Day 1- Apparently Friday the 13th starts 4 hrs early. We weren’t even out of Monterey bay when we were stuck in fog with a visibility of 200 meters. When night came it was really quite frightening, having just entered the shipping lanes and San Fran, only 100 miles north, is sorrrrrt of a busy port.
So what do you do in situations like that? Hey, “no problem” I thought, I’ll just switch on our trusty radar. Hmmmmm, where is it? I must have put it somewhere? Ohhhh yeah, they cost 2000 buck, so we don’t have one. That’s ok, I’ll just grab the ol’ “Collision Avoidance Radar Detector” and that will tell us if any ships using radar are in the area. Now I know I placed it somewhere near the stack of gentleman's magazines…wait a second, no, those cost 500 dollars, so we don’t have one of those either. We do, however, have a phenomenal 50$ radar deflector, so assuming it’s “deflecting” well, and that Vlad the Russian captain isn’t into the Vodka yet, is awake, and WANTS to avoid hitting us, well then they will HAVE to avoid us. After all, we might scratch their paint. Oh YEAH, I can always blow our fog horn or, errrrr no, that’s not a fog horn, it’s a conch shell. Shit.
No that’s not good enough. There must be another option. What’s that I hear? Someone else’s fog horn? Protocol states they are supposed to blow it every minute. I’ll just bring them up on the radio and let them know we’re here:
“Yes, hello, this is Mr Perfect (thrice)…Yes, you there, ahoy… huh, no, I am not kidding, our boat is named Mr Perfect. What’s that? Yes, I know he was a WWF wrestler. Yes, I know that he had a sweet gerry curled mullet, that he spat and swatted his gum from the turnbuckle, that his rival was Ricky the Dragon Steamboat AND that his signature move was the perfect plex. NO, we DID NOT name the boat after him. Why do I know so much about wrestling then? I spent my childhood in 80’s rural Canada pal, guilt by association. We’re trying to be ironic, actually, you know? A 27 ft boat named Mr Perfect, it’s IRONIC. Get it? Good.
Now, back to you blowing your horn like some bombastic fool. What’s your heading? This is ours. Where’s our horn blow? I am blowing on it right now, hear it? No? How about a Fox 40 whistle? No? Well that’s ok, this our heading and position, and you see that big blip on your radar? Yeah? Well that’s us, now stay out of our way, MAN, we’re heading to Hawaii! Yes, in a 27ft boat. No we’re not crazy, I already told you, we’re PERFECT!!!”
This is why Rich handles all radio communications.
The wind also died in this fog so we motored till we were free of it. The wind picked up and was fairly consistent until we were almost there….
Day 2- Scarrios, Alfagetti, Zoodles. It’s all I want to eat. The nostalgia is so thick I feel like I should be catching an episode of the Dukes of Hazard. They’re already dwindling in supply, what am I going to eat for the next 2 weeks?
Day 6- Chunky soup, primed rib and beef, it’s all I want to eat. Supplies are dwindling, whatever will I get addicted to for 2-4 days next? Anything that falls into the pot in the shape of the can is, apparently, alright with me.
Day 7- My Barometer is rising- By day 7 I wrote this in my college ruled notebook: Do you have any idea what it’s like to cook when every damn thing you put down, unsecured, falls on the ground? When you boil water and then hit a wave and the water splashes on your leg? When just when you think you’ve planted your feet properly to balance well enough to go “hands free” and try and slice or stir something you hit a wave and smash your head on, well, anything in the vicinity of the sink? Do you? Do you really? You’re rocking side to side for 20 days, every 5 seconds getting tossed; you know, it strains the patience, that’s all I’m trying to say. Dr Phil might claim I have some anger management issues when he sees what it does to me, and to Rich for that matter. I would take that arrogant fat bastard and shove him inside our boat so fast….well anyway, it’s tough to keep your cool, but you actually do learn to control your anger and to live with it, and even grow as a person with each mishap. The learning became so valuable that I’d might even go so far as to say I learnt to look forward to things going wrong. Sailing is just such an esoteric experience mannn.
Day 8- WHAT THE F^%$ is that damn noise- There is one other thing that keeps the pressure welled inside you, and that’s the odd noise that permeates the boat JUST when you’re falling asleep. The DREADED can of food that comes loose and rolls around just enough to keep you awake, but not often enough to justify getting out of bed and unpacking the storage until you find the culprit. Or that fork, that damn fork that just won’t stay away from the other metallic objects and makes that little “clink, 10 seconds, clink, 20 seconds, clink, 5 seconds, clink, wake up Jeff, clink”. My favorite, however, was the can of food that DIDN’T actually exist. It took me 4 days to find it, the SOB! One 2am sleepless night, jumping to my feet like a cat I sat poised over the main storage area with headlamp and all, ready to kill. You needed patience for this one though. It only happened when there was a decent roll of the boat. Could be 20 second intervals, could be 2-3 minutes. I didn’t care, I was going to win. It turned out that it was the door of the cockpit sliding in its grooves, which was close enough to the storage that it sounded like it was coming from all over the place. I shoved duct tape in there so hard that that piece of wood never knew what hit it. Victory.
Day 9-15 - Read A LOT. Showered A LOT. Nights became more tolerable with the increasing heat. I had now gone over 25 days without eating Island Farms ‘Moose Tracks’ Ice Cream. Withdrawal symptoms are getting worse. And people think heroin is tough. Bah.
Day 16-19- I think I’ll leave it to Rich to speak to the lack of wind because I’m still recovering from the frustration. In Moby Dick, H Melville has a quote though that I feel captured the feeling that washes over you when the wind, when it has been non existent for hrs on end, picks up again: “The crew cheered that so promising an event should so soon have falsified the evil portents preceding it.” He was referring to the abatement of a typhoon, but hey, no wind sucks as well folks.
I will however mention one of the strangest things that has ever happened to me, and has shaken my insolent atheism.
On day 18, after sitting and sweating for 8hrs with no wind we finally decided to try the motor for a while, if only to get some breeze (we were 250 miles out with only 50 miles of fuel left) and cool off. Somehow Rich was able to get a radio station from the Big Island (then about 140 miles S of us), a classic rock station no less! I heard him yell from the front of the boat “Hey Weaver, guess what song is on?” Now, the absolute second that I heard the chorus of “oooooooo Dreeeeeeamm Weaver, I need you to get me through the niiiiiiiight” i heard a breath taken in behind me. It was a giant Dolphin, almost as large as a killer whale (it was the bull). He swam around our boat to the chorus of “dreeeeeam Weaver”, then turned on his back and slowly crossed undeneath the boat, looking up at us. Was he smiling? If he had hands I’d swear he would have waved. Off in the distance we could see his “charge”, about 5-8 dolphins breaching and playing around. Pretty memorable.
And that’s just it. Even at my worst, whether it be no wind, overheating, underslept, lurching like crazy, and banging my head on things, some bird would chirp around the boat and chill me out. Although birds are all we saw until we hit the dolphins, there is something so comical and chilling about seeing a small bird flying around your boat while you are 1000 miles from any land at all. Sucks to be you bird, so what am I worked up about?
Most of the crossing, outside of the above mentioned funny’s, was just trying to pass the time however you could. Reading reading reading, audiobooks, and sleeping. We talked a lot as well, but could go for a full day or two with little to say, then lots of chatting. You have a lot of time to think, almost too much time, but are often too tired or out of it to come up with any really introspective first discovery’s. Still, it was some very valuable alone time.
Oh yes, to answer a popular question (you read all this probably just to find this out…sorry). This was my 6th time on a sailboat, and I was never once seasick, and neither was Rich. He has also sailed more than 6 times.
If i have offended anyone of Russian origin, i do apologize most profusely. Not all Russian sea captains are drunk at night, only half off them are...ha! Pity me, I am but a simple 7th gen Canadian mongrel, i don't know any better.
