With the long blog silence, we could have sailed to many different places in the Pacific. Boats that we left Alaska with are now in Mexico, Port Townsend, the Gulf Islands, and a few are even still up in Alaska. Here is the story of how we got to where we are.
After the last blog post (Sand Point, AK), I took off headed northeast, not quite the direction towards home. A short day-sail side by side with our friends on Hoptoad brought me to anchor in Fox Bay. Sophie had flown home about a week before and my dad’s flight to Dutch Harbor was turned around due to weather, so it was just me and our stuffed bear aboard.
Our friends on Torrea were already at anchor in Fox Bay and Manaia showed up a few hours later. While we enjoyed the many remote and wild anchorages through the Pacific, it was nice to have company for Kuaka’s final night at anchor.
After a quick walk and beer ashore with the Margie and Sonny from Hoptoad, I motored back to Kuaka and rolled up the MV Sea Tomato (our dinghy). I’d been debating all day whether to head Lazy Bay on the south end of Kodiak, or to snatch the nice looking weather window to head further across the Gulf of Alaska. One final look at the weather forecast sealed the deal and I stowed Sea Tomato below and the outboard motor in the cockpit locker. A low pressure system was passing well to the north, causing 15-20kt southerlies in the forecast clocking around to westerlies in a day or two. I figured that, while it might be gray, cold, and rainy, strongish favorable winds would at least get me to SE Alaska.
I headed out the next day with calm winds. Just as land dissapeared behind some clouds and murk, the wind filled in to a steady 15 knots from the SSW and I unrolled the code zero for a fantastic sail. Over the next two days the wind slowly backed to the west, then WNW, and I alternated between code zero and poled out jib with the full main, making good progress despite a lot of marine growth on what was left of our bottom paint (not much).
There isn’t a whole lot to write about the passage, other than that it was wonderful. The wind picked up around day 3 and I continued to broad reach or run. Around this time I decided to head directly for Astoria rather than SE Alaska or Neah Bay. Another low was forming, and, as long as I could maintain speed and get far enough south, I should be able to make it home without any upwind or unpleasant sailing. Sure enough, the weather forecast verified (not something that we were accustomed to from the Aleutian weather), and came around to about 25kts from the SSW. I saw a few ships and read a lot of books. It probably says something that I was totally content with 11 days of gray, slightly drizzly weather. I even experienced my second tsunami warning at sea. On July 30, a day before arriving in Astoria, an 8.8 earthquake occured off the coast of Kamchatka (where we had just been). Lots of boats vacated west coast ports, making for a sleepless night of dodging small boats without AIS or good radar reflectors.
The next morning Kuaka motor-sailed across the Columbia River bar in company with a classic west-cost fish boat, probably one of the many boats that I had avoided the night before. After 11 days of great sailing, and a few hours of motoring, I was almost home, although it was completely invisible through the thick fog. As I popped out of the fog it turned out that there were boats everywhere, including two US Coast Guard motor lifeboats spinning donuts in the shipping lane.
Sophie and my parents had come out to the south jetty to wave a greeting, and they snapped this picture as I dropped sail and motored in. I emerged from the fog into sunny skies, a calm river, and familiar looking hills. Also, the first real trees since leaving Rishiri.
Kuaka’s arrival at the Port of Astoria west mooring basin was probably the closest we’ve come to a collision with another boat in the entire time we’ve owned Kuaka. It turns out that a boat with 13′ beam simply doesn’t fit into a double slip with another sailboat, but no collision occurred and I got to fill up with diesel before figuring out where to tie up. For the record, the other boat was in our assigned slip.
Family from as far away as New York and DC just happened to be in town, so we had a wonderful visit on the dock before doing some post-passage tidying. Sophie was happy both to see me, and that her home for the last 4 years had made it back intact. The only time that this was in question was when the high-water bilge alarm went off in the middle of this passage and I found water gushing from under a settee seat. I luckily tasted it (fresh not salty), and quickly found and replaced a loose water hose.
Kuaka had made it to her home port (to which she had never traveled before), and was ready for a good rest after a loop of most of the Pacific Ocean. Since leaving Seattle we had sailed 40 miles short of 20,000 nautical miles in 17 months.
About a week later we hauled out for what we thought would be some minor work before going into long-term dry storage.
We started off with the usual scrub, sand and bottom paint, including a color change from blue to gray.
Which was followed by soft serve at the Custard King (a must visit if you are in Astoria).
We also had on the list to replace the rudder bearings and weld a small pit in the aluminum near the water intake for the head. Some further exploration resulted in the complete removal of the head and a larger repair than anticipated. While corrosion is common under heads (bathrooms), it appeared that there was a small area of bad aluminum and / or some spilled cleaning fluids. Bleach in particular can cause major issues for aluminum.
Luckily Kuaka is well built, aluminum is as strong as new when repaired, and Astoria has great welders. After removing the concerning area of plating (much smaller than what we cut out, but we wanted to make the weld cover a frame and a stringer), we realized that we were probably okay. Of the 3/8″ plating, we had lost at most 1/8″ to corrosion. But it did look really scary.
With the hull repaired and the rudder put back in (quite a process), Kuaka was off to long term dry storage. This will be her home for at least the winter and spring – although we’re hopeful that a slip will open up in the Astoria mooring basin.
In the meantime, we’ve been settling back into life on land. We’ve moved to Portland and Sophie is enjoying her new job – she flew home to interview for it when I was in Tonga. I am back to the same forestry work that I was doing prior to the trip. We’re also embarking on a new adventure:
No – not harvesting Christmas trees. The careful observer might notice that Sophie’s tum is a bit rounder than when she was sporting bikinis in Bora Bora. That’s not the result of a return to cooler climates, but because Kuaka’s newest crew member is growing inside of her. We’re expecting him to arrive sometime around Feb 14th. We did harvest a Christmas tree though, and have adorned it with two suitable ornaments.
It’s not quite Kuaka, but close. We find ourselves almost daily thinking about where we were a year ago. Last Thanksgiving was celebrated on Abaiang in Kiribati, and a year ago today we were on passage between Tarawa and Majuro. It was about 100 degrees Fahrenheit, raining, squally, upwind, and Sophie had a stomach bug. We got our Pacific Proa ornament at a little store in Majuro the day after we finished the passage.
We feel incredibly lucky and privileged to have visited the countries we did, to have sailed all of those miles, and to do it on a safe, sturdy, and fast boat that had basically no issues over almost 20,000 nautical miles, two hemispheres, and 9 time zones. We are also so lucky to have arrived back home, even if it is to a country that feels more divided and fraught than the one we left. We are excited for the next adventure, and sure hope that he likes sailing!