Ye Ole Cabin

Diesel and Fog

Joshua — Sat, 04 Jul 2026 17:00:00 -0600

"Light winds are okay," I keep telling myself. When given the option of light winds and motoring or 15-20 kt headwinds beating into the weather, I keep reminding myself I should be grateful for the light winds. So it went for several days... and it was okay.

We continued north through the night and next day, passing San Francisco with barely a glance. Kelli spotted the Bay Bridge through a little break in the fog but it was more of a faint outline rather than a striking panoramic view. Just outside San Francisco Bay is a traffic separation zone where commercial ships are required to stay in certain lanes while entering or exiting the area. There are three two-way lanes making six total lanes of traffic. Pleasure boats like ours are not required (and somewhat discouraged) from using the lanes, but there are some suggestions when dealing with the lanes, like cross them at right angles and watch for traffic. When we started getting close, I explained to Kelli what the lanes were, our obligation to stay out of the way, and our intended course across them. I tuned in to the VHF channel where the traffic announces their positions and pulled up the AIS display to see who was around. It was VERY quiet. With no one around, I planned to keep a straight course to Drakes Bay which took us in a diagonal path across several lanes. We kept a good lookout and planned to alter course if there was any question of our impeding traffic. Well, in the 2-3 hours it took us to pass through all the lanes, we saw one Japanese container ship. We kept course until they came up to speed then checked our CPA (closest point of approach) on the display. It said they would pass 1 mile or more in front of us. So we kept course, kept an eye on the CPA and visual on the vessel itself. No conversation was started over the radio and nothing else happened. We passed behind them and then we were out of the traffic separation zone. Easy peasy. On a busier day we would have been more intentional about right angles and the like but on a day like we got, it would not have helped anyone.

A few hours later we began our approach to Drakes Bay. We went by Chimney Rock on the southeast corner or Point Reyes and saw a cool water spout where the swell would force air and water out a small hole in the rock and it would spray 100 feet in the air. We anchored in 28 feet of water with some swell curling in around the point but it wasn't too bad. I wanted to deploy a stern anchor and line us up with the swell so the boat wouldn't rock all night but it was getting late and I wasn't up to the task so we ended up sleeping in the berth sideways so we didn't roll around all night.

Drakes Bay in the Point Reyes National Seashore was beautiful. The shoreline departs the water at a fairly shallow angle before running up against vertical rock cliffs. The bay curves around about 270 degrees with a decreasing radius to the east. It was a very good anchorage for early sailors to visit the area due to its easy approach, decent protection, and moderate depth to anchor in. Nevertheless, the San Agustín was shipwrecked there in the 1500s being driven ashore by a storm. The bay is named after Sir Francis Drake who sailed there in 1579. There was a painting of his ship, the Golden Hind, careened on shore getting repairs. We avoided the careening and instead went ashore on the tender. (Look up careening, it's an intentional grounding of the ship at high tide and allowing it to tilt so you can do repairs below the waterline.)

The next morning we weighed anchor and sailed a short ways northeast close to the visitor's center and dropped anchor again. I loaded up the spare anchor and 100' of rope and rowed out in the dinghy to drop the anchor in line with the waves. It went okay and after another go at it later, the boat was nicely set, lined up with the swell.

The ride ashore was a bit of a ride. The surf was breaking along the entire shoreline though most of the waves weren't particularly large. We motored up to the edge of the breakers and I watched them for a while, deciding when I wanted to risk it. When I felt the time was right, we pointed the inflatable toward shore and gave the tiny Honda outboard the beans. We ran up on shore dry and with what I imagine was full style points. It was probably mostly luck but it was fun either way.

A portion of the beach was closed since we were visiting near the end of the Elephant Seal molting season. Walking the beach, we could see chunks of skin and fur washed up all over the place. It was pretty gross. One Elephant Seal was hanging out by the visitor center, unconcerned about the people crowding around watching it toss sand on its back. I think it looked more elephant than seal. After our long walk on the beach, we walked up on top of the cliff and relaxed for a while. The view was amazing and the sun had come out for a while to greet us too. As we sat up there, I watched the surf get bigger and break harder. It still had lulls but overall, it was getting worse. It made me a little anxious to get back to the boat as I didn't imagine the surf would lessen for many hours.

We plodded back down the grassy hillside to the dinghy and got ready. We turned it around so the bow was toward the water. I started the engine and got it warmed up while out of the water to make sure we would be able to make a quick escape. We just stood there for a few minutes watching the waves roll in. Some very large breakers made me rethink our decisions. I was just imagining the scene from Pirates of the Caribbean where the two silly pirates got turned over in their rowboat while trying to get to shore. About that time Kelli started to ask, "How are we going to decide when...." at which point I said, "Let's go! Get in!" We gave the little boat a shove and hopped in. I focused on the swell, giving the sea dagger eyes, daring it to start curling into a breaking wave while giving our 2.5hp outboard permission to release all its fury. Swell after swell came in, we rolled over each benign bump in the water, then, we were past it all. Not 15 seconds later, a big roaring surf broke behind us on shore. Ha! What a time. It would have been a total mess if we got caught in one of those breakers.

Back at the boat we made dinner, relaxed, did some reading, and I reset the stern anchor I had set in the morning. We had a pretty good angle to the waves and the ride in the boat was much better.

The next day we got out of there and continued north planning to stop at Humboldt Bay (Eureka, CA.) The going was mostly light winds. We had a full day, night, and another full day ahead of us. We motor sailed a bit and just motoroed without the sail up when the wind was light enough it would just flap the sail around. The fog rolled in and left, rolled in, and left. Through the night the bioluminescence was intense. At one point in the night I dipped a bucket the water, pulled it on deck, and splashed my hand around in it to stir it up and there were little green sparks bouncing around as I did it. It was pretty cool. Most of the glowing in the water is very faint and you can't see it with a phone camera but with no city lights, it is plainly visible. The propeller mixes up a stream of bioluminescence that looks like jet exhaust coming out of the back of the boat. If you look off the side of the boat, you can see the green glow coming up from under the boat where the prop must be making it go completely mad. The splashing wake off the side of the boat makes little sparkly splashes. Kelli said that on a night watch she kept seeing little skittering green spots going away from the boat. Later she realized it was birds taking off from the water as we got close. The would start flapping and running with their feet in the water that would leave little green birdy footprints in the water. It's crazy.

About mid day before we pulled into port, I checked the diesel gauge and it said EMPTY. I figured it wasn't close to empty and the float just didn't make it all the way down to the bottom of the tank but it made me aware so I did a little math. We still had about ten hours to go and after I checked my engine logbook for the last couple days, we had motored over 75 hours since filling up. The diesel tank is 85 gallons and I figured we burn about 1 gallon per hour. So if anything was off in those calculations, we would be out of fuel as we entered the bay. I didn't like that. Once the wind picked up enough, we shut off the engine and went back to sailing. I thought we had about 4 gallons left in the tank and didn't want to get stuck entering Humboldt Bay when the engine died. It was nice to use our boat the way it was intended for a little while. But soon enough we were a half mile out from the bar and prudence said to not cross the bar under sail.

Quick note, a bar (river bar) is a entrance for boats where a river meets the ocean. Jetties or rock walls are built out into the ocean a bit to break up the waves and the center is then dredged out. The problem is, as the current from the river flows into the ocean, the waves and swell work against it running ashore and you can get some nasty waves. Many river bars have Coast Guard stations on site that monitor conditions and put restrictions on the bar. I had been listening to the Humboldt Bay Coast Guard Station bar reports and the bar was in pretty good shape with the bar closed to boats 20 feet and smaller.

So we fired up the engine and doused the sails. I told Kelli we want to keep the head sail ready to deploy if our engine dies while crossing the bar. I took my position at the helm and started watching the entrance to see if there were any breaking waves, much like the dinghy adventure at Drakes Bay. The south side of the bar looked nicer than the center or north side so I chose a spot closer to the jetty and we continued in. As the waves rolled in, it would push our boat along faster for a moment then pass us and turns us sideways a bit as the water moved faster than us. This is pretty normal but the trouble is, if it becomes too excessive, you can loose rudder effectiveness and get pushed completely sideways in a broach. This makes the boat roll severely and in the worst case scenario, you can capsize or roll the boat completely over on a wave. The bar wasn't even close to that bad at the time so we rolled in with just a little bit of adventure and were soon motoring up a secure and slow moving river.

We leisurely motored up the river past giant wood chip piles and stacks of logs waiting to get loaded onto ships and taken to mills. Without any more adventure, we pulled into Woodley Island Marina at our assigned slip and called it a day. Fuel remaining? Just enough.

One more post to go!

Near Tragedy at Sea!

Joshua — Fri, 19 Jun 2026 14:31:00 -0600

The boat didn't nearly sink. The liquor didn't get thrown overboard. It's worse that that. The french press beaker broke! Can you imagine; out on the water day and night for weeks with no good way to make coffee? Well Kelli found a work around as she was the first one to attempt coffee. She boiled water, put coffee grounds in a container, added the hot water to that and let it steep for four minutes. Then together we decided to use the measuring cup as an intermediate strainer. The coffee slurry was poured into the measuring cup, the french press filter/plunger fit into the measuring cup as a strainer, then poured into a mug while holding the strainer in place. Whew. We got a little more streamlined the second time and if all else failed, cowboy coffee is still a possibility. The point is, things break and it is important to find ways to work around it... especially when it affects your caffeine.

The trip from Catalina north was filled with wildife. We saw hundreds of porpoises, seals, and probably 20 or more whales. They were hunting in mobs, it was truly crazy to watch. We would see a boil of fish then a bunch of whales would start surfacing. Shortly after, we would see a bunch of seals or porpoises moving quickly and then birds would circle, I imagine to eat the bits of fish left over when the meele of feeding was over. Occasionally we would alter course just so we wouldn't run over a whale.

We arrived in Port San Luis at 4:30 local time on Friday. Kelli made sure to keep the Friday tradition alive by making pizza for dinner. We had planned to get fuel before calling it a night but the fuel dock closed at 4:00 so we made a radio call to the harbor patrol, got directed to the correct spot, and dropped anchor. Once we were not moving anymore, Kelli finished dinner and we sat down for pizza and a movie.

It was a beautiful spot and I'm a little bummed we didn't get to stay longer. The trip from Catalina Island to San Luis was grey and sometimes very foggy. As soon as we made it into the harbor, the sun broke out, kids were playing on the beach, a live band was having a blast at the pier side restraunt; it was quite picturesque. As the sun set, the fog rolled in and promised to soak everything left on deck overnight so we brought our chairs and other things inside went to bed with nobody on night watch.

This morning I got the dinghy in the water and mounted the little outboard engine to the transom. I pulled and pulled, fought and cussed, then eventually got out to tools to threaten the little machine with my overpowering will. It fired up once with a cough of smoke but then died again. After checking for spark, making sure the sparkplug was clean, then moving on the the carburetor, I was surprised at how clean everything was. There was no gunk in the float bowl and other than a little corrosion on some bolts, it looked good. When I opened the fuel valve to make sure fuel was flowing, I was greeted with nil. A little more poking and prodding let me to find that the fuel cap vent isn't venting when set to ON or OFF. So I cracked the fuel cap and gasoline gushed out. After a quick reassembly, it fired right up. I gave Kelli some engine voodoo curses as suggestions on how to keep it running and sent her across the bay to do laundry.

After an hour she said the load was getting put in the dryer, she found a cup of coffee on shore, and decided to walk around. That was my call to weigh anchor and head to the fuel dock. I called harbor patrol again to get directions and little insturction because it didn't seem straight forward. Turns out the fuel "dock" is a couple rubber bumpers agains the pier. You pull up, lasso the pilings, and then lower a hose down 30 feet to your boat. I'm a little ashamed of my lassoing ability but I didn't break anything and the fuel attendant was friendly. We got 37 gallons, paid over $200, and he took our trash for free. What a deal! He pointed out a little floating dock on the other side of the pier completely covered in sea lions and told me that was the water dock if I wanted to top off my tanks.

Off I went around the pier as Kelli was roaring toward me in the dinghy. I told her my plan to fight some sea lions in exchange for some water and she followed behind. As the boat got close to the floating dock, the sea lions all evacuated... except one. I hopped off the boat to secure it to the dock and the smallest little baby decided to try and squeeze through two boards rather than go around. Apparently he grew more than he thought because he promptly got himself wedged between the boards and started screaming "bloody murder." Bloody murder sounded more like diareha mixed with agressive belching and it immediately attracted attention from the pier only 100 feet away. I was busy tying up my boat so didn't help the little fatty. About the time I got the second line secured, I heard a splash and a big cheer from the pier. Apparently he sucked in his guy and squeezed through the boards. The crowd mostly dispersed and I proceeded to get my tanks filled.

Kelli made it aboard and I finished filling the tanks when I realized I had stepped in poop and drug it all over the deck. After some scrubbing and rinsing, I went to turn off the water and retrieve my hose. But guess what... another animal was ready to make a show. A big grumpy pelican took up roost right above the water valve. I approached cautiously and noticed a number on a marker around it's leg. This bird had an ankle bracelet! Apparently I was up against a hardened criminal. As I got closer, he didn't back down. I reached under his feet to turn off the water and he leaned toward me. After some back and forth, I decided he wanted to bite me and I wanted to smack him on the bill to show him who was boss. Both of us threatened but neither committed. Eventually I got the hose loose enought it started spraying him with water and with that, he moved away. A little more loosening and the stream got worse and he flew off. Another family had congregated on the pier and were laughing at my confontation with San Luis' finest criminal. After securing the hose and hauling the dinghy on board, we were off again.

The fog started again right outside the harbor. It lasted for about two hours before becoming high grey skies. There were lots of fishermen outside Port San Luis but they slowly became less frequent as we went further north. At the moment, we are headed up the coast 5-6 miles off the coastline. We will pass Point Sur in 4.5 hours making it 2:00 am local time. We are motoring once again, letting the little Volvo engine clank away for days on end. Our destination is Drakes Bay just east of Point Reyes. We will anchor there for a day then decide the best time to head north. There's some really strong winds forecasted for mid to late next week so we want to make good choices surrounding that. I think we will make it up to Eureka before hunkering down for a few days.

Until next time.

What to expect

Joshua — Thu, 11 Jun 2026 12:53:00 -0600

The time has come to move the boat north. We are taking Elysian Sea from San Diego and heading north to Coos Bay, Oregon. We have been planning this trip for a month and it's exciting it is finally here. I have expectations of what is to come but the truth is, I don't really know what we will experience.

Anyone who has talked to Kelli and I realize we don't have much experience sailing and even less in the open Pacific. Most of our time has been in relatively protected waters like the Sea of Cortez and the Inside Passage. You may have read that we ran down to Ensenada and back but that was a mere 85 miles each way. Suffering for 16 hours is very different from suffering for two weeks. So here's the dealio.

San Deigo to Coos Bay is 850 miles plus all the maneuvering to get there. If we stop in at a port somewhere, that's more miles. If we are sailing into the wind, which we expect to do the entire way, that's more miles. A cruiser can often plan for 5 knots of speed for their voyage but that doesn't account for a bad plan of heading upwind. So how much time will this take us? I'm not sure. We are planning for three weeks minus travel days. I hope that's enough.

Here's what's happened thus far. On Sunday, June 7th, we hopped on a plane in Grand Junction, CO and landed in San Diego at 3:30pm. That afternoon we got to the boat, did some chores, and planned for the provisioning the next day. Monday we had some more prep to do on the boat, lots of provisioning to do (buying groceries), and then a dinner reservation at 5:30 pm. We ran around and got stuff done through the day. $650 later we left Albertson's with what we hoped to be enough food for the trip plus some more if we went adrift or ran aground on a small island and wanted to go full Gilligan's Island. Mid-afternoon we got a visit from an old co-worker, his wife, and his 1.5 month-old daughter, Charolette. What a cutie pie that little girls is. As soon as we kicked them out of the boat and hussled them off the dock, we met up for our dinner reservation. Christopher is a guy we met on the internet, I think. I actually forgot how I ended up with his number. He's an experienced sailor, former owner of a Valiant 40, retired, and seems to know everyone I bring up. He was kind enough to wine and dine us at one of his favorite spots in town and we had a great send off for the next day with some slight wariness and many well wishes. "Non terra sed aquis," Christopher.

Tuesday morning we set out from Chula Vista with full water tanks, a full pantry, and less fuel than we wanted. A quick stop at High Seas Fuel Dock fixed the fuel issue (with a very generous discount I might add) and we grabbed our last fancy coffee and restraunt food before departing. Getting underway, we sailed most of the way up the coast until we were abeam Encinitas, CA at 9:00 pm. The wind died down enough that we weren't making any progress and I started the engine. We dropped anchor just south of Long Point on Catalina Island at 10:45 am June 10th. I considered getting a mooring and visiting the island at one of the towns on the island (Avalon or Two Harbors were candidates) but decided against it and we just chilled through the day and night. That night the wind was light so the boat took its natural position of beam-to the waves. It heeled back and forth all night so we slept sideways in the bunk to avoid getting rolled back and forth all night.

This morning when we got up the wind was favorable so before Kelli made some breakfast, we weighed anchor and got underway again. At 7:15 am we were under sail, moving along at 4-5 knots. We continued on that way for a couple hours but now the wind has completely died and we are under engine power once again. Our next destination is San Luis Obispo, 160 miles northwest. Our current plan is to stop there for a day or so, then set out again. However, if the weather is favorable, I'd rather get some more miles on.

I have looked at the short-term weather and we appear to be getting some light winds, partially from the south. That means I would rather keep moving north while we have it, even if that means motoring more. When the wind comes from the north, as it usually does, we have to motor or sail into the waves and wind which creates a pretty exciting ride as the bow pushes into a wave, rises quickly, then comes back down the other side fairly steeply. It is doable but I know we will have plenty of those days, I don't want to wait for them just for fun.

So here we are, motoring along at 6 knots, 285 degrees. I got seasick on the first day but seem to be doing much better today. We have enough food and booze to last us a long time. We have a plan, a good boat, and a destination. We will see if expectations meet reality over the next two weeks.

Here's a tracking link to see where we are. https://share.garmin.com/QTD46

Joshua

Elysian Sea - First Trip

Joshua — Sun, 12 Apr 2026 21:10:00 -0600

The last post ended outside San Diego Bay, staring across the Pacific toward Japan. Sadly I couldn't continue westbound. I sailed 4 miles offshore, turned around, and moseyed back to the marina. It took eight hours to leave San Diego Bay and come back; it's a big bay and with the big turn at the north end of the bay; you are guaranteed to be sailing into the wind at some point.

Back home in Utah we got busy planning the next chunk of boat work which would include some time offshore. As I've already shared, boat work never ends. The priorities for the next trip were bottom paint, transducer installation (remember that 2" hole I needed to make?), and repairing a seacock for the sink drain in the head. Some funny terms there, huh? For you non-sailors, a seacock is a valve that lets water in or out through a hole in the bottom of the boat (the hole is called a thru-hull.) Boat water closets, lavatories, bathrooms, or restrooms are called heads. The toilet itself is also called a head. Now you know. When we bought the boat there was a sticky ball valve under the sink and when we tried to turn the valve next to it (the seacock) it broke as well. So out with the old and in with the new. The bottom of the boat is coated in a paint that slowly sloughs off and releases a biocide to keep marine growth from sticking to the hull and slowing the boat down. It is traditionally painted every year but Elysian Sea hadn't been painted in three years. There were the priorities. So right after Christmas we headed out to San Diego with a plan to attack these priorities.

The secondary list included varnishing the wood on the outside of the boat, fixing a leak in the engine's seawater pump, installing some other electronics bits, stitching a tear in the cover of our genoa, installing some new LiFePO4 batteries I assembled, and making sure the dinghy that came with the boat was still in decent shape.

All the primary items require pulling the boat out of the water and in California that is not a fun idea for my wallet. We planned to sail down the Ensenada, Baja, Mexico, get hauled out, and pay to have to boat painted while I addressed the thru-hulls. San Diego to Ensenada is an 85 mile trip. In order to arrive in Ensenada during the daylight, we would have to sail through the night. This was a big step for us. Neither Kelli nor I had sailed at night, kept watches, and she had never been offshore. Big trip of firsts.

We left about 17:00 from our marina, planning to be in Ensenada about 9:00 the next morning. It is said you should not sail on a deadline because you're setting yourself up for failure and it will often force you into a bad weather situation you really should not be in. Luckily the weather wasn't bad but it wasn't conducive to good sailing either. That being said, we motored 90% of the way. Ugh.

Sorry Kelli, I couldn't find a more flattering photo of you on watch.

Leaving San Diego Bay I handed the helm over to Kelli. Our plan for the watch was for her to keep watch until she was too tired (hopefully until midnight or 01:00) then I would take over. I went to "sleep" around 20:00. The motion was pretty terrible without the sails up. The boat would both pitch and roll without any pressure on the rig. I managed to sleep for a while and about 00:30 I got up and checked on Kelli. She was up at the bow watching something. When I came up behind her I tried not to startle her but that didn't work, she got a little jump scare. She had been watching dolphins on our bow wake. She said they had been there since about midnight. It was pretty cool to see at night and she said it really helped her get through the last hour. Sadly she had been suffering from seasickness for a while. She took Dramamine earlier but only after she started feeling ill so it came back up almost immediately.

I relieved her watch and she was happy to head below and try to get some sleep. Now my turn. Our course took us outside the Coronado Islands about 10 miles offshore. We would make the turn inbound to Ensenada when we were near abeam the harbor to try and avoid any fishermen or fishing gear near the shore. I settled into my watch with a thermos of hot coffee and about five hours until sunrise. The dolphins hung around for a little while longer and then I was left with the whine of the engine and the night sky. Then I started feeling the motion in my gut. It started pretty light but between the smell of diesel exhaust, the coffee I drank, and the endless random motion, I knew my time had come. Now I've never been motion sick in my life to the point of throwing up. Being in the back of an airplane while others were doing flight training got me queasy but never bad enough to blow chunks. With many hours of motion ahead of me, I new I had no chance. About 45 minutes into my watch I went to the aft rail, leaned over, and let 'er rip. A few minutes later, I settled back down and felt much better. The exhaust was still stinky but it wasn't making me nauseous like before.

The night was pretty long but eventually I was nearly abeam Ensenada and turned in toward land. The sun was just starting to show itself and with the change in heading, we got a more favorable breeze so I raised sail. The stability from having sails up really helped the motion of the boat. Kelli got up not long after and we greeted the sunrise heading east.

Short after that the fog started rolling in. We had about a mile visibility and would occasionally hear a fog horn behind us which kept us on our toes.

After that long first overnight trip we motored into Ensenada while texting the boatyard to figure out where they wanted us. The timing was perfect. They had just finished launching a sailboat and we saw them motor out as we motored in to the boatyard. With some hand gestures and yelling across the water I was told to back to boat into the travelift. I whipped it around, backed it into the narrow waterway like a teenager learning how to parallel park, and we were secured to land again. It took about an hour to get things positioned, remove the backstay since it was running into the travelift's supports, and pull us out of the water. This was our first time seeing Elysian Sea out of the water.

With just a little scraping, the bottom didn't look bad at all. You can see the slanted line on the bottom of the keel where there's more growth, that's the lead ballast. For whatever reason the lead attracted more growth than the fiberglass above it. You can see some grey spots where the blue bottom paint was completely worn away from time and monthly bottom cleaning while in the water by the previous owner. She would be much prettier and smoother with a fresh coat of blue. But as they say, "No rest for the weary." It wasn't time to nap, it was time to get to work.

The paperwork side of entering Mexico by boat is convoluted and complicated. It took a few hours to get it all sorted and I don't look forward to doing it again but let's just say the beauracracy sucks.

Kelli had taken on the job of varnishing the wood. You can see in some of the photos the miles of blue tape she had applied around the wood to keep the varnish from getting on the paint. She got right to work sanding and coating, sanding and coating. It was a bit of a challenge since we got occasional rain and the boatyard was pretty dusty but she got several coats on over the following week.

My first job was to remove the valves and thru-hull under the sink as well as the old transducers I was no longer using on the bottom of the hull.

See these nasty broken valves? Out with the old.

On boats the preferred metal for this kind of stuff in bronze. Not brass from the hardware store, specifically bronze. The funny looking triangle thing on the bottom of the lower valve is a thru-hull flange. It's a better method of installation where the valve can be changed safely without taking the boat out of the water. With the old method, the valve was screwed onto parallel pipe threads in a fitting that went through the hull. If the valve was too hard to get off the threads, it would risk rotating the fitting that was sealed to the outside of the hull causing a leak. This method secures the flange to those threads and to the inside of the hull making rotation of the entire assembly impossible. It should last the life of the boat.

And assembly installed inside the boat:

Next was the 2" hole for the transducer.

We had two transducers originally. One was for speed through water, the other was for depth. We combined our sensors into one transducer so the other hole got filled with fiberglass by the boatyard crew. They were impressed with the build of this boat. Where the other transducer went they said the hull was 1-1/4" thick! The combined transducer we installed has pretty mixed reviews so hopefully it wasn't a mistake to install this one. Time will tell.

We weren't all work and no play though. We ended up in Ensenada for right at a week. That's two days longer than I was hoping but that's how boat maintenance goes. We walked around town getting groceries from time to time and went on a hike north of the boatyard up to a viewpoint looking over the city.

And of course we found coffee.

I did some work on our old Volvo Penta engine that appears to be leaking every fluid from every place possible.

Kelli wanted to learn more about the engine and how things work so I did my best to keep her attention while man-splaining what I was doing and why I always end up bleeding while working on this kind of stuff. We got the coolant and raw water leaks mostly sealed up so that was productive.

Before too long we had a fully painted boat below the waterline. I replaced the zinc on the propeller and propeller shaft. All the holes on the bottom of the boat were sealed up and it was time to float again.

The launching was very utilitarian without any fanfare. We were lifted off the jacks, they slapped some paint of the very bottom of the keel and the took us to the water. Once we were low enough I reinstalled my backstay, tensioned it, and got lowered all the way down. We were tied off to the dock, I started the engine and checked for leaks before waving goodbye and setting off. This was about 10:00 in the morning. We wouldn't stop or waste any more time, we just set course out of the bay and aimed for home.

The wind, once again, wasn't very favorable but I really didn't want a reenactment of the motor down to Ensenada. The wind was coming from the north so we would be sailing into the wind. I decided to head west until we got a decent angle to raise sail and head north. About 30 minutes from Ensenada we raised sail and kept heading west, offshore. At about 18 miles offshore I started nudging us north. The motion was better with the sails up even if that meant we were beating into the weather a bit. The up and down motion of the boat gets a little rough while sailing into the wind and waves but the side to side almost disappears entirely. Once we got 24 miles offshore I figure we had a good enough angle to make it to San Diego Bay with our wind and tacked north.

This day and night I decided we would try a different watch schedule; three hours on, three hours off. We traded back and forth a few times throught the afternoon and into the night. My final watch came around midnight and I went on deck to relieve Kelli. She had another bout with motion sickness and was ready to try to sleep. I made myself some hot tea hoping that would be better than coffee. I sipped it slowly while moving north at about 6 knots under sail. It was a nice night. I was watching our new AIS system and spotted a couple commercial container ships that were on an intercept course with us. I figured I would keep an eye on them as we got closer and make a move if necessary. Both of them changed course enough to avoid me which I appreciated since I was sailing quite close to the wind and didn't have a lot of great options for maneuvering. Early in the morning I started seeing some sparkles in the water and went to investigate. There were tiny bioluminescent worms in the water that were being stirred up by waves off our bow and the tubulence off our stern. It wasn't bright but it was a neat phenomena to witness. Early in the morning I sailed into San Diego Bay as the wind died. Once our speed hit 1 kt I dropped sail and started the engine. We docked at the Police Dock, cleared customs, and motored the rest of the way to Chula Vista. Kelli let me take a little nap on the way which was nice.

We pulled into our slip a little before sunrise, took as long as we could manage sleeping in that morning, then eventually got about our day. We weren't quite done with the trip though. A day later we met up with the helper who assisted me in pulling wires down the mast. Kelli hadn't met him yet so we planned to see him in Mission Bay the next night. We sailed north, spent two nights in Mission Bay anchored out, then eventually made it back to the marina before finally heading home. The two nights at anchor in Mission Bay were pleasant. We spent some time on the beach, walked around Belmont Park, and generally relaxed. We got a lot of boat work done, learned a bit about watch schedules, and enjoyed New Year on our new boat.

We haven't been back to San Diego since that trip over the New Year. Work has been needy and we've had some demanding things at home but soon I plan to head back out there and address some more projects. I have a new autopilot to install, there's an oil leak on the engine I want to address, there's a chart plotter project I need to finish, and I need to get our helper out on the water to enjoy some sailing. So hopefully at the end of April I'll be heading back out to the coast to enjoy a little more time on the water and get a little saltier.

Until next time.

Joshua

Elysian Sea

Joshua — Fri, 10 Apr 2026 22:40:00 -0800

Oh, did I forget to tell you? We bought a new boat!

Say hello to Elysian Sea. She is a 1988 Valiant 40. Almost immediately after selling Northern Light, I kept a lookout for our next boat. I had a better understanding of what I was looking for in a longterm boat and started looking for models that fit what I thought we wanted to do. Through endless hours of researching, I realized I wanted an older boat (cost is a big consideration) with a modified fin keel, skeg hung rudder, solid fiberglass hull, cutter rig, fairly deep cockpit combings, and a snug yet useful interior. One boat that kept coming up was the Valiant 40. It was designed by Bob Perry who also designed Norhtern Light (Mantra 38.) The Valiant is considered the first successful performance cruiser. When normal cruising boats (ocean crossers) had full keels and moved slowly, Mr. Perry came up with a different idea for a stable yet relatively fast boat that could still take a licking in heavy seas and keep the crew safe. Some other Perry boats (and others) were considerations so I didn't continue with laser focus on Valiants but they were always near the top of my list.

For a period of time in the late 70's and very early 80's there was a problem with the resin used (and possibly the method of fiberglass layup adding to the problem) where the hull would develop large blisters. Sea water would penetrate through the outer layer(s) of fiberglass and resin creating a pocket of water between fiberglass layers. This would create blisters, sometimes over a foot wide) on the outside of the boat. This is ALMOST never structural though I read a horror story where someone claimed they were experiencing the same blistering issue on the inside of the boat. That's crazy. The thing is, these blisters are a bit eye sore so they really drop the price of boats with the infection. If you find one that has blisters, you might get a screaming deal or you might just get a project that makes you cry; it all depends on the extent of the blistering and your willlingness to tolerate them. Sooo....

Throughout 2025 I traveled to Florida to look at two Valiants and a Pacific Seacraft (Crealock) 37. One Valiant was an 70's blister boat. It looked terrible. I didn't see how bad the blisters were under the water but they were pretty bad above the water. This boat also had almost entirely original equipment (sails, engine, rigging, etc.) Also, I learned that the morning I went to go look at the boat, it had come under contract to another potential buyer. The Crealock 37 was a little small for what Kelli and I had planned but I wanted to see it anyway just to make sure. If I was planning to sail alone as a single man the Crealock would be a great boat but for two with occasional company, it just didn't have the interior space we wanted. The second Valiant I looked at was much newer but hadn't been cleaned up at all; it still had all the owner's junk laying around and there was a lot of junk. The boat had a LOT of modifications and a most of them seemed to be haphazardly done. The price was fairly steep as well so I didn't feel like we would be happy long-term with the combination of price and quality. So I left Florida a little wiser and with a little less money in my pocket.

Later we paid for a surveyor to look at a Passport 40 in Annapolis. The Passport is another fine Perry boat with good lines and a great reputation. They came with teak decks though and nearly all of them have had water leak into the cabin causing cosmetic damage at a minimum and structural damage at worst. The surveyor called me after a few hours of looking at the boat and we agreed he should call it a day, I wasn't interested. This boat was VERY leaky.

Finally in late August 2025 Kelli and I drove to San Diego to check out this Valiant. In typical fashion, I didn't get a survey, haul out, or spend much time dallying about this boat. What we saw online before we went to look seemed to be a very clean, well kept boat. It wasn't heavily modified but it wasn't completely outdated either. When we got to the boat it looked as good in person as it looked in the photos, not something to often get when boat shopping. We poked around the boat quite a bit, talked to the owner, and planned to go sailing the next day. Out on the water the boat felt fine, the running rigging wasn't new but it worked well. The engine smoked a little but still made full revs. The boat was clean which always makes a good impression to a prospective buyer, it shows that the owner cares. So we went, we looked, and two days later we bought. Not much else to say about that process. We took possession of Elysian Sea one year TO THE DAY from when we sold Northern Light. So far, no regrets.

I just want to be clear, that's not Kelli's let braced against the mast, hers are not quite that hairy.

Upon purchasing her we then had to find somewhere to park her. Turns out that's not an easy thing to do in San Diego. After three more days of pulling out my hair, the seller found us a spot in Chula Vista (far south end of San Diego Bay.) We were out day sailing when we got the call that a space was available for us. We immediately turned south and headed for the marina. Our trip was supposed to be four days long but we were already on day seven and Kelli had been getting people to cover her shifts at work. We were in a bit of a crunch to get back to Utah. We were now the new owners of a circumnavigating beauty but we had to leave her and get back to real life for a while.

Once we pulled into our slip and tied up, we got the marina paperwork signed, caught an Uber back to our car on the other side of the bay, drove back to the boat, locked up, and started driving home. It was almost 4:00 pm when we left the marina and the drive home is 13 hours long so we were going to get home in the very wee hours of the morning after a very long day. Rather than drive tired, I made a call to my grandparents in Sun City, AZ and asked if we could spend the night. They were excited to have us so we happily stopped there and spent the night. The next day we finished our journey home and my mind started making lists.

Boat work is labor of love. Anyone who has every owned a boat knows this, stuff never stops breaking, wearing out, getting outdated, etc. The next two months were spent doing research on upgrades, replacements, costs associated with everything, and prioritizing work to be done. I went back to San Diego in October with a pile of parts and a week to get things done.

First on my list was the masthead. The windvane, antenna, anemometer, and nav lights were all getting replaced or upgraded. That job turned into three days of non-stop mast ascending and struggling with wires. The problem came from the new wires that had to be run for the nav light and Garmin wind instrument. When pulling the new wires next to the wires still getting used, things bound up. I had a helper (the brother of a former co-worker) that was as patient, enthusiastic, and helpful as anyone could hope for. We spend half a day fighting cables up and down the mast but they kept getting stuck about half-way down the mast. Eventually I said enough and sent him home. I took one more trip up the mast after he left and decided to cut things loose. The coax cable for the VHF antenna seemed to be part of the problem and the string that lived in the mast to pull new wires also seemed to be binding. I cut these both loose and pulled them out. After that, things seemed to be very loose. I asked my helper if he could come back the next day for one more go at it and he happily showed up after taking care of his day's obligations. I nervously ascended the mast once more, he stayed below in the cabin at the mast step (the very bottom of the mast where it sits on the keel and all the wires come out.) I got ready, asked him to pull, and.... what took us four hours of sweat the day before was done in 5 minutes! What a dream! With the cables all pulled down the mast and secured at both ends so they couldn't go anywhere, I took a big breath. I still had installation of the new equipment to finish at the top of the mast and wiring to complete at the bottom, but I was so happy! We celebrated with a beer and parted ways once more.

Next, I installed two new multi function displays in the cockpit. The old system was Navman which used proprietary communications to the old wind sensor and the two transducers in the water (which also didn't work.) The new system uses NMEA 2000 which is a standard almost all modern equipment can use. The installation included removing the nice wood box they were installed in and running new wires. It was a bit of a challenge because the box was glued and screwed but with a little brute force and application of cutting tools, it came off in one piece. The new instruments look great.

I also installed an AIS transceiver. AIS is a position communication system for boats. With this installation I can both see other boats on the water that use the system, and they can see me! It's a great tool for spotting large vessels and small vessels that are participating. It's especially great at night or in the fog as it can be set to create an alert if another vessel is getting close to you or you are expected to pass close to them.

I also got a new water speed and depth transducer ready to install. I couldn't mount it to the boat completely because it is in the very bottom of the boat and pokes out the bottom. The hole it lives in is bigger than the hole that currently exists for that purpose. Since the boat is currently in the water, creating a bigger hole then installing a thru-hull would be... problematic. You know, poking a 2" hole in the bottom of a floating boat kind of problematic. So I got the wiring ready then just left the transducer in place for later installation.

I did a bunch of other stuff too but the list is long and you likely don't care. But at the end of this week of work, it was time to head back to Utah and my loving wife. I was bummed though. I spend seven days on the boat but not once did I go sailing. I called Kelli and discussed my plight. As any good wife would, she told me I should stay an extra day to go sailing. What a good woman. I called my helper once more, asking him if he had time to get out on the water. Unfortunately he actually had to work so he didn't get to enjoy the boat he had helped so much with.

I set sail the next day near 8:00 AM without a real destination or plan, I just wanted to get out of the marina. I sailed North under the Coronado Bridge, stayed out of the way of the plethora of Navy ships transiting the area and eventually made the turn West and Southwest out of San Deigo Bay.

Here's a little truth for you all. I have never been on the open ocean. Kelli and I learned to sail on the Sea of Cortez between mainland Mexico and the Baja Peninsula. Our time in Alaska aboard Northern Light was all in the Inside Passage, protected from the open ocean by numerous large islands and mountains. We had purchased a passage making, ocean crossing, circumnavigating sailboat without having experienced ocean swell.

When I got out of San Deigo Bay, looked West, and was greeted with the Pacific Ocean swell with nothing but 5000 miles of water between me and Japan, I got giddy. This was what I wanted. This was what I was looking for. We just spent a painful amount of money on 40 year-old collection of plastic, fiberglass, and aluminum looking for some specific adventure, and I was finally being greeted by it. The gentle rise and fall of the ocean under a little floating home is such a uniquie feeling. You realize the ocean is big and powerful and it doesn't care you are there. You can feel the energy of the water with that slow rise of your 30,000 lbs vessel. What a crazy moment that was. Looking West, I didn't want to stop. I dreamed of being provisioned, loaded with water, unfettered by work obligations, and just continuing for weeks until I found a different world with new people and new ways of life. I was ready.

Joshua

Looking Back - Tracy Arm

Joshua — Tue, 24 Mar 2026 18:57:00 -0800

I started writing this over a year ago. Better late than never.

I didn't tell many stories from this past summer but I find myself looking back at the adventures often with fondness. We sailed almost every weekend spending two nights at anchor and sailing three days. We explored some islands, some shipwrecks, hiked a small mountain, chased ice, and didn't sink.

I want to cover a few of the adventures we have now that I seem to have time on my hands. Some posts might have multiple stories, some will be dedicated. This one is dedicated to a special place.

Tracy Arm

I visited Tracy Arm three times; once alone, once with Kelli and I, and once when our friend James came up to visit from Utah.

Tracy Arm is a deep fjord that dead-ends at North Saywer and South Saywer glaciers. The entrance to Tracy Arm passes through Tracy Arm Inlet which is a wild narrow passage with remarkable currents. The inlet is marked by buoys, shore-based markers, and a fancy light system that seemed to never work for me. The Fjord itself is over 30 miles long and often filled with glacial ice.

The trip from Juneau to Tracy Arm is a long one. If you want to take your time, you can spend the night at Taku Harbor or Limestone Inlet before continuing on the next day. Along the way we stopped at Midway Islands to listen to the seemingly limitless birds and watch the seals. I stood on a rock one of these times and closed my eyes. My ears were overwhelmed with the amount of birdsong in the air. I could discern different species of birds but the volume and the numbers of birds was astounding. It painted a picture in my mind that my eyes couldn't see.

When you enter Tracy Arm Inlet, you need to plan your entrance with the tides otherwise you will either not be able to enter, or get a really wild ride. As I said, the entrance is narrow... and shallow. When I say shallow I don't mean 10 feet, it's still 60 feet deep, but for the amount of water that goes through the entrance, 60 feet is nothing. Think of it this way, Tracy Arm is 30 miles long and fairly wide. The tide swings about 18' twice a day so 18 vertical feet of water for 30 miles has to rush in or out of that 60' deep entrance in about six hours. Then it goes the other way for the next six hours. If you try to enter Tracy Arm when the tide is going out at peak flow, you will easily experience 8kt currents going against you. Northern Light could only motor at 6.5kts on a good day so there's no way to battle those currents. Along with the current, you will get a violent mixing of water creating whirlpools, eddies, and rapids. I have seen ten foot wide standing wirlpools in the few passes through the entrance I have made. One time when I was going out of Tracy Arm, I could barely see the six foot tall buoys. They were getting pushed by so much current, they were almost completely burried under water with only a foot or-so still poking out above the torrent. It's a wild place and so much fun to explore. I have a photo of a the buoy on a medium current day but I was too focused to take a photo when it was worse.

Once inside the entrance, a short float into the fjord gets you to Holkham Bay, the only anchorage I would trust inside the fjord. It's a shallow cove with a low saddle looking north up Tracy Arm but protected from ice floes and most wind and waves. You can easily take a tender to shore and hang out on the gravel beach, find drift wood for a fire, or just stretch your land legs. You can also run aground here if you aren't paying attention. Ahem.

There is almost always grounded ice around Holkham Bay. It's a sign to keep a sharp lookout at all times. Ice is continually breaking off the Saywer glaciers and flowing out Tracy Arm. This ice is found out in Stephen's Passage from time to time but is always found in the fjord. My first trip up Tracy Arm was halted by excessive ice. I followed a cruise ship in after a night at anchor. For six hours I dodged ice endlessly. I hit one small piece of ice, no larger than a large ice chest but I though it put it hole in the boat with the amount of noise it made. I spotted it behind me after the fact with a little red paint on its surface, a warning that this fiberglass boat is not made to run into any ice at all. A lot of the floating ice is clear and hard to see until you are right on top of it.

I lost sight of the cruise ship early on as it was steaming a lot faster than me but eventually the cruise ship came back into view but this time it was coming at me. I hailed them on the VHF radio and asked them about conditions ahead. They said they turned around due to the ice pack; it was just too thick to go through. That wasn't a good sign for me in my little fiberglass boat but I pressed on just to see what I could see. When I got to the point they turned around, I immediatly understood why. There were several bends in the fjord and the ice was endless, there wasn't enough space to get around it. I turned around without ever seeing either glacier at the end. Following trips didn't take us to the glaciers either mainly due to the amount of time available. Even though we never made it to the Saywer glaciers, it's still a breathtaking place.

When I headed back toward Holkham Bay, I raised sail and ran downwind almost the entire way. It was fun to dodge ice under sail. With the narrowness of the fjord, the wind followed straight out Tracy Arm without much variation. I stopped for a short time to scoop up some glacial ice and have a sip of whiskey. I had found an iceberg that appeared to be grounded and I tossed the tiny anchor for the tender on the ice and tied off the bow of Northern Light. I knew the dangers of ice flipping but this thing didn't appear to be moving. Later on when looking at my GPS tracks I noticed that the ice was still drifting, just very slowly.

The rest of the trip back to Holkham Bay was quite nice and relaxing. But as you could guess, no adventure is complete without some... misadventure. Remember how I said Holkham Bay is an easy place to run aground if you aren't paying attention? I had decided to anchor a little further west than the night before and while making a slow circle, choosing where to drop the hook, I lost track of what my depth sounder was doing. Before I knew it, I felt the boat slow and come to a stop even though the engine was still in gear. I quickly reduced throttle, put it in reverse, and powered back up. Spinning the wheel back and forth to try and wiggle the stern and get the keel free of the bottom didn't help. After about three minutes I realized I was really stuck. I quickly checked the tides to see where I was in the cycle. I was on a falling tide but luckily the tide only had an hour and a half left to go. As I stood there thinking about what I had to do, the boat kind of settled a few degrees to starboard then stopped. I though, "this is fine." A couple minutes later, everything was not as fine. The boat fell to starboard quite a bit and everything inside shifted hard. I went from perfecty okay to scrambling to get everything to the downhill side of the boat that I thought could fall. I went outside after moving things and started wondering if water would be able to get into the cabin if the boat heeled enough. Looking at the toerail, cockpit combing, and position of the companionway I couldn't imagine water getting into the boat and thankfully the boat leaned toward shore which would be uphill so it wouldn't be able to tilt as far even if it went completely dry under the keel. I then realized I should remove any heavy items from high on the boat. The only thing I really had was the dinghy on the davits. I dropped the dinghy in the water then rowed over to the low side of the boat and tied the dinghy to the toerail. I figured the dinghy would act as a little floatation device to keep the boat out of the water a little more if it continued to drop.

About thirty minutes into this mess I realized there was nothing else I could do. Calling for help on the VHF radio wouldn't do any good. What would someone do for me even if they showed up? I then hoped no one would come around at all to see my embarassment. So with nothing to do, I laid down in the only flat spot available to take a nap, the dinghy. It was getting pulled down just a little by the toerail but was otherwise level in the water. An hour later the tide was as low as it was going to get and any concern about sinking was gone. I untied the dinghy and took some photos and checked out the bottom of my boat since it was visible.

Another hour and a half later, the boat was upright again. I started the engine, put it in gear, and tried to get out of my conundrum. Strangely, I still wasn't going anywhere. According to the time, the tide should have been at least six inches higher than when I ran aground. Here I will explain a quirk of Northern Light. The throttle lever makes sense. Forward on the lever is faster, back is slower. The gear shifter on the other hand doesn't work that way. Forward on the shifter is reverse. I had the lever pulled back trying to back out of the shoreline but... I was powering further forward since the shifter was backward!!! Insult to injury. I finally shifted into reverse and the boat happily got off the sandy bottom of Holkham Bay. I anchored in water deep enough to not make me quiestion my decisions any more for the day, and went to sleep. What a day.

When our friend James came up to Juneau to visit we went out to Tracy Arm over the weekend and poked around floating ice in the dinghy. There was more large ice floating later in the season and it was beautiful. We rowed up to some ice in the dinghy that had bubbles rising up through the crystal clear ice as it was melting. When looking straight down in the dinghy you could see little bubbles coming out of the water then you remember, there's a lot more ice below the water than above. Kind of sobering when you think about growlers rolling over and you right up next to the ice.

Of course I had to scoop some glacial ice out of the fjord for my Utah whiskey and have a toast with James.

I look forward to getting back to the inside passage and going all the way to Sawyer glaciers next time.

Joshua

Homeward

Joshua — Sun, 01 Dec 2024 07:32:00 -0900

How's winter in Alaska, you ask? I don't know. I imagine it is cold and wet. Kelli and I left Alaska at the end of August. Here's how it went.

The Alaska flying job was a seasonal job with the opportunity to stay year-round. I was officially offered a year round position sometime in July but was also in the process of getting hired by a medevac company in Colorado. I got an official offer from the medevac company and told Seaplanes I would not be staying for the winter. Flying in Alaska was fun but when I interviewed for the job I was leery about being gone from home for so long. I wanted a job I could commute for and Seaplanes wasn't a commuting job. So when I met the qualifications for the job in Colorado, I reapplied. Five months was a very long time to be away from home so I was ready to go back.

"What did you do with the boat?" Great question! The original plan was to sail south and leave the boat somewhere along the coast south of Canada at the end of August before I started my new job sometime in September. My original understanding was the Alaska job went until mid-August. Mid-August turned into September 2nd which removed the two weeks in August I had planned to sail during. My new job had a start date of.... September 2nd. What a conundrum. I made a deal with my boss at Seaplanes for my last day to be August 30th but that meant I couldn't move the boat, my start dates had collided. Nothing quite like being gone from home for five months just to fly home and start work two days later!

Leaving the boat in Alaska for the winter wasn't something I really wanted to do; they get very strong winds and sometimes they get enough snow to sink boats. I mentioned to Kelli that maybe we could list it and if it sells, great, if it doesn't sell, we'll figure something out. I listed it on Craigslist and got a very interested buyer out of Wisconsin within a week. He had been in Alaska for 20 years but was currently taking care of parents in Wisconsin but had an itch to get back on a boat in the great white north. He had a racing sailboat up here that wasn't terribly comfortable for cruising and when his wife saw Northern Light with the pilot house, she told him that was the boat he was going to buy. He flew up, looked over the boat, we went sailing, and we made a deal!

That was a big burden off my shoulders. We stayed on the boat a few more days until we each flew home and the Alaska adventure was done.

Link to above photo as a video

Crazy.

More to come later.

Leisurely Day VLOG

Joshua — Sat, 10 Aug 2024 10:53:00 -0800

We are only three weeks from heading back to Utah. Kelli leaves August 29th and I leave August 31st. Here is a little video for you of what we are up to on this fine Saturday. Tomorrow we are both picking up shifts for other people so we are only out for a little bit today.

Joshua

How's the Flying?

Joshua — Thu, 25 Jul 2024 16:06:00 -0800

Have you ever written an exam paper only to forget to save it and when you go print it off, you can't find it? Weeks ago I wrote an entire post about flying IOE and starting to fly on my own at Seaplanes only for it to not get saved and then lost forever. Writing the same thing twice is dreadful for me so I never re-wrote it but I'm giving it another shot. Let's see if I can catch up on a couple months of life here really quick. That's right, months.

So, IOE... initial operating experience. When you get a job flying people you don't just go out flying people without any direction. Ground school was over and my checkride was done, but now it was my responsibility to find my passengers, load the aircraft with all the required frieght/mail/UPS/chill/freeze, fill out the paperwork, flight plan, and do it all on time. Then I had to get to my destination, follow the processes there for where to park, who to talk to, what to say, get the stuff off the plane, put the other stuff on the plane, go back to Juneau, and do it all over again. IOE is pilot babysitting until we learn what we are actually doing. There is a minimum amount of time you have to be in IOE before you are released then there is a "shortened" minimum time with more landings involved. With the length of legs we are doing, the landings are easy to come by in the shortened time but you still have to show sufficient competence to get out of IOE quickly.

My "Monday" rolled around and I had an assigned schedule and a company instructor for the flights. At this point I don't remember the specifics of the flights, they have all started blending together now. We moved people and stuff, nothing super exciting happened. I made plenty of minor mistakes and we covered this at the end of the day. Through the day we would talk about areas of improvement in my flying and I would work on addressing it on the next leg. Some examples are: "Bring the flaps up as soon as you touch down to decrease lift," "Taxi light on right before you move and off as soon as you stop," "You touched down three feet left of centerline," "Plan your descents better so you arent descending at 900 feet per minute in the base turn," and other such things. At the end of the day I was called into the instructor's office and there were several papers,one representing every flight and areas that needed improvement. There were a lot of areas that needed improvement. I got a bit annoyed at this, we were discussing things and improving them, but then to get nit-picked on every little thing at the end of the day just left a bad taste in my mouth. I went back to the boat a little sulky.

Intropection is important. We are very distracted people with all of the electronics and entertainment around us vying for our attention, it is easy not to look inward and identify your own failures or necessity for improvement. I really try to self assess though, and I'm quite comfortable in my own mind. That night I really looked inward to understand why I was sulky and if it made any sense. I decided that right then I had the opportunity to fly in the exact way this instructor wanted me to. If there were things he wanted me to do that I wasn't taught in traning or that felt petty, that was an opportunity for me to improve, not for me to show him he was wrong in some way. I could strive for perfrection and and learn somthing new, so that's what I did. I came in the next day willing to accept critique no matter how small, and do things the way he wanted. I challenged myself to learn, change, and accomplish the level of perfection asked of me.

Day two of IOE started off terrible. The instructor flew the first flight due to extra poor weather conditions. I got the people wrangeled and we loaded them up and taxied out. While we were taxiing, dispatch called us on the radio and asked if we had a certain passenger. I said no, they aren't on our manifest. Turns out I grabbed the wrong manifest off the table. There were two flight headed to this destination at the same time and I took the other airplane's paper. What a sinking feeling that gave me. We turned around on the taxiway, unloaded our passengers, loaded the correct passengers, then taxied out again. The instructor claimed it was his responsibility because it was his flight but really, I knew it was my failure, I grabbed the paper and called the passengers. Either way, I have not made that mistake again, I now check the time, airplane, pilot, and destination on every manifest to make sure I have the one I need.

After the first debacle, I flew the rest of the flights that day. You know what? I improved greatly. All the little things that I wasn't doing the day before, I was doing the way the instructor wanted. Rather than nine areas that needed improvement per flight, I had one or two, sometimes none. The only change was my frame of mind and willingness to learn. At the end of the day we went over the papers for each flight and it felt good. I could see what I had done right and what I could still do better.

Day three of IOE started the same way except I didn't mess up the manifests. I got two flights in and then something happened. We looked over the hours we flew and landings made and I was asked if I was comfortable ending IOE. I was game so I was told the next flight I would be solo and I was kicked out of IOE in the shortened time. How exciting! I flew four more flights that day, learning how to get in the groove of preflight planning, aircraft loading, checklist usage, and all the tid-bits a pilot has to do apart from holding the controls of the airplane in flight. I still made some little mistakes and had areas I knew I needed to improve but would work on those in the coming weeks. I was safely making flights up here in Juneau and moving from an expense for the company to a revenue-maker.

Then... the weather turned to crap. This isn't new, this is kind of the norm up here. I've seen a LOT of really nice days this spring and summer but I have also seen a lot of junk days. Looking back through my logbook, the seventh day after IOE, someone else flew one of my flights IFR since the weather was poor. The day after that I was headed north in crummy weather and I turned around due to lack of visibility while flying at 800 feet above the water. The weather is what the companies up here worry themselves about when hiring pilots. There is a magical "Alaska time" column in most applications or at least in the interviews for jobs up here. If you have time flying in Alaska already, they figure you can handle the weather. If you have a fat goose egg in that column, they are unsure of your ability to handle the low visibility and quickly changing weather up here. The expectation isn't that you make every flight in crummy weather, the expectation is that you turn around when it is junk and fly when it is safe. That's really it. There's another note in my logbook a few days after that where I departed special VFR in the morning. This is when the weather is poor enough the reguations call it IFR at a controlled airport but it's not bad enough to be IFR in uncontrolled airspace. The weather in Juneau was bad but five miles away it was much better so I took off for the first flight of the day with a special VFR clearance to get into the better weather. It wasn't dicey or dangerous, it just takes some sound decision making, planning to turn around if necessary. The weather has been a challenge here and there is at least one coworker that I know is tired just from the mental stress of constant poor weather. I see it as good training. You have to be challenged in order to grow. Your muscles don't get stronger unless you stress them and make them sore. The same things happens with almost any skill, if you aren't challenged, you don't improve. I have been improving up here.

The next jump in flying up here was getting to the point I could fly IFR (through the clouds rather than around them.) I have been an IFR rated pilot for ten years but I haven't done much actual IFR flying due to lack of opportunity. This job is an IFR job meaning it is expected I will fly IFR in hard conditions with icing and turbulence, and wind. There was one thing I was lacking though, I didn't have 100 hours of flying in the Cessna Caravan yet. In order to fly IFR as a single-pilot crew, you have to have 100 hours in the airplane before you're let loose. That's fine with me. I don't need to go boring through the icy sky on my own in a new-to-me airplane. Well, four weeks ago in mid-June I reached that 100-hour mark. I was told by my chief pilot that I am free to file IFR and fly some approaches on nice days to get in the groove of it. If I wanted to take an instructor with me for my first actual IFR day, I could do that too. So I filed IFR a few days, flew in the system, and got a hang of what goes on around here. Since then, I've flown IFR almost weekly. Just today I few every flight IFR because the weather was poor and it was easier to go high through the clouds than go low and maybe have to turn around due to lack of visibility. That option has really changed the dread I would feel on bad weather days. Now instead of wondering if I should cancel a flight, I have better tools at my disposal that make the decision more straight forward. It doesn't mean a flight won't be canceled occasionally, it just means I don't have to run through mist and rain at low altitudes in order to get a flight done.

A note about the views. The water here in Southeast Alaska is wild. The tide is often 17 feet from high to low. There are glaciers and rivers all over the place that dump loads of fresh water into the inside passage. When the tides fluctuate and the fresh water gets pushed and pulled around, you get some amazing lines in the water like I would experience at the confluence of the Colorado and Green Rivers in Utah.

The weather is fickle but when it is clear, you get great wide views of mountians, snow, water, and glaciers. When the weather sucks, it sucks.

So here I am, almost four months into my Alaska flying adventure. I have become more comfortable with the area though still very respectful of the conditions. I have learned a lot about flying in these conditions, a little about myself, and I value the time I've had so far. I also miss home. The desert southwest is home and I know it. The only reason I never moved further north to Montana or Idaho was because of the cold winters and the same applies to Alaska. The desert, rocks, juniper, and sun are calling and I won't be gone too long.

Note: I carry an open top mug to make sure I fly smooth. If I'm not smooth, I'll spill coffee on myself. It's a training aide. ;)

New Arrival

Joshua — Wed, 19 Jun 2024 15:15:00 -0800

Look who showed up...

Kelli made it up here after us being apart just over two months. She flew in Tuesday June 4th at 9:45 after a little delay in Ketchican. I picked her up at the airport and she met Northern Light for the first time about 10:00. I took the next day off work so I could show her around a little and get her settled in. I had made room for her clothes and things before she arrived so transitioning for me wouldn't be too hard. I'm a fairly particular person; I like tidyness, organization, and logical methods. Kelli is more dynamic, nebulous, and dispersed. I knew having her come aboard the boat after it having been "mine" for two months might be an issue so I prepared my attitude as best I could and tried to set some expectations for her when she got here. There's a place for things and if things don't return to their places, it gets cluttered and hard to live in a confined space. Cleanliness is important with all the moisture and life in the air; if a piece of food hits the floor, it will mold within the week and that's no good. So we got things stowed and figured out on Wednesday leaving the possibility to move things around if necessary later. I still had a project or two laying around in the boat so there was still work to do later.

The weather was wet and crummy so it was an honest introduction to Juneau. We went for a little drive, visited Mendenhall Glacier from two vantage points, and looked at Auke Bay where I first kept the boat after coming up here. It was just nice for me to have someone to talk to and spend time with. I had been keeping some venturing around for when she arrived and now I could start doing those things. I hadn't actually gone up the Mendenhall Glacier since being here.

Thursday she started work at Alaska Seaplanes at 3:45 am. That's right, first day on the job and she showed up to the early early morning shift. Turns out her manager didn't expect her until 8:00 that day but no one communicated that so 3:45 it was. She went through training that morning and a couple people commented to me how she was already working like she had been there for a month. She fit right in. She's on the morning shift so we can commute together since we're 7 miles from the airport and we have one car. Also, she can go to bed the same time as me; it would be difficult having somone up and someone trying to sleep. Bedtime is 6:30 pm in Northern Light and the alarm jingles its despised bell at 2:30 in the morning. Only two days of that and the rhythm was catching on.

Since this is an Alaska adventure and not just a work camp, Friday afternoon we got off work, cruised by the post office, then went to Northern Light. We went through the ritual of stowing everything that could move and hit the floor underway, unplugged from shore power, and got underway. We were steaming at 5.5kts before 2 pm. The destination wasn't set in stone yet but I figured we would see how the winds were once getting out of Gastineau Channel and see where we should go. We raised sails NW of Dupont Dock in the channel and practiced tacking to get out into Stephen's Passage. Once in the wider waters, I got to really thinking about tides and my thought of Oliver Inlet wasn't enticing, the tide would be falling and below 7 feet by the time we got to the inlet and the inlet was narrow and shallow. That's a recipe for running aground. After another tack to port, we made for Limestone Inlet. The winds were favorable for the move south and we were moving along at 4-6 knots most of the way. Near Grave Point we even got up to 7 knots for a little while. Kelli got to feel a little bit of the motion of the boat and realized she could handle it pretty well with some intentional focusing outisde. Going below was a recipe for nausea. I pulled the dough out of the freezer I had made last week and added a little flour and kneaded it. I put it in a bowl and let it rise for a while so we could make pizza when we got to Limestone. Most people we know are aware we have had a Friday night pizza tradition. Homemade pizza, a movie, and usually beer is what occupies our Friday nights. I've kept up with the pizza tradition while we have been apart but I could finally share it again. My timing was a little off though so we had pizza while still under way. The movie would have to wait.

We sailed into Limestone Inlet at 6:43 pm. It was past our bedtime but there was pizza to eat so we pressed on. The inlet is a divot in the side of the mountains on the mainland with a small creek running into it. It is kind of narrow with steep green tree-covered slopes on either side. There are some power lines crossing over the top some 83 feet above water line which isn't a concern for our 43' tall boat. The nautical charts show mooring buoys in the inlet but there was no guarantee they were actually there so I was prepared to drop the anchor if needed. Turns out there really were two large buoys in the middle of the inlet so we sailed right up to the first one... or actually 15 feet short of the buoy. The winds completely died and we started drifting back out with the current. We were SO CLOSE to not running the engine and tying up under sail. Instead, Kelli fired up the engine, moved us forward just a little, and I lassoed the buoy with a dock line. I tied off both forward dock lines and we were set. The mailsail came down and got flaked and secured, and we were done for the night. It was movie time!

Kelli chose the movie for the night, it was The Spirit of St. Louis. I had talked about it a lot and we finally remembered to download it to watch while away from internet. We only made it about an hour in when we were getting tired. We went to bed (still before 9pm) and didn't set an alarm.

Saturday morning arrived and we were up and out of bed before 5:30 am. The sun sets late here and rises early. It's not hard to get up early and we hadn't covered the hatch above the v-berth so it was bright by the time we rolled out of bed even though the clock argued with our minds about how early it was. We didn't really have a lot to do, just enjoy the day together, do some reading, cooking, coffee drinking, and maybe some boat projects. I actually had a number of projects I wanted to take care of but they weren't pressing. Before long, I started on one of them though; my inverter had given up the ghost pretty dramatically a few weeks earlier and I had finally received the components I ordered to try and fix it. I hauled the hunky chunky thing out and pulled out the soldering iron. There were a bunch of MOSFETs to replace along with some resistors and capacitors. It took me about two hours from beginning to end to finish that project. I had replaced the inverter already so this one was now a spare so without testing it, I put it away. Then in the afternoon I talked Kelli into helping me install some lazyjacks. These are lines that run from the mast 2/3 of the way up down to the boom at a few points to keep the mailsail under control when you let it down. I finally had all the parts to do it and a helper to assist. The winds were nice and calm so we set to it. I went up the mast and ran the ropes through the pullies that were there from a previous installation. Then we started adding blocks and rope until I had three inverted vee supports. Once one side was complete and it looked like I wanted it to, I took everything down and we cut identical lengths of rope for the other side of the mast. Then, we put everything up to test it out.

During this process of having the sail up and fitting all the lines, we had an unexpected visitor. On Firday a coworker asked where we were headed to. I gave him an idea of where to find us and mentioned we had a blue dingy on the back of the boat so he could tell which boat was ours. Well, he found our blue dingy and decided to come say hi. He's a float plane pilot for the company I work for so on his way back from a freight trip further south, he came in to Limestone Inlet, landed next to us and said hi! It was a quick stop since he was still working but it was cool to see him.

With the new lazy jacks up, we let the main sail down and it fell into its rope cradle quite nicely. I was happy with the new system we installed. The best part is, when the sails are tidied up, the lazy jacks can be loosed, pulled out of the way and secured. When you go to raise the main sail, the lazy jacks aren't in the way and raising the main is easier. Many people compain about lazy jacks getting in the way of raising the main so this fixes that problem.

We also spent a little time walking around, or trying to. We took the dingy to shore where the rocks were steep so it would be easier to get back to it when the tide rose but the growth along the shore was extremely dense. We tried for a while to climb through the fallen logs, Devil's Club, and moss before Kelli said she had enough. We went back to the dingy and motored further into the inlet where the shoreline was more flat. Kelli picked a better spot and we easily made the short walk up the the beach where the creek ran into the inlet. Only a hundred yards or so up the creek, I spotted a small black bear at the edge of the trees foraging. There are a lot of bears here, I mean a LOT. We don't yet have bear spray or a gun so we didn't have much for defenses against the creature. We decided to stay put and not do any hiking. I ate some snacks, Kelli walked around, we watched the tide come in to some tide pools. The water moves so fast around here. Soon we were back at the dingy thinking about heading back to the floating apartment. Kelli wanted some exercise so I relaxed in the front of the dingy and she rowed us back to Northern Light against the current. Just about the time I was going to fall asleep we got to the boat and I had to hop out.

All the details of the weekend escape me. There was reading, cooking, cleaning, lounging, radio-ing, but overall, it was a time to relax and enjoy the quiet.

The nights were a little restless though. The buoy we tied up to was massive. It wasn't a soft plastic buoy, it was a big hard plastic cylinder probably 5' in diameter. When the wind and current got to arguing or things became dead calm, the buoy would bump against the bow of Northern Light. The v-berth where we sleep is in the very front of the boat so we had to deal with the thumping on the hull quite a bit. The second night I got up in the middle of the night and tried to change the way we were tied up. Instead of two ropes let out kind of far, I secured only one rope and pulled it up really tight so the buoy was always touching the hull. This kind of worked except if we got a little motion from the waves, the buoy would occasionally thump really hard. There didn't seem to be any winning with this big hunk of plastic. Next time, I think I will anchor.

We left Limestone Inlet Sunday morning in light winds. We untied from the buoy, unfurled the headsail, and started making way without ever starting the engine. We tacked back and forth for a while trying to get out but the winds were swirling around and eventually we found a dead spot right near the end of the inlet where it meets Stephen's Passage. We started the engine and motored out into the wide open of the passage. We hadn't run the engine long before we found some more consistent winds. The engine got shut off, the main was hoisted, and we were soon sailing at 5 kts with the headsail on one side of the boat and the mainsail on the other, referred to as wing-to-wing. It's a pretty cool way to sail when you are running directly down wind. The rest of the trip north back to the harbor went pretty much this way. The wind would shift from time to time and we would be on a beam reach for a while then on a run again. We sailed all the way up to the Juneau/Douglas bridge. We talked about what to do to get into the harbor then we raised the lazyjacks, doused the sails, and ran the engine to get into port. Our typical parking spot was still open so we pulled in early afternoon on Sunday.

It was a pleasant first weekend out with Kelli. She didn't get sick, we got the sails up, and the weather was great. The following weekend wouldn't be as causual though. I am a man of adventure and as my dad says, "it's all fine once you live through it." But this weekend (second weekend with Kelli) was another test of my decision making and Kelli's fortitude.

Until next time...

Settling In

Joshua — Fri, 31 May 2024 15:30:00 -0600

My early 20s (and mid-20s) was filled with lots of moving. I moved from home to Arizona for college at 18, back home, then into a farm house where I worked, into a single-wide mobile home next to my parents, off to my sister's in Truth or Consequences, NM, then to Leadivlle, Colorado at 24, Avon, Colorado at 25, Gypsum, Colorado at 26, Glenwood Springs at 27, then Moab, Utah at 28. It has been very pleasant to stay in Moab for seven years now. Kelli and I have no real intention in moving again anytime soon but this job I have right now is a kind of move. The hardest part of moving is figuring out all the life things in a new place. Where is the post office? Where's the best place to shop? How do I get around town? Where do I do laundry and how long will it take? Also, when you move to a place like Juneau, finding transportation can be difficult. Juneau is the capitol of Alaska but it is essentially an island. The only ways in are on a boat or a plane. Juneau is on the mainland of North America but the mountains to the east block any road traffic into the area. That being the case, getting a car to Juneau is kind of expensive and it turns out shipping an e-bike is near impossible if you aren't made of money.

So my first week was filled with ground school at my new job and shopping for a car, bicycle, scooter, or skateboard just so I could get to work and back. It was hard to even find a bicycle. Craigslist was a lost cause and Facebook Marketplace was even worse. I don't do Facebook so I borrowed Kelli's and I was quickly reminded why I gave that thing up years ago. Juneau has a decent bus system but it doesn't run very early in the morning or very late at night. The times I was scheduled to be at work would soon be outside the bus schedule window. I needed my own transportation. I parked my boat at Statter Harbor in Auke Bay which is only 3.5 miles from the airport with the intention of riding a bicycle to work and back.

I also was in a new-to-me floating home and was seriously lacking in "things" that would make it a practical home. So, my first week I hopped on the bus for $2 and went to Home Depot. I needed a space heater. The boat has a Sig-Marine diesel heater but I don't leave it running when I'm away from the boat. I bought an electric heater that was almost the cheapest available. I walked back to the bus stop and hopped back on and got off at Fred Meyer, the local get-everything store. While hauling the heater around with me I quickly filled up my shopping cart with little storage containers, food, and other things for the boat. Leaving the store I certainly had my hands full! I must have looked a mess. I said a little prayer asking for someone to pity me and give me a ride back to the harbor. While walking in front of the store a guy yelled at me, "Where are you going?" "Auke Bay," I replied. He said, "Get in." Slightly astonished but completely grateful, I turned around, dropping three things from my arms, and got loaded in his car. He kicked out his wife but he insisted she was getting a ride with someone else. He headed toward home boat and we got to chatting. Turns out worked at Home Depot but he had come to Juneau from Guatemala to plant a hispanic church! What a cool meeting. We drove right by the church building where they meet and he pointed it out to me; the name is "Rescate." We chatted a little about Guatemala coffee because I love coffee, and soon he was dropping me off back in Auke Bay. I thanked God for the answer to prayer and bid the pastor goodbye. Getting my things to the boat was easy as most harbors have carts you can use to take things to and from shore.

Back at the boat I started organizing. Living on a boat takes a lot of organization if you don't want to live in a floating mess. Most of you know I'm a pretty tidy person so I take my organization seriously. All the containers I bought with snap-on lids were used to store knickknacks, boat spare parts, tools, some food, and cleaning supplies. There are shelves and storage areas all over the boat but when you are underway things start sliding around in those places and not only is it noisy, it turns your storage into somewhat of a tumble dryer for all your items. With the storage containers I also bought non-skid drawer liner. You know that stuff, it's thin perforated foam you lay down so your dishes mostly stay put. So after getting everything put away and organized, I felt a bit more like I was in my own boat.

There were a LOT of places in the boat that I hadn't gone through and the next couple weeks would give me the time to see what the previous owner left in the boat. After ground school got out I'd go back to the boat, make some food, and clean out a new pocket of the boat and take inventory. I found new mica covers for the diesel stove, spare toilet parts, wires and cable, hardware, fishing lures, and more. Each time I would clean out a new area, I would get a damp rag and wipe the area down. Like I said before, this boat was very wet when I looked at it the first time. It grew mildew a lot of places and only a tiny bit of mold. I didn't want that to continue so I cleaned everywhere I could get to when taking inventory. There is still a condensation issue onboard since the hull is not insulated but I'm working through it slowly and it is so much better than when I moved aboard.

I had also been keeping a log of my sailing and maintenance on the boat. There was no log before this so it was a fresh start for the boat. I think it is worth while to record what kind of weather you were in, what speeds you got, how long you ran the engine, and so-on. It isn't a log of how I felt that day or a personal journal, it's a boat journal. So with all this maintenance and fiddling, I had been recording the important things in a log. That reminds me, I am a few entries behind.

When I got the boat there were four antennas on the dingy davits and the previous owner didn't really know what they all were. I think it was my second weekend, I started chasing wires to see what was what. I had already run around the innards of this boat quite a bit chasing wires trying to figure out the autopilot issues and I had spotted some wiring anomalies I wanted to address at the same time. Two of the antennas turned out to be cellular data antennas that were completely unused so those got ditched. One antenna was the Raymarine GPS antenna that my chart plotter uses for GPS position. The last antenna... well, that one was the devil. I had an old Apelleco GPS/LORAN receiver that didn't really work. What is a GPS/LORAN receiver? It's something old-ish that doesn't do much anymore, that's all that really matters; most LORAN radio stations are gone so the receiver is a relic. The antenna for that receiver was the fourth antenna on the davits. It was wired in to my autopilot/chart plotter data bus but... it was damaged. The wires had been pinched somewhere along the davits and they were shorting out between each other. I felt good about this. I removed the antenna, receiver, and the rest of the wiring associated with it and threw it in the dumpster. Then on the afternoon of April 6^th I took the boat out, enabled the compass calibration again (you know that 10 circles I did without successful calibration?) and it took after one circle! I enabled the autopilot and it worked! I tried all the features of the autopilot, tacking, tracking a GPS route, following a compass heading, it all worked! I broke champagne over the bow, invited all my friends over for a steak dinner on the grill, and got totally sloshed, I was so happy. Actually I don't have friends up here, champagne, or a grill so none of that happened but I was pretty excited. I went back to the harbor, tied up, and called it a day.

The next day I went to church in the morning then at 13:00 I set out in gusty conditions from Statter Harbor for some sailing. I raised the main almost immediately after passing the breakwater. This was so much easier with an autopilot to keep course since my pretty first mate was still in Utah. I had learned from my day at Five Fingers Light that maybe I don't need a full mainsail and headsail in gusty, windy conditions so I quickly reefed the headsail and I don't think I unfurled the headsail at all to start. My goal was to sail around Portland Island but as soon as I was headed out that direction, the wind died. So I turned the boat back between Coghlan and Portland and got wind again. I played around between those two islands for a while trying to stay in the stronger wind, practicing tacking. Eventually I decided to head further north and try to go around Coghlan Island. The northern part of Coghlan has a narrow channel you can safely sail through in all tides but outside that gap, there is frequent shoaling (rocks exposed during low tides). I didn't want to run my boat into the rocks so I was pretty focused on my course around there. I was still under sail but realized I may need to fire up the engine if my course and the wind didn't agree. I was still sailing up-wind through here so I couldn't keep a straight course, I would have to zig-zag. The winds were still really gusty; they would blow 15+ knots then almost completely die on me. I think I started the engine twice for short intervals just to make sure I didn't drift toward rocks. I still had sails up.

During the trip I had taken out the headsail and had it partially furled so it wasn't a full sail. I was double reefed on my mainsail (the sail was lowered two spots so it was the smallest it could be.) I made it through the gap, got close to Statter Harbor, and had to quickly put away the sails, deploy the fenders and dock lines, and get ready to tie up. Again, this was all so much easier with an autopilot. When you take down sails the forces on the boat change dramatically. Without an autopilot or pretty first mate steering, you will get a sail partially put away and the boat will change directions (usually toward a rock or shore) so you have to run back to the helm, steer where you want to go, and finish putting things away. Now I could start the engine, let it run slow, set the autopilot to a heading, and just take care of chores while keeping an eye out for other boats. I motored into the harbor, tied up, and was done at 18:00.

The tedium of ground school was almost complete. I had done five days of sitting in a conference room looking at slides about rules, regulations, common routes, local ATC procedures, weather, and on and on. During this time the weather was pretty bad. I would take time to see what other pilots were doing for planning. Were they canceling their flights? What did the weather cameras look like and how were they interpreting them? What was acceptable and what was total garbage? It was a lot of good learning but I was ready to get in an airplane and figure it out. Week two of work was one day of aircraft specific ground training then flight training started. Monday we got the last ground finished then... I waited. Flight training wasn't the top priority at the company. There are limited aircraft and limited time during the day to get things done. When there was a block of time between revenue flights, a training flight would get scheduled. Then if the instructor was busy doing something else, the training flight wouldn't happen. It was a little frustrating, more frustrating for some. I wanted to get training done but having been in a similar company for quite a while, I understood the difficulty of scheduling this stuff. Week two went by and I only got a few flight hours in. They were good and I was feeling pretty comfortable with how to manage the airplane but I still needed more. They expectation during the interview was that after 1.5 or 2 weeks, I would be flying revenue flights. This clearly wasn't a reasonable expectation and it wasn't due to my skills (or that of most of the new pilot hires.) Scheduling was the bottleneck. The last flight of my second week sucked. The weather was crap, we tried to head to a common destination close by and the visibility just went to trash. I could see a shoreline and was going to get to it then turn around but I don't think I actually saw the shoreline. The instructor with me turned us around and in the turn, I finally saw the shoreline. It was the exact kind of situation we talk about in training and the exact situation I want to avoid here. I was glad to see it with an experienced local pilot to help and it made me reflect all weekend. Was this a place I wanted to work? Did I have the skills and sound decision making to keep me and my passengers safe? I got kind of mopey for a few days thinking about it.

That weekend I sailed out to Colt Island and anchored for a couple hours. I went ashore, hiked around a point, journaled, and cooked aboard. I went back to the harbor that night but the time out to think put me in a good place. My decisions and choices in flying were entirely in my control. I could set personal minimums that I wouldn't break and now that I saw what junk weather looked like, I could better assess what was too much. The #1 concern for me up here was flying in crummy weather and I had a plan to address it and manage the risk.

Week 3 arrived and we got some more training flights in. Near the end of the week I was told we would do a simulated check ride then the next day would be the real checkride. As it goes, my flight got cut short and the simulated checkride wasn't even close to that but I got a few tasks in I wanted to practice and we both felt good about it. They next day I hopped in the plane and we went through the plan. I flew the plane. The instructor failed everything he could, we talked about emergencies then because he knew I was familiar with these systems and this type of company, he threw more obscure problems at me. It was fun. We had a good flight, I passed, and had some questions about certain systems we looked up later. When you get two smart people trying to foul each other up in an airplane, you end up with some interesting questions and some good learning opportunities. Monday I would start IOE, initial operational experience, where I fly revenue flights with customers and freight onboard but with a company instructor along so he can evaluate my processes and we can discuss the minutia of getting the job done. That week I had purchased an older mountain bike from a co-worker so I had transportation. That gave me another weekend to get out an sail. Are you catching a trend here? Work five days, sail two days, work five days, sail two days. This was my intention in coming to Alaska and all the stress and work to get here was paying off, I was doing it!

North - Part IV

Joshua — Sun, 19 May 2024 15:00:00 -0600

Day three I awoke early, made breakfast and coffee, and took a look at the manual for the autopilot. There was a magnetometer calibration procedure I wanted to try. The magnetometer is the electronic compass the autopilot steers by. I looked through all the settings in the autopilot, fiddled with a few of them, and decided I wanted to try the calibration. The instructions were pretty simple; enter calibration mode, make slow circles clockwise, no faster than one circle every two minutes, and stop once the calibration is complete which should be a minimum of two circles. I fired up the engine, made sure everything was stowed, and pulled away from the float. I entered calibration mode and started my slow circles. Two circles down and it said to keep going. Three, four, five, six… still nothing changed. I canceled the procedure, got a little further out with more space, and tried again. I did nine circles without success. I figured it was a lost cause, something else was wrong. So off I went aiming northwest for day three toward Juneau.

I left the float at 7:30, winds were light and the seas were 2-3 feet all day. Nothing eventful happened. I never raised sails as the winds never got strong enough from the right direction for it, it was mainly from the north at 5-10 kts. I took a close look at Midway Islands as I went by, spotted a waterfall on the mainland and checked it out, then pulled into Taku Harbor at 14:40. I made 47 miles the whole day. It was a good day of recovery for me. Nothing fell off the shelves and the views were great.

Taku Harbor was a real treat. There is a public dock for access ashore as well as a public float around a corner that I chose to tied up to. The float was a bit ratty with parts of it slightly under water but I didn’t mind, I just wanted my boat to stay put. I wanted to explore a bit so I dropped the dingy, lowered the engine, and went around looking at things. There is at least one private residence in Taku Harbor but nothing looked occupied in late March. I made my way over the the public dock and went ashore. The dock leads to a dirt path through the forest. It was another shock for this desert rat. The sun was shining through the foliage, things were still and quiet, the temperature was perfect; I couldn’t believe places like this existed. All this peaceful quiet, water, and green put me in a weird dreamy state. I wasn't sure for a moment if it was all real or if this was an elaborate dream. Maybe part of it was going from onboard Northern Light with the diesel engine humming along all day to standing in a quite forest with almost no noise and nothing moving, I'm not sure. It could have easily been a dream though.

There is a forest service cabin in Taku Harbor that you can rent and stay in. The cabin was very simple, just a room with spaces for bunks, a counter top with cabinets, and an oil heater. As I looked around inside it I realized my boat is more comfortable and I had no reason to consider using the cabin. Why would I leave my boat a quarter mile away that has a toilet, stove, heater, bed, and light for a cabin with almost none of that and pay $65/night to do so? I then realized I was very fortunate to have access to these places with the comfort and costs a sailboat affords. A sailboat really is an RV of the water except fuel is almost free!

After checking out the cabin I turned around and walked the other way. There were a few buildings scattered around that used to be part of a fish cannery and cold storage plant as well a smattering of private residences. The cannery and cold storage was built in 1901 and dismantled in 1951 leaving only the pilings and some other bits which made for a really picturesque landscape at low tide. There was also a concrete base built for the old generator (dynamo) that still had the machinery on top of it. I meandered around taking pictures of things wishing Kelli was there to share the experience. There was also a large set of buildings now used as the caretaker’s quarters. I didn’t approach them as I didn’t know if anyone was around and it seemed like an invasion of privacy though it was likely just fine. On my way back I found a few more old buildings stashed back in the woods. There was a shed with fish nets still hanging from the rafters, another building used for packaging with old scales and barrels sitting around. There was a small fishing boat overgrown with trees, brush, and moss nearly obscuring it. I opened one small shed and found a copy of “Scarlet”, the sequel to “Gone With the Wind” sitting there. After moseying back to the dingy I fired it up, made a big circle around the rest of the harbor, found a large floating log near Northern Light, then went back aboard the boat. I raised the engine and dingy and settled in for the night.

The next morning I made way at 7:10 in calm seas and calm winds. There was a light frost on the deck but I was plenty warm inside the boat. I had been sleeping in my sleeping bag since I didn’t have proper bedding and staying warm wasn’t a problem. The diesel heater was working pretty well though the hull isn’t insulated in many places and I was building condensation in places. This day I was aiming for port in Juneau. There were two options for where I would moor. Downtown Juneau has cheaper prices and maybe more spots available but they are 7 miles from the airport and I didn’t have transportation figured out yet so it didn't seem like a good idea. Statter Harbor in Auke Bay is only 3.5 miles from the airport but is about $150/month more expensive. My plan for now was to find a bicycle and ride to work everyday so Statter Harbor seemed like a better idea. Since Statter Harbor was my destination, it meant I had 15 more miles to sail than if I went downtown. I ended up running the engine almost all day. As I came up to the entrance to Gastineau Channel, the winds picked up to 10 kts and I raised sails. I wasn’t sure this would last long since where I raised sails was at the intersection of Stephens Passage, Gastineau Channel, and Taku Inlet. This convergence was likely to channel winds and that it did. I made a whole 4 knots for a short time before the winds died and I got to douse sails and flake/lash the mainsail again. I continued motoring around Douglas Island, spotted a few helicopters landing on a beach, then made the right turn into Auke Bay.

A note about the inside passage. I view the place as a mountain range that got filled with ocean water. The channels are very deep with steep sides. It is as though the cliff sides just continue on their same slope to an underwater valley floor. There are also submerged mountains scattered around where the water depth is 500+ feet then all of a sudden, there is a rock submerged 5’ under the water in the middle of a channel. If you aren’t watching closely you are in danger of finding one of these underwater mountain peaks and ruining your day/week/month/year. The way in to Auke Bay has many of these types of rocks hidden underwater and paying attention to your location and theirs is very important. I was very diligent to avoid everything that looked shallow on my map though looking back, I could have gotten away with a lot less turning.

Motoring in I was greeted with Alaska’s finest birds, bald eagles. I counted ten of them all fishing close together off my starboard beam. What a greeting from Alaska. Around here, eagles are almost like sparrows, they are literally everywhere. I readied the boat for docking by getting the fenders out and getting the dock lines ready. I hadn’t pulled in to a busy harbor yet so I was a bit nervous. I slowed down to a crawl once I got inside the breakwater and took my time looking around for a spot. Transient moorage around here isn’t in slips, it’s along the sides of floats. It’s like parallel parking for a boat. You look for something that appears long enough for your boat and you creep up to it and try to hook it in without hitting anything. I got lucky and found a spot that was clearly large enough for Northern Light near water and power. I came in slow and at an angle, steered hard to starboard once I was close, shifted into reverse, and docked (almost) like a pro. I hopped off, wrapped the stern dock line around the float to stop the boat, grabbed the front and pulled it snug, then went about positioning things so the boat was against the dock and the gangway/gate was pulled close to the dock. I got it tied, shut off the engine, and breathed a sigh of relief. I was docked, I didn’t hit anything, and I could finally rest; it was 13:15.

I walked up to the harbormaster’s office, signed some papers, gave them all my money, and started looking for a bike. What a journey! Four days in the inside passage of Alaska aboard a new-to-me boat, sailing alone, seeing majestic mountains, cliffs, and shores. I learned a lot and knew I had a lot to learn still. I was back in cell service so I could look up how-to’s on sailing and figure out some things I had questions about (like furling the headsail in strong winds.) For the past three weeks I had been dealing with, what seemed to be a stress induced, eye twitch. It was really annoying but I was hopeful with most of the stress of this giant life change over, it would go away. I had Friday afternoon, Saturday, and Sunday to finish some online classes for renewing my Inspection Authorization. Things were going well and the new job was starting in only three days. Unfortunately it would still be over two months before I would get to see Kelli again.

North - Part III

Joshua — Sun, 12 May 2024 14:00:00 -0600

I woke up to a nice morning still anchored where I dropped the hook by Whitney Island sometime near 6:30. Being new to everything still, I wasn’t sure how good of a spot I picked but it seemed to be good enough as I hadn’t drifted at all. The standard anchoring protocol is to put out seven times as much chain as the depth of the water you are in. So, if you are in 50’ deep water, you should let out 350’ of chain. That’s a lot of chain and few people actually follow that rule, it seems like 4:1 is more normal though it gives you less holding power when the wind picks up. I think I had set out a 5:1 scope (scope is the term used for anchor chain to depth.) I made breakfast, had some coffee, and got going at 8:00. I fired up the engine, weighed anchor, and headed north between Whitney and the mainland through Cleveland Passage around Bill Point. I aimed at Five Fingers Light, just to see what it looked like. I like lighthouses and figured I’d try and get a closer look. The light is perched on one of several islands in a little chain three miles west of Bill Point. The wind was picking up through Stephen’s Passage and once I got close to Five Fingers, I raised the sails; this is when things got interesting.

Raising sails in a decent wind takes some planning and and careful execution. Doing it alone with a dysfunctional autopilot takes experience and skill, two things I was in very short supply of. The first thing you are supposed to do when raising the mainsail is to point into the wind. Doing this keeps the sail from filling with the wind while raising it. If it fills, it puts tension on the tracks that the sail slides up the mast on and it makes it very difficult to hoist. I diligently pointed into the wind, tried to turn on the autopilot to hold the heading I was on, and went up to the mast to start hauling on the halyard. Every time I got up to the mast, the autopilot would turn off. When the autopilot kicked off, the bow of the boat would catch the wind and start turning me off the wind then the mainsail would start to fill and pull the boat further off the wind. I would quickly cleat the halyard, run back down to the helm, steer into the wind, and try it all again while trying to not fall into the deadly cold water. This happened several times before I was able to get the mainsail up. Once it was up, I was able to unfurl the headsail and start sailing. The autopilot was not my friend and it would not become my friend until a few weeks later.

So here I was sailing along, tacking back and forth up wind on a close haul, trying to actually sail my new-to-me sailboat, figuring things out when the winds picked up some more. Now, a note on my previous sailing experience… Kelli and I learned to sail in San Carlos Mexico in the winter where the winds were supposed to be decently heavy but most of the time we were out there, the winds were very light. We sailed aboard a 36’ ketch where we deployed all four sails in order to make 3.5 knots. The one day we had decent wind, the seas were quite choppy and the instructor wasn’t too keen on staying out so we didn’t get to play in good winds. All that means this was really my first experience with winds over 10 knots. Later I would listen to the marine weather VHF broadcast and learn the winds were gusting 22 kts at Five Fingers Light. I think they were a little stronger yet to the east of the islands. All that in mind, I was not prepared. I had a lot of stuff out and about in the cabin of the boat, not expecting anything dramatic and then all of a sudden, the gusts started hitting me and the boat started heeling hard. I didn’t quite dip the rail in the water, but it was close. When sailing up wind like I was, the main sail is exerting a lot of force on the mast sideways and even though the wind is strong and there’s a sense of a lot of speed, the boat doesn’t go very fast since that energy is being spent at the wrong angles. All that energy was tipping my boat over instead of moving me forward... and then everything hit the floor inside the cabin. The books came off the shelf, the tea kettle left the stove, the water bottles went flying, and worst of all, the sourdough jar departed the counter top and broke on the floor. The boat was a mess, I was starting to feel queasy, and I was tipping hard. I knew I needed to get things under control and ignore the inside of the cabin for a while so I tried to manage the boat a little better.

Eventually I doused the headsail and sailed on the mainsail alone. During this process, the headsail was flagging heavily (flapping in the wind) which made it very difficult to furl. I later learned that if you turn downwind, the headsail gets blanked from the wind by the mainsail and it is a lot easier to put away. During the flagging, the already old sacrificial cloth on the leech of the sail tore in a few spots. This cloth is a UV barrier and can be replaced, it isn’t structural for the sail. Putting away the headsail helped a lot. When I trimmed the sail a little better, I was still making 5.5-6 knots sailing upwind but the seas were 6-7 feet. The boat was under control finally and I started cleaning up some of the mess below. However, every time I started cleaning, I would get nauseated. I would work for a minute then go out on deck and get the shock of the cold air to help steady my stomach. I got enough stuff picked up and got queasy enough that I eventually just stayed in the captain’s chair with the companionway open and looked outside. I really didn’t want to keep at this so I bore off the wind just a little and made way for Hobart Bay. The bay was reachable on my current point of sail and I was cooked so I just kept on toward it. I sailed all the way up to the entrance of the bay before starting up the engine, pointing toward Entrance Island at the inlet of the bay, and dropping the mainsail. I didn’t flake and store the sail, there was too much wind for me to do that well and I felt terrible, I just motored in with the boat all disorderly.

Entrance Island turned out to be the perfect spot to rest. There was a float inside a little cove of Entrance Island protected from everything. The spot was beautiful, the water was clear, and the wind was not-existent. I tied up to the float, stood on the platform for a few moments, and just relaxed. I thought about what I did wrong, what I did right, and how much I hated this useless autopilot. Then I set to work making the boat ship shape again. I unfurled the headsail and looked it over, deciding that it was fine, the only damage was cosmetic. I flaked and lashed the mainsail, then I got inside and cleaned. I got that nasty sourdough starter off the floor and picked up all the glass shards. The books got stowed behind the settee. I made places for everything that was out and about so that the next day, nothing would hit the floor. There are several shelves in this boat but they only have a shallow lip to keep things put and it isn’t sufficient when a greenhorn is sailing in 6-foot seas. Nothing got put back on the shelves, everything was stowed in cabinets or holds. The boat looked good again and I was finally able to relax. I made it to the dock about 14:00 so I still had lots of time left in the day. The day’s mileage? I made it a whole 12 miles, and that wasn’t even entirely in the direction I wanted to go. Sailing distance was probably triple that since I was tacking back and forth.

I lowered the dingy in the water and rowed around the cove. It was unreal how calm and peaceful it was in there. I decided to go for a hike and pulled the dingy ashore. I aimed at a low spot through the island and walked into the forest. The place was magical! Everything was green. Fallen trees were immediately covered in moss, mushrooms grew on everything, water pooled everywhere. This was such a different environment from the desert of Utah. I was quite awestruck with the amount of life on my little hike. It only took a few minutes to cross a valley on the island and on the other side was a gravel beach lookout out across Stephen’s Passage. I realized I should have brought my camp chair and stayed a while but oh well. I walked around a little, looked at endless shells washed up ashore, and then headed back across the cut to the cove I was moored in. A little more rowing in the dingy brought me back to Northern Light where I lit a fire in the diesel heater and made dinner. What a day. I would be better prepared for the third day of my trip to Juneau.

North - Part II

Joshua — Sun, 14 Apr 2024 20:58:00 -0600

My flight from Seattle to Petersburg on Alaska Airlines is referred to as the "Milk Run." It makes multiple stops along the way at small airports and several places you just stay on the airplane rather than getting off. We stopped in Ketchikan and Wrangell before stopping in Petersburg where I got off. Danny, the guy selling me the boat named "Northern Light" came to the airport to pick me up. I had two large action packers and two carry-ons; I was traveling heavy today. We went straight to the boat where we started going over systems and talking about what he had done to get it ready.

All the plastic was off Northern Light and she was looking better than the first time I saw her. The sun was shining and she was drying up quite nicely. Danny had replaced the engine battery, replaced the bilge pump switch, replaced the transmission heat exchanger, removed the impeller and started the engine, and scheduled the launch date for Monday at 1:30pm, today was Saturday. He showed me around the boat, how to do certain tasks, where certain tools were that I would need, and overall, just poured out the knowledge he had from sailing and living on this boat for ten years. The engine oil still needed changed so we pumped out the oil, changed the filter, and added new oil. We ran the engine again to make sure there were no oil leaks, then I went about installing the new impeller. You can't run the engine with the impeller in there and no water flowing so that was the last engine work we did. I spent some time fiddling on the boat without Danny the following day doing things like mounting the dingy to the davits. Eventually he showed up and we finalized things before launch on Monday.

We met at the boat around noon when the boatyard guys came over to put it on the trailer. Launch Day! I had already purchased provisions for the boat and had loaded everything on. I puchased just the bare minimum because Petersburg groceries and tools are VERY expensive. So, they drove this big hydraulic lifter trailer/driving thing under the boat, moved up supporting arms, and removed the jacks that had been supporting it for the past year. They lifted the boat, made a very slow trip to the shore, then waited for the tide to rise. The inside passage of Alaska has very large tides. High tide to low tide is often over 15 feet with some places reaching 21 feet at times. I impatiently waited for the time to arrive and finally they fired up the mover and lowered the boat into the water. Once the engine raw water inlet was covered we fired up the engine to make sure the impeller was impelling except... it wasn't.

We were making a mad rush to figure out what was wrong but weren't getting anywere. We checked the inlet, checked the outlet, checked the filter, removed hoses to see if there was a clog, removed the impeller again to make sure I installed it right, but still nothing was working. The boatyard crew gave us a final warning, get off the trailer or get hauled out. Danny threw it in reverse, went out a couple hundred feet out, dropped the anchor, and shut off the engine. This wasn't going well. Without raw water getting pulled through the impeller, then engine would overheat. It would be like your car's radiator fan not turning or having cardboard over your radiator. The engine would be okay for a short time but soon it would overheat. After nearly an hour of frustration, I spotted a big shiny washer down in the bilge under the engine. I got a long metal rod, picked it up, and started laughing. It was a wear surface for inside the impeller. When Danny took the impeller out and ran the engine, this large washer vibrated out of the impeller housing and fell in the bilge. Without it installed, there was a gap between the impeller and the housing so it wasn't pumping water, it was just sitting there circulating water inside itself. I showed Danny, he was super embarrased but he wasn't aware it even existed. I slapped it in, sealed up the impeller, and cranked the engine. Almost immediately there was water flowing out the back! Yes!

With the engine finally running safely we motored out into the Wrangell Narrows to check out how the boat handles. We soon raised the sails and turned off the engine. We sailed close to the wind and Northern Light once again became a sailboat. I'm sure Danny was having an emotional time as this was the last sail he would have on her before I took her north. I tacked a few times, practicing the maeuver as a single-handed crew with Danny giving me tips. The fun was short lived though; we had to head north to the fuel dock and slosh a couple hundred dollars worth of diesel into her holding tank for the week's journey. I got my first practice docking at the fuel dock. It went okay, I didn't hit anything. Danny was stressed which made me anxious and annoyed but really, it went fine. I pumped over $200 of diesel into the tank and we left the dock bound for North Harbor where I would spend my first ever night aboard a sailboat on the water. I guess this was a big moment of truth, would I actually like this big commitment I just made? When we got to the slip, we added fresh water to the tank that had been drained and checked the water system for function and leaks except... it wasn't working. The pump was spewing water out the pressure switch. Danny ran off to the hardware store and bought a pump to replace it with. We got that on and there was another leak, a hose had come off a pipe. I fixed that, and two more showed up. After reinstalling 5 or 6 hoses that had come off (likely due to freezing and getting pressed off by the ice) the fresh water was working. I now had enough systems working to get me underway. Danny and I toasted the day with some pretty decent whiskey, his friend Brex dropped of some homemade bananna nut bread for the trip, and he was off to make friends with his dog that he neglected all afternoon.

That evening I went over the boat, taking care of some chores, figuring some things out, and checking out a little outboard engine I had purchased for the dingy. Danny included a nice dingy with the sale of Northern light but an engine wasn't included. I puchased a 6hp outboard engine he had leaning up against his garage with the knowledge it may not run. It looked really good but there was no guarantee. I lowered the dingy, lowered and installed the engine, added gasoline, and started pulling. After about eight pulls, the engine coughed. A few more pulls in and the engine idled like it was never ignored at all. With backup ores on the dingy, I unhooked from my davits and ripped out into the narrows. The engine ran well! Not wanting to temp fate in a 2-3 knot current and without any lights, I came back to Northern Light, hoisted the engine then dingy, and went below. I don't remember what I did for dinner, but I slept well and woke up at 5:15 the next morning for a 6:00 departure.

The morning to make way arrived and after a little coffee, I pulled out of the slip and got underway. The current in the Narrows was benign and the seas were calm. I met a boat pulling a barge on my way out, it was coming in. I was surprised to see how fast those things move and how big everything is. The chains between the tug and the barge are massive. I stayed out of his way and after a couple hours, I was already nearing Farragut Bay, my first stop. The autopilot was nearly useless on this leg, a warning for the rest of the trip to come.

Now some explanation on my plan. I made way on Tuesday, March 26th. Work started Monday, April 1st, no joke! But there was another hitch, I needed to do a fair bit of online class time for one of my mechanic certifications before the 1st arrived. I wanted at least Sunday to get it done but preferably Saturday and Sunday. That meant I had four days to get to Juneau which at just over 120 miles, that's about 30 miles a day. The boat motors or sails in good winds about 6 knots. That's only 5 hours a day if things go as planned. So with that easy schedule, I felt pretty good about things and I could take some time to see some places along the way. One of those places along the way was Farragut Bay where some former neighbors and distant friends live. They had property near us in Utah and I had always wanted to visit their off-grid, super remote, organic Alaska farm. It was only 20 miles from Petersburg to Farragut Bay and it was right on the way so there wasn't a good reason for me to pass by without saying hi. Alright, back to the voyage.

In a couple hours I was nearing the inlet to Farragut Bay. I had only docked this boat twice, kind-of anchored once, lowered the dingy once, and now I was in for nearly all of it at once. When I was threading a little gap between an island and the mainland I got a call from Bo on the radio, I told him where I was and he said he would meet me out at a little buoy in the kayak. I circled around a point, spotted a float out in the bay, docked the boat without any upsets (thankfully), and shut everything down. I lowered the dingy, lowered and mounted the engine, then started ripping across the bay to where I thought the buoy was. The float I tied up on was at least a mile from where I was supposed to meet Bo so I was very happy to have the motor on this dingy. It made good time and soon I spotted him in the kayak heading out from the mud flats they lived above. He directed me to the buoy, I tied up, hopped in the kayak, and we paddled up the creek the goes by their property. I didn't have muck boots so he hopped out once it got to shallow to float both of us and pulled me for a while until it got too shallow for even me to be in the boat. After another half-mile of walking along the flats, we got to the trail leading to their house. Along the way we veered off and said hi to one of their neighbors. It was great to see how people live out there. There's no road, no wheeled vehicles, no infrastructure, just a few people with their personal skillsets and a lot of ingenuity. Another bit of walking and we arrived at the farm. Marja had lunch ready so after some hugs and comments about the trip, we went in the cabin and sat down for an excellent lunch finished off with chocolate. I decided later in our visits that the only reason they have to run the farm and make money is to support their (really Marja's) chocolate addiction. After lunch I got a tour of the farm and we went for a hike up the local river. We talked about floods, log dams changing the course of the river, life back in Utah, and just caught up. I didn’t have long to stay so soon after, Marja and I walked back to the mud flats to get me back to my boat. Wow, what a change! The mile of flats Bo and I came across were gone! Since I came in at low tide and was leaving near high tide (about 15 feet that day) we didn’t have far to walk; they had a skiff tied up right next to where we parked the kayak. We just walked aboard the boat, pulled up the little anchor, and fired up the engine. Marja dropped me off at my dingy, we said our final goodbyes, and I ripped back across Farragut Bay to my boat. Norther Light was still there (thankfully) and I quickly raised the engine and dingy, untied the boat, and motored out.

I set my destination that night for a shallow little notch between Whitney Island and the mainland. It was only 19 miles and I made it there without mishap. I wasn’t the only boat anchoring around but no one was close at all. I dropped the anchor, made some dinner, and nervously watched the GPS for a while, hoping I wasn’t going to drift into the nearby shore. Eventually I was satisfied and got to bed. First day of the voyage done. I had a full maritime experience; sailed solo, docked solo, rode in the dingy aross a bay, paddled in a two-person kayak, hiked, rode in a skiff, and anchored out in the middle of nowhere. The day went very well and it didn’t take long for me to fall asleep. The next day would kick my butt though.

North

Joshua — Sat, 06 Apr 2024 11:02:00 -0600

Big changes. I'm sitting in a little cafe a six-minute walk from the harbor I'm living in. My laundry is tumbling next door in the local laundromat. My location is Juneau, Alaska. How did I end up here?

So, I've been thinking about a change in jobs for a while and applied for a medevac job close to home but was informed I was 250 hours short on their required time. There was no good way for me to get that time in short order so I started looking elsewhere. I got a wild hair and decided to apply for a job or two up in Alaska. I was hoping I could find a job I could commute for ie. two weeks on, two weeks off. That would allow me to go back to Utah on my days off, catch up with friends and keep my marriage healthy. Well, the job I got called for was not a commuting job. I wasn't so sure about it but after some talking with pilot friends and Kelli, I decided to head up for an interview. The interview went well, I flew the airplane, talked to the chief pilot, rode on some flights, and got offered a job. While I was in Juneau, I went down to Petersburg, AK to look at for housing. By housing, I mean a sailboat. I wasn't sure what I would do if I got the job but didn't get a boat so I was really hoping both of these things would work out together.

As many of you may know, Kelli and I have been on a quest to get good at sailing with the intention of doing some serious traveling by boat at some point. Well, the boat I went to look at was in worse condition than I thought. I told the owner it was more work than I was interested in and shorty after, he texted me that he had a friend with a "newer" boat for sale if that is what I was interested in. Newer wasn't really a concern of mine, I was just looking for better. I decided to give boat owner number two a call the following day and before I knew it, he was driving me to go look at his boat. I only had 80 minutes before my flight left Petersburg back to Juneau so I told him to make haste. We zipped down to the boatyard to see his boat, it was "on the hard" (in a boat yard out of the water) and covered in plastic. It had been parked under some pine trees and the trees were dropping their tree stuff on the boat so he got it wrapped. I climbed the ladder, made it through the plastic doorway, and was greeted with a very wet, slightly living deck. I understood this was Southeast Alaska so I kept on, trying to ignore the layer of green life on everything and the patches of what looked like lichen growing on the wood. Also, the anti-slip paint on the deck had started to flake leaving a yellow glue color underneath. It wasn't pretty. I looked at the rigging, poked around the lines and sails for a moment, then stepped down the companionway into the cabin.

This was a pilothouse sailboat. That means it has a little cockpit that's completely enclosed where you stay out of the weather and still sail. There's also a wheel on deck so you can sail from the outside too. There was an extensive set of navionics all protected with sun covers. I was informed it had a chart plotter and autopilot. Autopilot... that's a really handy tool when you're sailing alone. What I wanted to see was the structure. There was a little dripping here and there in the cabin but it seemed to be from condensation, not real leaks. I looked down in the bilge, checked out all the chainplates (the place the cables holding the mast in position connects to the boat's hull), looked at the places anything poked through the hull and came inside the cabin, checked the seacocks where things are dumped overboard or seawater is drawn in for various tasks. We looked at the engine and transmission. Then it was time to go. My impression, the boat was solid. It wasn't terribly pretty at the moment but it seemed to be mostly superficial. I could deal with some minor cosmetics. I wasn't in love with the boat, but I had a realistic sense of what it was and how it would work for Kelli and I. The two main problems were 1: I didn't want a pilothouse sailboat. This is entirely due to a book I listened to and isn't founded upon my own experience. 2: It wasn't in the water and I needed somewhere to live quicly.

Both of my concerns were mostly unfounded. Firstly, this probably isn't a boat I would cross an ocean in anyway so having a pilot house isn't as big of an issue. It probably isn't robust enough to take on a crashing wave and what I listened to in the book, they are kind of top heavy, which you don't want in heavy weather anyway. So, laying aside my naive biases, I came to understand how nice a pilothouse boat is in SE Alaska. It is wet and cold a lot. It is a lot nicer to steer from inside the boat than outside. Secondly, I communicated my tight timeframe with the owner and he wasn't too sure about the timeframe but... he came through. I made an offer on the boat, he accepted, and I said, GET IT IN THE WATER!

So, I flew back to Juneau, got two more flights before my flight back the following day. When I got back to Utah, I had a final conversation with Kelli and I called my new employer and accepted the job. I told Redtail I'm gone in seven working days. That was quicker than either of us wanted but I needed to get to Petersburg, help put the boat in the water, sail it north 120 miles, finish some online courses for my aircraft mechanic license renewal, and get to work on April 1st. So, with seven years at Redtail, my final day consisted of breakfast burritos at work for everyone and a cake from Amanda. Thanks Amanda. Farewell, I guess.

Kelli and I drove up to Salt Lake City Friday afternoon March 22nd, stayed the night, and she dropped me off at the airport the following morning for my 6am flight to Seattle.

I'm stopping here. The next chunk is more detailed and this post doesn't need to be a novel. Stay tuned! Pictures in following post!

Joshua

SOTA Activation W7U/GR-046 Klondike Bluffs

Joshua — Mon, 19 Feb 2024 08:22:00 -0700

First off, I activated a summit on Moab Rim last year but I lost my phone on the hike and never made a post about it. That was my first activation with my KX2. Now on to current news.

I turned 35 years old! That makes me think, my metabolism isn't going to keep up with a semi-sedentary lifestyle forever; I need to get out more. Yesterday, Sunday February 18, 2024, the weather was beautiful, most of the mud from rain and snowfall was gone, and I had an afternoon I could do whatever I wanted so I chose to run off and do a moderate SOTA activation. There is a "summit" near work that I had been eyeballing for some time so I gave it a go.

The destination was the north end of Arches National Park near Tower Arch and Marching Men. The SOTA summit is labeled Klondike Bluffs. A satellite view shows it as a white rock atop the ridgeline overlooking the west side of Salt Valley. The easiest approach is from inside Arches at the Tower Arch trailhead but I was looking for a decent walk so I took a 4x4 trail to the lower (west) side of Klondike Bluffs and hiked across the BLM to get into Arches. I had been this way before but it had been a few years since I'd made the trek.

I came semi-prepared with my Elecraft KX2 (partially charged), a Kenwood VHF/UHF handheld TH-D72A (partially charged), a 2L water bladder (fully charged), and some decent cool weather gear. After some scraping and bumping down the 4x4 trail in my stock 2020 Tacoma, I parked on the white slickrock of Klodike Bluffs. A quick eyeballing of the satellite imagery showed I was about as close as I could get for a direct hike to the summit. I took off with my jacket stuffed in my backpack since the sun was out and I was decently warm.

Aiming straight at my destination turned out to be a lost cause. As I hiked higher into the bluffs, the canyons got deeper and wider which caused me to detour many times trying to find a place I could get across. I kept getting pushed further and further south where the cliffs mostly ran out and the sand had collected in the bottoms of the canyons. There were other foot tracks here so clearly this route was traveled occasionally. I saw two other hikers headed back out of Arches at one point but we were separated by several hundred feet. When I got to the edge of Arches National Park, I realized this hike may end without an activation. As with many summits in Grand and San Juan counties, this summit appeared to be perched atop a butte with no real access apart from 5th class free climbing.

I reassessed my route and potential access to the peak and decided to follow a wash all the way up the the cliffs below the summit and look for a scree field breaking the cliffs. There will often be piles of rubble a person can ascend that are washed down an otherwise too-steep canyon. After scrambling up and down lots of rocks and ledges, peaking into small canyons, I ended up on the south end of the fins below the summit and found what looked to be a decent slope I could scramble up that would take me right below the summit. There were only a couple spots that made me really think about how to get up and one 10' crack that I soloed up. In no-time I was on top of the red rocks, meandering around the white hoodoos on top. After consulting my position relative to the summit one last time, I found the rock I needed to get on top of and found a precarious way up. The only reasonable side was north-facing and had quite a bit of lichen clinging to the bumpy surface. I inched my way up, scraping lichen off with the toe of my shoe before gingerly placing my toes on tine 1/4" ledges; there were practically no hand-holds available. After the highball V1 bouldering ascent, I made it atop to rock and took in the view. It was a nice spot but... it wasn't the highest point. There was a higher rock to the south of me a short ways. I checked my phone's GPS and the SOTA waypoint overlayed on a satellite map and it showed I was on the right rock. I called it a success and set down to getting ready; maybe I'll email the region manager and let them know. The time was already after 5pm so I needed to get this thing done. Sunset was 6:30.

With my new-to-me TH-D72A APRS handheld, I wanted to try self-spotting using APRS2SOTA. This is a service that uses a data packet sent to the staion, "SOTA", and updloads the data to sotawatch.sota.org.uk. It allows my to be visible to people who are watching for SOTA activators even from remote locations since it uses a VHF network to get the information on the internet. So, I set up my KX2 with a American Morse straight key and AX1 whip antenna. There was still a CW contest going on so I cruised way up the 20m band until I found a quiet spot. I called "QRL?" to see if anyone was around. I didn't get a response so I sent my APRS message indicating my summit, frequency, and mode. The message was as follows:

To: SOTA

Message: W7U/GR-046 14.085 CW

Pretty simple. I called CQ once, maybe twice, and started getting responses. Success! I worked a total of 16 stations, 18 total contacts as two of them called me twice. It took a half-hour from my first CQ until I was QRT. The location of my key was a little awkward since I was sitting cross-legged on a rock with the radio and key on bumpy, slanted surfaces but overall my sending didn't suffer too much. I snapped a couple photos of my setup before I packed back up and headed down the rock.

The way down the rock I was perched upon was harder than up. I tried going down a few times before giving up and choosing to jump. Jumping is a big no-no in the canyoneering world since a twisted ankle or broken bone could be catastrophic but I decided a backward tumble 20' down would be worse. I hopped down about 6 feet from the rock I was on to an adjacent rock without incident. A quick scramble down got me to dirt then a longer scramble down about 400 vertical feet got me off the big ridge.

I decided to take a more southern route home since I fought with canyons so many times over Klondike bluffs. I took the same wash out of Arches then kept south until I got nearly to the bottom of the white bluffs. I turned north to get back to my truck and was back to the truck before I had to break out a headlamp. I think it took me two hours to get to the summit and one hour to get back. That just goes to show, the most direct route is not always the fastest.

I called Kelli from the truck radio to let her know I was back and had about an hour and a half until I was home. The drive out was in the dark and there were some ledges I had to drive back over but I managed to keep both my bumpers on and didn't rip out my driveshaft so I guess it went pretty well.

I'm glad I got out yesterday. My feet were tired when I got back home and I have some more scrapes and bruises from the scrambling but the sweat and exercise feels good. I need to make sure I keep a good pair of socks in my SOTA pack though, I had on some fancy winter socks that seem to be more decorative than practical and I was close to getting blisters on my heels from the chafing.

The next summit may be an easy one, La Sal Benchmark W7U/SJ-032 or if I'm feeling really froggy and can convice Kelli, maybe we'll climb Merrimac Butte W7U/GR-042 and do a first activation there. Choices, choices.

Joshua

First SOTA Activation W7U/SJ-042

Joshua — Sat, 01 Apr 2023 20:16:00 -0600

I have been too sedentary this past winter and playing radio doesn't help me get motivated either so I decided to try something new, SOTA! For those of you who are unaware, SOTA stands for Summits On The Air. It is a part of the amateur radio hobby where you take your radio, hike up to a "peak" identified by the organization, and make a minimum of four contacts. If you make those four contacts, you then get points for the summit. Depending on the elevation of the summit and the time of year, your points can vary. It's just a game, the points don't buy you anything, but it is fun.

So with this new part of the amateur radio hobby to explore, I built a smaller antenna, grouped some of my light equipment together, and picked a spot to hike to. I didn't want somewhere anyone could get to and I didn't want to hike through 3000 vertical feet of snow so I settled on Cotton Benchmark. This is a sandstone dome down in Indian Creek set atop a long mesa. I ate lunch, my wife packed me some snacks, and I headed out.

The drive lasted about 1 hour and ended on a nice dirt road. I hadn't really realized how big of a mesa the peak was on top of or how hard it may be to get there but I wanted to give it a try. As I drove around the mesa, I found a notch that went quite a ways back and figured that would be my best chance to find a climbable slope to get on top. As I got closer I got more confident. It turned out not to be easy but if you are sure footed, it is possible to shimmy up the stepped sandstone at the head of the canyon.

Once on the mesa, the dome appeared even larger. I truged on, aiming for the north side of the dome that appeared to have a more gradual slope. Turns out the head of the canyon I just climbed was a good prep for the dome itself. Most of the climbing to the summit was smearing on slickrock where you just press you foot into a steep frictiony surface and hope it sticks. It was 600' from the top of the mesa to the summit and I was enjoying the breezy views in no time.

I set up a 23' Spiderbeam mast and my homemade end-fed half wave antenna before setting up my backpacking chair. The temperatures were nice and down among the brush, the wind wasn't too bad.

I called CQ for several minutes on my QCX-Mini before I got a bite. Everyone was sending at a speed I could appreciate (not too fast, not too slow). I was sending about 14wpm. For the next half-hour, I made four contacts; not much but enough. Then someone posted on the SOTA website that I was calling CQ and the flood came. I got the joy of handling a pileup for the next 15 minutes until I decided that was enough and my ears were burning from not bringing a hat on this nice sunny day. I'm not fast on CW but people are patient and it was fun.

Then for a short time I switched to my QDX digital transceiver, made a couple contacts on JS8, and then packed up. It was a good time. The hike down was nothing to write home about. It was quicker than up and I wasn't breathing nearly as hard once I got back to the truck.

In the end I made 15 contact that qualify. I think I'll keep at this SOTA thing this summer and see how it goes. There are over 100 peaks in San Juan County where I live and a bunch more in Grand County right next to me. So here's to getting out, hiking, and playing radio a little!

73 DE KJ7LVZ

Joshua

Tips on Communicating Part 1: Scatter Coms

Joshua — Thu, 16 Feb 2023 22:16:00 -0700

Strange title, right? Here's what this short blurb is about: being focused in communication.

Communication is hard, anyone who is married is likely to know this simple fact. It is difficult to communicate with a husband or wife, our minds work in significantly different ways. There are many books written about communication and how to get your point across. I've read one, maybe two, and they were helpful. But there is something I have learned that I didn't read in a book.

Being a skilled communicator includes being able to stay on topic.

I have many conversations about philosophical, religious, sociopolitical, etc. subjects which makes many of the subjects potentially complex, vague, or abstract. These types of conversations have a tendency to drift. Of course, conversation has a natural course that will lead from one place to the next, but that natural course seems to be accelerated by poor communication practices. When trying to convey an idea, it is important to focus on that idea closely rather than veering off into other, seemingly similar, discussions. Some of our minds work well correlating many different ideas to work together into a larger picture and that is a fun discussion to have but only if the other person you are communicating with is on board with the rabbit trail you want to run down. If you are trying to communicate a complex subject, work at staying on topic and only talk about things that are immediately related to the subject at hand. The person you are communicating with will have a better chance of understanding your point of view if you keep your point narrow and focused.

~Joshua

Drift

Joshua — Sun, 06 Nov 2022 20:49:00 -0700

How do you make sure you are headed where you want to go?

As I sit here trying to remember how to collect my thoughts into something other people will understand, I am thinking about changes in life that go unnoticed for a long period of time. Life changes on us all, and at least for me, a lot of that change isn't noticed until a long time after it happened. Of course, not all change is sudden and often one cannot clearly define the moment a change happened. But once noticed, the change is very noticeable. I'll give you some examples.

I used to travel a lot. I was a wanderer and didn't have much to tie me down. Marriage was a big turning point in my travels but it wan't just that. Even after I got married, I was still a bit of a wanderer. Now... the wandering is very minimal.
Music used to get to me... it used to be more powerful. There were times music would rock my soul and make me feel very strong feelings. Very occasionally I will still find a song (new or old to me) that really moves me but it is exceedingly less frequent.
I used to read more. I've been through a lot of paper books. E-reading never really did it for me though the E-paper Kindle was really cool. Now finishing a paper book is difficult. I listen to a lot of books but it's not the same as sitting down and focusing on the pages in front of you.
Along with reading, I used to write more. I had personal journals, I had a blog I wrote a lot on, I would take notes on sermons, I would write letters to people and put them in the mail, I would write a lot of emails to people just to communicate and share ideas. Now I don't write much at all. This writing right now is a bit of a chore since I'm not well practiced but the exercise is refreshing.

So, looking back at these changes in my life, and many more, I wonder if I'm staill aiming at something specific or if I'm just being driven by my circumstances. I would not willingly give up travel, I wouldn't willingly give up meaningful reading, I would not stop writing on purpose, but these things happened anyway. How does a person stay on track with what plans they have and life with purpose?

What is the meat of this questioning? This isn't just a ramble without a goal. I had a goal when I was younger to intentionally serve in Christian missions. When we got married, Kelli and I set a goal to serve in missions within four years of being married. We had even called some organizations and talked seriously with a few people about how we could serve with them, yet... we still have not. My prayer life isn't what it should be. My studying of God's word isn't what it should be. Keeping on track is hard and drifting away from a goal (specifically a worthy goal) is inevitable if focus isn't maintained.

I used to farm in my 20s. I drove a lot of tractors. In order to drive a straight line, I had to look forward, focus on something in the distance, and maintain a direct path to that far point. But... even when I thought I did great, I would look behind me and see squiggles or arcs in my path showing that I didn't drive as straight as I thought. And even worse, if I looked behind me for too long, trying to figure out where I went wrong, I'd go way off course and it would get worse. I was never great at driving perfectly straight and I feel like plenty of others weren't great at it either which is why GPS controlled farming became a desirable piece of technology.

Just like struggling to drive a straight line in farming, it is a struggle to hold on to meaningful goals in life. New Year's resolutions, anyone? It is important to look behind and see where we've been, evaluate where we actually wanted to be, then look forward again and focus on where you want to go. You may not travel in a perfectly straight line, but maybe with enough reflection, focus, and external direction, you will get where you planned to be.

There are a lot of distractions that have kept me from reaching my goal at this point in life including debt payoff, an appetite for technology, married life, demanding work, and, casting shade over all of that, selfishness. In order to get to where I want to go, I need to reflect, make an adjustment to where I am aiming, and focus on that goal.

God, remind me of your calling for my life. Remind me of the beautiful gospel I have learned of and how so many others are still craving it. Remind me of my wife and the responsibility you have given me over her spiritual and emotional health. Thank you for the opportunities to reflect. Thank you for your persistence in calling me to something bigger than myself. You are worthy of all I have.

~ Joshua

Why It Is Important To Read Revelation

Joshua — Sun, 06 Dec 2020 15:24:00 -0700

From time to time I am asked to teach on a Sunday morning at Church. I plan to continue posting these audio files on this blog. I have thought about posting my notes as well but I'll hold off for now. If you would like to see what my notes look like for a service, let me know and I will consider so.

Enjoy!

Sermon from 6 December 2020 at Moab Community Church (in wait for out new pastor to arrive.)