Thursday, January 14, 2010

A really mellow New Years on the Alizé that gradually became the opposite of mellow.


So - it was a simple idea, ring in the new years while bobbing around on an anchor. The weather was wet and mild. It was cold but a dead calm - no wind. We had loads of great food and drink, we had a stack of Uno cards, good music, good friends - this was lining up to be a real easy going New Years celebration.


So, we put on the rain gear and crossed Puget Sound to my favorite little nook, the mooring balls on the South end of Port Madison - very quiet, very quaint - a sleepy little spot.
This was sort of the high water mark for the evening and for me. At this moment you will notice we have full electricity in the cabin. The dinner came together without a hitch. I still have a look of confidence in my face - that will soon disappear (as will the electricity).
Okay, at this moment I am realizing I have a fever from a cold that I had previously been in denial about. This is not interesting except - due to the head cold, i wasn't thinking straight and forgot to switch batteries to the deep cycle. So...we lost electricity and that means we would not be able to start the engine in the morning. So we would have to sail back to my slip under sail. No big deal, I have done it before, as long as the winds are agreeable - everything will be gravy.

Aside from that - morale is soaring.



Midnight came, and under lantern light we wrote down our new years resolutions and burned them in the fire. My resolution was to remember to switch my battery to the deep cycle.




And then we played Uno which everyone excelled at, except me.




Then the next day, things became harrowing. As we began our sail home, the quiet Puget Sound picked up from a dead calm to a freakish gale. I had to drop all sails and put up a reefed main to keep the Alizé from heeling over uncomfortably.

With only a reefed main I couldn't make progress sailing upwind, so I resigned to running downwind. This meant saying goodbye to Seattle. If I had the engine, which i normally do, none of this would have mattered because I can grind the diesel into the wind.

In an attempt to keep the boat from breaching in the 5-6 foot breaking surf, we continued to run downwind. My hat flew overboard. The boat began hydroplaning, thereby exceeding hull speed. Lisa became sea sick. I will admit that I really didn't have much of a plan at this point.

We continued to run downwind. Fortunately, there is a lot of water downwind. If we had to, we could have hydroplaned all the way to Canada. This would not have been pretty, but I took comfort knowing that it was an option on the table.

Ultimately we made an emergency sail into Edmonds Marina at hull speed and hoped for the best. Which is what we got. Nobody had any a priori knowledge of the layout of the marina, but we soared in and were relieved to find this large fishing boat with huge metal handrails all around its deck. I plowed in, turned the bow into the wind to kill the speed, then tipped it towards port so that the crew could grab onto the rails and lash lines around cleats so as to secure our vessel before the winds grabbed us again and spit us into the breakwater.

And that was it, our ride was over. I felt like Sandra Bullock in Speed. Freeny said he felt like Keanu Reeves in Speed, but I have always had a thing for Sandra Bullock, so that's where my mind went.

Incidentally, nobody was taking pictures for this part of the sailing trip. So, the only images we have are these, the aftermath shots once our vessel was strapped to the Edmonds Marina.

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

fireside chats





video


video


What's good enough for FDR is good enough for Alizé. This was the debut sail for the new fireplace. Things went well, in that the only thing that burned down were the cedar logs we picked up at 7-11. In the future i will find a cooler source for my fuel. Maybe driftwood, maybe dura-logs, maybe old shoes.

Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Dickinson Newport solid fuel stove






the fireplace installation -
steve and i mounted the unit on the starboard teak bulkhead in the main cabin with a sheet of stainless steel behind it -

there's a three inch steel stove pipe threaded through a 4 1/4 inch hole in the deck, the balsa core is epoxied and sealed against the rain - a teak winch mount was installed to keep the chimney top level in regards to the slope and curve of the deck, the medieval looking flue cap should keep out the backdraft
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so far so good, many warm fires ahead

Friday, October 16, 2009

Huge Day for the Captains Log



that is shala in the upper left corner out sailing last summer, she is featured in the Underway section of "Latitude and Attitudes", which is the creme de la creme of the 'pirate/Jimmy Buffet' genre of sailing publications, so ya know...

my boat is finally on the express trains to complete stardom

very exciting

Monday, September 28, 2009

video

Monday, September 14, 2009

pink salmon running off Meadow Point

Sunday, September 6, 2009

humback whale in Barkley Sound

video
We had a couple of nice encounters with humpback whales and Orcas in and around Barkley Sound.

None of these moments were captured on film.
This tiny clip is all we had.

Unless Newman has more footage? Newman...talk to me.

good wind in the West Entrance of the Straight of Juan de Fuca

video

I would never speak poorly of my crew, they are the lifeblood of each successful voyage in the Alizé. But, if I could change one component of the crew's behavior - it would be the amount of drinks they spill.

It is one thing to get your sea legs, but it is another thing to get your sea hands - this takes weeks.

taking out the dingy

video

I don't know much about comedy, but for my money, nothing is funnier than 2 guys in a little boat - especially when Kitson is wearing his Miami beach outfit.

Thank goodness Captain has his own private kayak.

autohelm

the good news is that this mechanical autohelm works, the bad news is the amount of duct tape I used to get it to work -

back to the safe waters of Friday Harbor in the San Juans



sometimes houses like to get out on the water as well.

what are you kidding me?





I'm not saying it was like this every day, but we had our moments of plenty.