SV Darwind

            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...

Familiar peaks in Katchemak Bay Approaching Hones lagoon Gotago welcoming Darwind home Tied up to the Seldovia docks, the voyage is officially over. Today, the final day of the voyage, I woke up after a restless night anchored up at Qikutulig Bay, (I know, probably the hardest place name on the map)which was one of my first memories of ever anchoring out on the first major voyage of my life on Northern Passage in 2012. Also, with Seldovia only a day's sail away if all went well, his was where I realized for the first time the significance of what I had accomplished over the summer. Anyway, the night was a bit rough, with the only groundswell we had experienced at anchor so far, and some gusty winds up to around 15 or 20 knots during the night, but Darwind swung to her anchor with no problem, and by morning, the chart plotter, which I had left on overnight as a precaution showed a perfectly smooth arc, with no signs of dragging. Impressive considering we were anc...

Today, mom and I woke up after a very good night's sleep in the inner basin of Chance Cove, a blessing after the turmoil of the day before, and by 7:30am we were underway. The ebbing tide, which had fought us on the way in, sucked us right out and shot us through the narrows of McArthur pass into the open waters of the Southern Kenai Peninsula, where contrary to the weather reports on the radio and texted to the inReach by dad, it was flat calm, with no more than a glassy swell from the south, all shrouded in heavy fog. Not wanting to waste this luck, I decided to head southwest, straight for Gore Point, and out into the open water instead of tucking in behind Nuka island and taking the Nuka passage west then south. This route cut off at least five nautical miles, and turned out to be a wise decision, because when the wind did come, it blew 20 knots right down the mouth of the rocky Nuka passage, which we would have had a rough time beating out of if we had tried to take the more s...

Coming soon, sorry for the delay