island time

Our flight leaves at 11:45PM tonight. If Christy had her way, we'd be at the airport at 11:35PM. If I had my way, we'd be at the airport at noon. But once the last of three flights touches down in Marsh Harbour, time will be much less meaningful. We'll be on Bahamas time. Island time. Time for a nap on the beach time.

Not for long, though. Once a weather window opens, we'll be hopping onto a 47' center cockpit Caliber called 'Bright Ayes' and sailing north to New Jersey with Christy's dad and the owner of Bright Ayes, Wayne. Check out their blog here.

We'll be taking lots of pics on the way and post them when we get back. Can't wait can't wait can't wait!

bareboatin'

We did our bareboat charter class this weekend. Wicked fun. We provisioned the boat Friday morning and practiced some docking-without-crashing maneuvers. Of the two types of docking, apparently this is the preferred method.

We then pointed our J35C out into the Sound and beat into a south wind all the way to Eagle Harbor on Bainbridge Island where docked at the marina and holed up for the night.

The next morning, we motored south through Rich Passage and on into Port Orchard. We hoisted sails here for a nice broad reach to the north until we landed in Liberty Bay. We anchored outside of Poulsbo and rowed our hapless little dinghy ashore for some good Scandenavian fun in downtown swinging Poulsbo. Afterwards, we motored south about a mile and anchored up again for a good nights sleep.

The next day we came back through Agate Passage, Port Madison and back into Puget Sound. We beat down the west side, crossed the shipping channel without getting run over, waved at the seal lions hanging out on the mid-channel bouy, and ran back up the east side to Shilshole.

Great fun but also a huge confidence boost for me. I would wake up at 3AM stressed out about the notion of docking a 40' boat. Once we hoik up money for a boat, I'll probably still stress about it but I just feel so much better about it after this experience. We had a great instructor and fun people to sail with.

I wanna go back.


Skirting south of the Bainbridge ferry.


Our instructor, Pierre, and Christy checking out wind direction.


s/v Astraea nestled onto an end tie in Eagle Harbor.


Cute.


Pierre and Shawn (at the helm) spot a mooring bouy in Rich Passage.


Christy driving.




Astraea anchored up outside of Poulsbo.


"To Poulsbo, Jeeves!"




Steve was so gracious as to row our lazy asses into Poulsbo.




Where in the hell is that dinghy dock??


Poulsbo Marina.


The brain trust calculating our next morning's passage. From left to right: Pierre, Steve, Shawn.


If I knew math was involved, I might have thought twice about taking up sailing.


Fun!


Shawn has been fishing in Alaska for the last 12 years so he knows a thing or two about boats. Here, he's showing Pierre how to do a back splice.


They expressed their displeasure in when we interrupted their nap.


Hanging out Ray's afterwards for some cold beer.

offshore cruising seminar

We attended the Offshore Cruising Seminar from John and Amanda Neal this weekend. Learned alot and threw buckets of gas on the fire. Like we needed any more motivation. Just a few snippets of what we learned:

• Emergen-C packets work for seasickness


• Pelican cases make great ditch bags


• write up a sail reduction plan, at what windspeed do reefs get put in and working sails swapped out for storm sails, etc


• charts, be they electronic or paper, are consistently inaccurate! navigate with your eyes

We also ponied up $350 as a consultation fee for them to help with our boat selection. He's already got us looking at a few boats which we hadn't considered including:

• Waquiez Pretorian - not sure how offshore capable they are


• Pearson 424 - 42 feet is ha-yuge!


• Pacific Seacraft 37 - he said these are slow boats though


• Espirit 37 - by Bob Perry, supposedly a fast boat

Best moment of the whole seminar. John asks everyone who's leaving within a year to stand up. We do. In turn he asks everyone who stands up where they are going and what kind of boat they have.

me: "We're going to Mexico for starters and then we'll decide if we turn right or left."

John: "What kind of boat do you have?"

me: "We don't have a boat."

everyone in the room: [gales of laughter]

John: "Wow. You guys deserve a hat."

So we are now the proud owners of a 48 Degrees North hat courtesy of John and Amanda Swan in honor of having The Most Ridiculous Plan In The Room.

plan update

Once again, it's been awhile since I've updated the bloggity blog. Plans are on track and we're making progress on our intentions to not become Darwin award recipients during our travels. To that end:

• We're signed up for John and Amanda Neal's cruising seminar on 3/1 in Seattle.


• We're scheduled to take a bareboat charter class on 3/14.


• We're scheduled to take a Medical Care for Long Distance Sailors class on 4/12 which will also give us a Wilderness First Aid certification.


• Christy's dad is crewing on a boat delivery from the Bahamas to New Jersey in May and got both of us invites as crew. We're flying into Marsh Harbour May 9th and flying back from Connecticut a week and a half later.

We're also heading out to Sequim the first weekend in March to go look at a 37 foot custom pilothouse designed by Stan Huntingford:



It's all happening!

choice

"I've always wanted to sail to the south seas, but I can't afford it." What these men can't afford is not to go. They are enmeshed in the cancerous discipline of security. And in the worship of security we fling our lives beneath the wheels of routine - and before we know it our lives are gone. What does a man need - really need? A few pounds of food each day, heat and shelter, six feet to lie down in - and some form of working activity that will yield a sense of accomplishment. That's all - in the material sense, and we know it. But we are brainwashed by our economic system until we end up in a tomb beneath a pyramid of time payments, mortgages, preposterous gadgetry, playthings that divert our attention for the sheer idiocy of the charade. The years thunder by, The dreams of youth grow dim where they lie caked in dust on the shelves of patience. Before we know it, the tomb is sealed. Where, then, lies the answer? In choice. Which shall it be: bankruptcy of purse or bankruptcy of life?

-from Voyager by Sterling Hayden

how can you have any pudding if you don't eat yer meat?

I've been remiss with blog updates. Not because of overwhelming school requirements as in the past (I totally quit school AGAIN - but more on that later) but mostly due to future plans that change on the hour. However, Christy relayed a request from her mom that I update my blog with current Christy/Jason happenings and plans. As I haven't yet met Christy's family, it seemed wise to stay on her mom's good side. (Hi Anne!)

"Quit school, you say??" Yep, that's me: two-time college dropout. This is a huge source of embarrassment for me, trust me. But you'll see in just a few sentences why this is not necessarily a bad thing. Unless of course, you're one of those people that highly value education and knowledge and such. Then maybe yeah, bad thing.

Here's the plan as it stands this afternoon. We reserve the right to change it soon and often.

1. Move into Christy's houseboat in the next few weeks.
2. Rent the townhouse.
3. Buy a sailboat and learn how to sail it.
4. In October, move out of houseboat and onto sailboat.
5. Sometime in spring 2009 quit our jobs.
6. June 2009, take off sailing for Alaska. We'll cruise around the PNW for a spell before:
7. August 2009, sail to Mexico to meet up with our good friends, Kim and Fisher, who are sailing down there a few months prior.
8. September 2009, anchor somewhere in the Sea of Cortez.
9. Drink hand made margarita's on deck.
10. Fix stuff on the boat that broke.
11. Go to step 9.

We don't know what we'll do after Mexico, nor do we particularly care at the moment. We'll figure it out when we need to. At this point, we are just focused on getting a hold of the skills we need to pull something like this off without being handed a Darwin award.

As you can see, there is no step in the plan called "graduate". School didn't really make sense if all we were going to do was just get my ass graduated and then hop on a boat and promptly sunburn that knowledge right back out of my head. One of these days, I would sorely love to graduate but school really made so much more sense when I was planning on working after graduating. As it stands, I'll need all the room in my brain for the inordinate amount of knowledge and skill required to keep our boat from settling on the bottom of the Puget Sound.

So to sum up: quit school, moving in with Christy, saving money, quitting work, sailing, margaritas in Mexico.

Any questions?

tangential

In 2005, three guys from Seattle piled on to a 44' cutter named s/v SohCahToa (the name s/v Never Seen A Girl Naked must have already been taken) and sailed it around the world. As they hopped from ridiculous tropical paradise to ridiculous tropical paradise, they were so kind as to post frequent and hilarious updates to their website. I lost several hours this last weekend reading from start to finish, only to find out that they just triumphantly returned a few days back.

These guys are all sorts of bad ass. Here's to ya, fellas. Welcome back.

http://www.svsohcahtoa.com/