Day 26 and 27 (June 22 and 23)

Yesterday, Day 26, I spent in Wrangell alone, and I whiled away the day doing laundry, reading, cooking (I didn’t burn anything!!), and catching up on sleep. The most interesting thing I did all that day was to rig a line for the third reef in the main. I even wrote a little for the blog, on which I am seriously falling behind, but couldn’t find any wifi to post anything, and after a very boring day, I retired to my faithful boat, ready for my first day of singlehanded sailing on the Darwind.

            That brings us to today, the day of my very first singlehanded passage of any significance or length. And just for the record, it was great. Contrary to the boredom of yesterday, I woke up full of energy and set about getting ready to leave. Because I was going out alone today, I was extra careful about getting everything absolutely ready and stowed, because there would be nobody to go get do something that I forgot once we were underway. (“we” as in Darwind and I, the only real singlehanded sailing is called swimming) And once everything was ready, I went over it all again, and walked the deck two more times before finally I was satisfied that the only thing left to do was to take in the fenders and dock lines, the only things that couldn’t be done beforehand, for obvious reasons.

            At exactly 6:30am, satisfied beyond doubt of Darwind’s readiness, I cast off the dock lines, already wearing my life jacket, and as soon as I was outside the breakwater, clipped in. There was some light suspense as I held my breath while setting up the autopilot; if it didn’t come on, I was in for a long day at the helm, but as per usual, it jumped right in and happily took control as I went forward to bring in fenders and docklines.

These secured, I headed out into the brilliant turquoise waters, under power at first, but after an hour and some previous fiddling with the new reef line, I was under full sail and reaching right along at over 5 knots. The wind at this time was a bit fluky, and by the time I was trying to pass between two islands about five miles out from Wrangell, I was just drifting around, so I had to start the motor up for a few minutes until I was clear and started sailing again, this time into a brisk 10-knot breeze. At the beginning of the voyage I wasn’t sure how sailing alone without anyone to steer or tail the winch or keep an eye out would be like, but it turned out to be fine, with Ray doing al the steering, and I congratulated whoever had rigged Darwind with so much care for leading all lines aft to the cockpit for singlehanded sailing.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to sail the whole time because of the time wasted drifting around between the islands, and I needed to get to Wrangell narrows before slack so that I wasn’t going to end up with 7 knots of current in my face and the possibility of being run down by a cruise ship or ferry during that time. There were several other boats, including two sailing vessels (both motoring) heading to the narrows at the time that I finally put the engine on, and in truth they were part of the reason that I decided to suck it up. I’ve always gone by the school of thought that in these situations, if all the fishermen and locals are doing one thing, it’s probably beneficial to do the same.

Although I entered the narrows at the back of the small fleet passing through, I actually had a very easy passage with only a few other boats around, and with three knots of current at my stern I was able to make over 8 knots speed over ground (SOG). At the north end of the narrows, where the current turned against us for a bit, the wind picked up to around 7 or 8 knots from the northwest, and as the channel had opened up with no sign of any large ships coming through anytime soon, I pulled up the sails one more time for a lazy sail under the baking sun and some interesting times trying to eke out the last bit of power from the sails in the light zephyrs.

Eventually, as I approached the harbor of Petersburg, the wind died off more and more, until I was actually standing completely still in relation to the land, and just barley ghosting through the water. That’s when mom called to tell me that she had landed, so for the second time today, I dropped the sails and started the engine due to a lack of wind, and motored into the Petersburg small boat harbor, where things got tricky.

All day while I was sailing, I had had no problems, raising, dropping, or reefing sails, but as soon as I was in that harbor, I wished I had a crew. Yep, I could happily go through a gale or spend all day fighting light headwinds, but come into a crowded harbor dock… no thank you, coming to a dock is my only qualm, as soon as the water stops it’s rush along the hull and the throb of the engine drowns out all others, I cease to be an experienced sailor and become once more a clumsy teenager. The docks at Petersburg didn’t make the situation much better either, as I was assigned a tiny, narrow, slip way in almost at the ramp, and to get in I had to make a 90 degree turn in a constricted area with wind (up to 10 knots now, of course) and almost half a knot of current setting across the dock. Luckily, mom was there to help take lines, but even so I missed the turn on the first try and had to throw the engine into reverse and gun it at the last second to keep Darwind’s three tons from smashing into the stern of a large motor yacht I the next slip. Reversing turned out to be a good move in the end though, as it lined us up perfectly and I brought Darwind right in without a bump on the second try.

Mom and I settled right back into our old routine, in fact a little too much so, as even before Darwind’s docklines were snugged down tight we were already at it, arguing about the best way to come into a dock. Oh well, we made up for it with a good hearty dinner of curry and fries at a place down the street from the marina. We spent the night in Petersburg, across from a very nice 40 foot steel sloop that was for sale, the Darwind no longer a singlehanded boat.