SV Darwind

San Miguel Island On the morning of departure from Half Moon bay, I woke up not able to even see the neighboring boats a few hundred feet away, the fog was so thick, so I settled back to wait for the afternoon sun to burn off the incredibly thick mist, as it always did farther north in Alaska and Canada. However by 1 pm the fog had moved just outside the harbor but still showed no signs of abating, so I decided to up anchor and investigate how thick this fog really was and if it was worth trying to push through. However, less than half a mile outside of the breakwater Darwind and I were enveloped in a thick blinding fog, full of the sounds and occasional looming shadows of sport fishing boats, so I decided to turn back before luck ran out and we ended up on a collision course with one of these invisible hazards.   Just as we were approaching the breakwater again though, we suddenly sailed straight out of the fog bank into the bright sunlight, so I turned around again, th...

Neah Bay to Crescent City Day 1             After a mad rush of bus rides to get the repaired part for the self-steering, I was back on the boat by 4:00 pm, and after a quick pit stop at the fuel dock to fill up, Darwind was beating out the strait of Juan De Fuca in the teeth of a 25 knot breeze and a huge swell building against the favorable 3 knot current. Unfortunately only a few hours in, just as we came abreast of Cape Flattery and slicing into 10-15 foot swell, the wind died to almost nothing and I was forced to start the engine to clear the islands and rocks around the cape. As the sun went down, the massive swell made motoring a living hell, and I actually gave up and turned around four times, each time facing a counter current and a midnight arrival back in Neah Bay, so each time I turned back into the swell to push on. Eventually, after the fourth aborted U-turn, we were clear of the islands and e...

Vancouver:             The second major destination of the trip, after Sitka was Vancouver, which symbolically represented the end of the inside passage for me, even though there remained a couple of hundred actual miles to go before the Pacific Ocean. As if to highlight this transition, I happened to arrive in Vancouver during a hot flash with temperatures in the high 70-80’s for a whole week! The water was also unbelievably warm, and I started every day with a dive off the dodger and a quick swim around the boat. Mainly I rested that week, reveling in the warmth after a seemingly endless ordeal of rain and cold in northern BC, and enjoying the change of pace and delicious cuisine of the big city.             Even more fun was that I got to hang out with my good friend Brooke, who is going to Simon and Fraser University in Vancouver, and we were able t...

            Day 1             Leaving Prince Rupert it was raining with a heavy fog, which would become all to familiar to me in the next 8 days. However, there was also a brisk, following breeze which allowed me to sail fast and comfortably, something that I would not experience again for over a week. As the day progressed, open, choppy water with the remnant of an ocean swell gave way to islands, and eventually to the narrow entrance to Grenville Channel, a 45-mile, nearly straight cut less than a quarter of a mile wide for the majority. The wind died behind the islands, but the sun also came out, so I ghosted on the breeze and current as far as I could before tucking into a small cove for the night.             Day 2             The second day in Grenville...

Leg 2: Sitka-Prince Rupert, BC             After an awesome week of long boarding, hiking, swimming and getting projects done around Sitka, Dad and Carmen, who had come down to say goodbye, having missed the Seldovia departure flew out and the wind was swinging around for the short hop down to Canada. The only minor glitch occurred when, two days before leaving Sitka, I realized that I had somehow left on a world trip without my passport! Luckily my mom was able to ship it out with the next Alaska Airlines flight, so a near-disaster was avoided, and now, (I’m pretty sure) I’ve got everything I need.             On departure day, the wind was already blowing, and since I was anchored instead of at the dock, I didn’t even need to turn the engine on at all, and within a couple of hours I was once again rolling to the Gulf swell and cruising along at six ...

Departure day at last! After three years of preparation, the actual beginning of the trip ended up becoming a very last-minute affair. For just under two weeks, after returning from Bristol Bay and a brief glacier-ski interlude in anchorage, I had been busily working on getting all of the critical projects ready to go, finishing the engine well, repainting the dodger, sealing the leaky hull-deck joint, and by Tuesday I thought that I might be able to depart by Saturday at the earliest. However, on Wednesday night, the forecasted southwest wind started blowing a day early through the rigging at 15-20 knots, and there was no way I could pass up such a positive omen, and such a beautiful wind. Thursday morning came and I had managed, by dint of staying up through 4am, to get every project necessary to sail more-or-less completed, and the boat cleared and stowed for an offshore passage.             Over breakfast, I told my mom ab...

Over the years since my last post, I have completed two solo voyages, from Seldovia to Seward, and Seward to Seldovia (both 150 nautical miles and three days), in order to do out-of-the-water work in Seward, and both trips proved to be trials of both the boat and myself, with long nights, terrible anchorages, and one force 7-8 gale(30-35 knots wind and-11 foot seas). As expected, the boat did incredibly well even in the worst of it, and except for realizing how much I need to get south to warmer climes, and smoother seas, so did I (or at least I think so, I survived, so I guess that's a plus). As well as sailing around South-central AK, and commercial fishing in Bristol Bay to make some much-needed cash, I have been kept busy steadily chipping away at the ever-growing(although dare I say it has begun to shrink) list of things to do before my circumnavigation departure in August 2019. Now, with under 2 months to g, here is what has been done: 1.  Replace the seized up adjustable b...