was bored (I remember it takes at least a year to climate myself to the point where boredom and time passing is not an issue, but I’m not there yet), so I upped anchor and went across the channel to Ganges Harbor (on Salt Spring Island), a sizable town up a large fiord.  I anchored in a small cove, well away from traffic and buzzed my little outboard to town and found a café and now I’m sending this blog. This cafe is wild, with nothing but young hippies coming in and out.

More later about Ganges and my trip.

Preparing

What a treat!  While I was playing with David George’s band that I described last blog, his brother Scott brought out a video recorder and taped a warm-up tune on Saturday called “All Blues”.  And of course, there I was grinning like an idiot because I was having a lot of fun.  Ha ha!  I was able to get this digitally and load it into u-tube so that everyone can take a look. 

Check it out on U-tube - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WOyRdsVSIqg

While I was down in Santa Cruz, my friend Andy Fuhrman, as a going-away present, gave me what looks like a small ipod, but is in reality a movie camera, which takes high-def movies!  Too much to load on this medium, but, I think I've loaded a couple of selections in u-tube, so check it out if you want...there's not much to look at.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WOyRdsVSIqg&feature=autoplay&list=ULO0VL1Dyh8cg&index=1&playnext=3

Computer chart at work - the radar in back can also be a chart

After I got to Friday Harbor, there was a constant stream of bad weather, heavy southerlies or south-easterlies, causing me to hang out at FH much longer than I anticipated. Originally my plans were to leave March 1, but, oh well...I will not be a slave to itineraries.

Just three days ago, I took a quick trip on Blue Bossa to Anacortes to get supplies and refueled.  Fuel and food is cheaper than here in FH.  So I filled the tanks with diesel, and bought a ton of food that doesn’t perish over a length of time: rice, pasta, can food – enough that if I was stuck at a lonely cove unable to move because of problems with the weather or boat or whatever, I had at least enough food to carry me over.  When I got back to FH, I spent time storing all of this in all of the hidey holes in BB.  It’s surprising how much storage is in this boat.

omigod!  We're sailing  - going to Anacortes

Anacortes is an interesting town.  I’ve been there a number of times by car, but have never approached it by boat.  It’s not very pretty from the water, as there is a lot of industrial shipping around it, as well as all of the oil refineries in the background.  I’m glad I didn’t winter in Anacortes, as there is much more noise, airplanes taking off from Bellingham, commercial boats coming in and out of the harbor at a fast clip, and much more traffic noise.  But it’s a good place to load up with a Safeway in close walking distance (yes, you too can take advantage of HOT Safeway discounts IF you have a Safeway card!!).

The back side of Anacortes - the harbor is right around the peninsula

After fueling up, I was keen to sail back, as, as usual, I was shocked by the cost of filling up with 74 gallons (I have roughly figured that I burn 1.4 gallons/hour).  Luckily there was a lot of easterly blowing (20-30Kts).  So off I went, winding in between all of the islands, jibing, jumping all over the boat, pulling and letting out sails – so by the time I got to FH, I was exhausted. 

And I guess I didn’t roller-furl the mainsail the right way, because with the heavy wind and the sail flogging in the wind, I ended up with a large rip along the leach of the sail.  After looking at it closely, I realize that it doesn’t look like it had any sunbrella protection along the leach, because the Dacron along there looked rotten. It’s a 12 year old sail that’s been exposed to the sun along the leach (roller furling mast), so I imagine I’ll need a whole new leach. I’ll know more when I get to Sydney, BC, as there is a first-class sail loft.

So this is my last day in FH.  I played music last night at Andy and Jill Urbach’s house – Jill sings with the big band as well as the San Juan Island Quintet – she picked some great tunes for us (myself and Cecil, a great bass player) to accompany, and enjoy some wonderful home-made pizza. And only a few days before that I had a nice dinner at Rich and Margaret Barker’s house, talking, of course, about music and gigging. All of the people that I’ve met in Friday Harbor have been super nice and hospitable.  It’s very easy to see me eventually settling here.  We’ll see…the future looks bright, but very hazy!

So my adventure really starts as we’re (BB and I) leaving to Sydney to check in with customs – we’ll probably be in Canada for 2-3 months until reaching Alaska.  I’ll be a lot more consistent in sending out blogs, as there will be a lot more things to talk about and pictures to take. Stay tuned!

In Between the Trips

Doesn't look like rainy or snowy weather to me!

3/1/11

While Blue Bossa is safely (I hope) sheltered in Friday Harbor in either snowy conditions or continuous rain (from looking at the Friday Harbor weather report through the internet), I’ve taken a last dive (drive) down to California to finalize a lot of personal stuff (financial, taxes, health, storage, and music). For example, I took a bunch of clothes and shoes from my hanging locker that I never use, but don’t want to get rid of…to my little 5x5 storage locker in Santa Cruz! Sadly, I brought my long board down too, since I don’t think I’ll be doing any surfing going thru the inland waterways of Canada and Alaska.  I may regret it.  Maybe I should at least have a boogie or knee board on on the boat, just in case.

My current thinking is that I’m going to store my car at a friend’s property.  I just didn’t have enough time to sell the car for the money that it’s worth; besides, I’ll need something to drive when I get back in October/November while wintering BB in Alaska (Hey, here's a goofy thought: because of the heavily raising of gas prices, maybe my Prius will actually gain value....nah!) Of course, if a buyer should pop out of the woodwork, I would sell it in an instance (anyone interested?).  

After getting two bouts of bronchial infections and living in a constant cold and wet environment, my current thinking of wintering on the boat in Alaska has dried up.  What I’ll probably do (and this can change with the wind) is store the boat in a reliable port in Alaska and either come down to Santa Cruz, Friday Harbor, or….some place like Costa Rica to winter. Hmmm, maybe New Zealand. That’s the beauty of being retired…flexibility is everything, just so long as you can afford it.

Rich Barker sitting in and swinging!

Me on the left, Thor on bass, David George playing trumpet

February was a great month for playing music.  Though not many gigs, what I have had has been very high quality.  I was invited to play with Seattle’s David George (a great trumpet player, a true professional who has played 15 years in Europe, and another 5 years in Japan, both areas that seem to appreciate good jazz performances a lot more than the US) and Debbie Bevins, a very dynamic jazz vocalist - (the “Delta Diva” who has since moved up from Alabama to Seattle).  Along with Thor Hansen playing creative but steady bass, I had a tremendously good time, playing both Friday and Saturday.  Saturday was even more fun as we got Joe to play some good drums so that Thor and I could lay back a little.  Plus Friday Harbor’s Rich Barker sat in to play some smooth but inspired sax.  And Friday Harbor had a ton of people cheering us on.  Very memorable!  Thanks to George Scott for supplying the pics for our gig!

Debbie Bevins singing to the crowd

So what am I doing now?  It’s the second week being down in Santa Cruz with a lot of meetings and a big gig still to come.  Right now, I’m crashing up at the Fuhrman’s house in Bonnie Doone (a nifty community perched on top of the Santa Cruz Mountains) watching “I Shouldn’t Be Alive” on TV, where a sailboat loses it’s keel in the Gulf of Mexico, and immediately sinks, not giving enough time to setting the EPIRB or grabbing a ditch bag, which is a good cautionary note (to keep emergency stuff close by). The result is a group of 6 guys floating in a circle with pfd's (lifejackets) trying to stay alive for 24 hours and not get eaten by sharks or dying through hypothermia.  Animal Planet grinds the drama of the situation for a whole hour, with lots of repeats! In the very last second, the helicopter finds them and they’re saved.  Hooray for Hollywood!

Deer Harbor/Stuart Island/Roche Harbor

2/7/11

Glad I'm not doing this again!  Going south from Bend.

I can always tell if my boat has been docked too long in one place by how hard it is to undo the dock lines from the cleats.  The 5/8” braided lines were stiff and slightly worn and there was no doubt that it took a bit of extra time and effort to untie Blue Bossa from her Friday Harbor berth to take off on my next cruise.  I was anxious to try out my new anchoring system as well as get away from the relative noise and bustle of Friday Harbor (relative in the aspect that Friday Harbor is a veritable graveyard compared to Lake Union in Seattle).

Deer Harbor

Since the time was 4pm, I just zipped right across the channel to stay at Parks Bay, which was, as usual, calm and glassy.  I was delighted to see how quickly the anchor dropped without any help from the windlass, and after a very quiet but cold night at anchor, the windlass pulled the anchor back up and the chain stacked nice and neatly in the big 12” drainage pipe that I installed.

My first port of call was to be at Deer Harbor, on Orcas Island, which is a quaint resort with a nice marina.  I opted to take a slip.  I had a nice hike down the road, not seeing any great landmarks, but passing some quaint farms. 

Blue Bossa in Deer Harbor

Fancy business in Deer Harbor

When I was registering the boat at the marina, I wrote in my name Howard Wright; everyone in the store looked at each other with a funny look and just laughed. There is a Howard Wright, who owns a huge commercial construction company in Seattle, who is super rich, and has a huge estate on Orcas Island…ha ha! 

Amazing place to visit

While I was there, I talked to a guy who is a builder/re-modeler/finish carpenter (he was really into talking) – he said that the San Juan Islands are crawling with ex-movie stars, musicians, and other celebrities that he has met.  For example, Gene Hackman had apparently owned one of the islands just offshore from Deer Harbor, Al Gore was a visitor for awhile, as well as some old guitar player for the Rolling Stones.  The guy had a ton of stories!  I had to use a crowbar to pry myself away from talking to him all day.

Provost Harbor in Stuart Island

Provost Harbor from Farm

A could southerly with a bit of rain greeted the next day and I decided to go up to Stuart Island for a couple of days.  Instead of going to Reid Harbor as I did last time, I went to Provost Harbor on the other side of the island.  It is an almost completely protected natural bay.  I picked what I considered a good spot in the bay anchoring at 25 feet.  Satellite Island would protect me from any easterly winds, and Stuart from south and west winds.  As it turns out, it didn’t blow as hard as I thought, but it did rain hard that night.

Stuart Island

In the morning (Friday), it still blew out of the south with rain, so I spent the morning catching up with updating filing and expenses, cleaning the study out a bit and generally neatening up the boat.  Towards noon, it cleared and started blowing out of the west pretty hard.  Not very far to leeward were some nasty reefs, so I opted to up-anchor and move towards the NW end of Provost Harbor, where I re-anchored.  It was a breeze with my 12” diameter tube …the anchor and chain pays out really quickly and there have been no snags.  That is a great relief for me as a single handed sailor, not having to flake the chain by hand in the locker.

Turn Pt w/Lighthouse and "Mansion"

The next morning it was overcast, no wind, and cold.  After listening to the weather report, I decided that this would be a good time to finally visit Roche Harbor, a totally enclosed natural bay NW of San Juan Island.  So at about 8:30, we (Blue Bossa and I) left Provost Harbor, heading northwest to get around Turn Pt, which had a beautiful lighthouse with a nice mansion in the back…they must have treated their lighthouse people really well.  Then we headed southwest along the coast of Stuart Island to Roche Harbor.

Olympic Mountains behind Vancouver

It was a high overcast, but clear; so while we were going across the 5 mile channel to San Juan Island, to my right I could clearly see Vancouver Island, and even further, jutting a above cloud cover, I could see the snow covered Olympic Mountains.  All the while, there was not a breath of wind.

Once in Roche Harbor, I found a slip and tied up.  Wouldn’t you know it, Roche Harbor was sponsoring a salmon derby there!  Hey, didn’t I already have one in November at Friday Harbor?  But everyone there was very pleasant, and I didn’t see one camouflaged outfit!

Spike Africa next to Blue Bossa

Much to my surprise, Blue Bossa was tied up next to Spike Africa, a beautifully classic schooner built in the early ‘70’s in San Francisco Bay.  I remember Latitude 38 (a San Francisco sailing rag) doing some big write-ups about this boat.  Currently, it’s in the middle of replacing some deck planking and had a tent over the front third of the boat.  Apparently it does a lot of chartering in these waters.

I had a chance to cruise around there in my little inflatable, checking out these really nice and enclosed anchorages south of Roche Harbor – West Cott Bay and Garrison Bay.  I liked Garrison the best and I think I’ll stop there overnight before registering with Sydney when I enter Canada for my trip north in March.

NW San Juan Island w/Roche Hrbr

I’m back now in Friday Harbor, paying bills and setting up appointments for me with my late February visit to Santa Cruz…last one for awhile as I’m planning on taking off to Alaska come March.

That’s it for now.  More later.

Tripping South for the month

1/31/11           

Well, long time, no write. 

The last 4 weeks have been uneventful as far as Blue Bossa exploration is concerned, with lots of driving, and lots of time in my bunk. 

Lindsay, Tyler, and Ryan, the newest member of the Wright clan

Yes, I did visit the beautiful desert mountains of Bend, enjoying Christmas with my brother Rick and all of his family, going to Santa Cruz to visit friends and celebrate New Years and play a little music with the my old WAMO group, and drive down to Long Beach, for the last labors of dealing with what was in my parents house, which was in the last week of escrow.  During that whole time, plus the last week back in Friday Harbor, I had a good case of bronchitis, which refused to go away until I finally had a doc prescribe me some antibiotics to make it go away.

The old man, catching his breath

What stands out on my tripping south was mainly in Bend.  Beside enjoying the Christmas celebration with all of Rick and Chris’s relatives and friends, I had a wonderful day with my niece Maryn, first getting sort of lost trying to find a waterfall, then having a great hike in a desert canyon (which name completely escapes me - I swear I should keep a daily journal...).  Watching rock climbers pulling themselves up 90 degree cliffs was thrilling and scary, since I’m such a wuss when it comes to heights.

Bend Guide: Maryn

Just hanging around

After a big snowfall the day before (I was actually going to go skiing that day, but it was canceled due to bad weather), I headed my “anti-SUV” Prius south to Santa Cruz…but very shortly ran into another snow storm which cruelly tested my ability to drive in extreme snowy weather in an urban vehicle with no chains.  The visibility was almost zero with the white-out, the temperature was such that the snow would hit the windshield, melt, then turn to ice, firmly sticking to the windshield.  That meant that driving was hazardous at best, if not suicidal; some of the times I would be sticking my head out of the side windows just to see where I was going, and, when I could, stopping the car to scrape the ice off.  Most of the time, the speed was less than 20mph.  I found the best way to keep going was to hang out in back of a semi and just let it guide me.  I wouldn’t want to do that again, although amazingly, I still got 51 miles per gallon during that whole trip!

One other spot on my trip stood out, stopping by on my way back to Friday Harbor, to Bill and Kathy Cole’s house in Seabeck, Washington, to spend the night.  They had just completed building a beautiful house on the Hood Canal looking out at the Olympic Mountains.  A most majestic view and a great visit.  I was sorry that I didn't have a camera for my visit.

So here I’m back in Friday Harbor, having spent the last 2 weeks on my back and finally feeling better…enough that last Friday I did a gig at the Rumour Mill playing piano with the San Juan big band, feeling good about some good solos that I was able to punch out, and feeling good about sight-reading some difficult charts – big band is much harder than the normal small combo bands, as the arrangements are much more complicated and controlled.

Today I was able to have enough energy to install a big 12” x 3 foot pipe in my anchor locker, where I’m hoping that this will solve my chain from getting snagged.  Doing some anchoring drills will tell. It felt good finally getting some work done on the boat.  I think tomorrow I’ll do a major cleanup for BB.

I’ve also finally received an EPIRB and a satellite phone which significantly but a dent in my finances.  I will let everyone know what my sat phone number will be as soon as I figure it out and register.  Suffice to say, when I talk on it, it will have to be short and sweet, since it costs $1.60 per minute.  But, I can talk anywhere in the world, so it’s a great safety item. I'm also hoping that I can use it to receive and send e-mails as well as get weather reports. 

The EPIRB (Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacon) is a great safety tool too.  When I register it, I will give a telephone number for the Coast Guard to call.  If I have to set it off, it will give out a message of where I’m at (it has a GPS built into it), as well as the telephone number I register with so the the CG can confirm that it’s not a false alarm, and then they will come and rescue me.

My friend Tom Moellering sent me an e-mail today with some great pictures of his trip to New Zealand.  That’s a place definitely on my bucket list, and I am definitely jealous.  It would be sweet to sail Blue Bossa to New Zealand…maybe someday, although most likely it’ll be an airplane flight that gets me there.