Under and Over

Bob and I spent an afternoon taking care of odds and ends on the boat.  The first goal was to climb into the wet suit, swim under the boat, and check out the keel, rudder, and anodes.  I expected to learn as much from the diving as from looking at the underside of the boat.

I've been on more than one cruise where the prop got wrapped up in a poorly placed crab pot line (poorly placed being any location within fifty yards of my propeller).  The bloody things are everywhere.  When it happens, what are you going to do?  If you're in the south pacific, you go for a swim.  If you're in SE Alaska you suffer - or you have a wetsuit along.  The suit is new, so I wanted a trial run in friendly waters.  Getting into the suit is hot business on a sunny day, so it actually felt good to get into the water.  Unfortunately my weight belt is about half as heavy as it needs to be to let me under the boat.  That is exactly the kind of thing that a trial run is intended to find, so in that it was a brilliant success, even if I didn't accomplish anything else.  Next time.

Rod sneaking up on the water...

The second objective for the day was to run up the mast with Bob keeping a firm belay.  Here again I had two accomplishments in mind: install a new Windex (the boat has never had one under my ownership), and try out my new ascending system.  I tied my home built etriers (French for stairs) up the mast with the spare halyard.  The etriers are forty steps tied into 165' of nylon webbing to span the 55 foot mast.  You can see them in the next couple of photos.  Hoisting myself up one step at a time, Bob just had to belay me with the halyard winch on a redundant line (the topping lift).  I also clipped my harness into the steps periodically along the way.  Arriving at the top, Bob placed the necessary tools in a bag and I hauled them up with a tag line.  I installed the new Windex fairly quickly.  The Windex shows the angle of the boat with respect to the wind.  Then Bob lowered me to the deck and we were done.  It wasn't until we were cleaned up and put away that we discovered the shaft that goes on top of the Windex to keep the birds off of it.  It was lurking at the bottom of the box.  Hey!  What's this doo-hickey? Oh well; it'll wait.

You're going to trust your life to that knot?!

At 55 feet, it's only high if you think it is.  I keep telling myself that...

Photos by Bob Bennet

Charts are a wrap with help from our friends

The voyage from Fremont to Juneau will take us exploring the Inside Passage in-depth. Up fiords, circumnavigating islands, exploring shorelines and crossing expanses of open seas.  Although Quijote has excellent electronic navigation systems, having a full set of paper charts is not only a good back-up, it will be a daily event for the crew to review, explore and plan on the paper charts for the route ahead. 

With about 60 charts needed for this trip, it's not a minor expense to have a full set.  A big thank you to John Green and John Hastil for loaning us many of their charts to complete our set.  You'll both be with us on this trip!  Thanks for your encouragement, good will and huge savings!

We have ignition

Yes there are motors on the good ship Quijote!  There is a gorgeous diesel engine down below and this little 4 HP kicker motor for use on the dinghy.  In the looking down angle pic above you can see the motor stored on the back of the sailboat with a blue bucket full of water underneath.

Last weekend we could not get this little 4-stroke Yamaha outboard engine to start when were testing it out in Puget Sound.  So dockside yesterday, Rod and I rolled up our sleeves and checked out the two key variables in more detail; fuel and spark.  After taking a look at the spark plug and confirming fuel, we concluded there was nothing wrong with either.  So we tried starting the motor and it came to life.  The good news is that the motor started - quite easily.  But we wish we knew why we had not been able to start it out on a pitching dinghy.

Support and Positive Vibes

This picture of the good ship Quijote passing thru the Ballard locks in Seattle was taken by one of the many people who are supporting our upcoming trip is unexpected ways.  In this case, the photographer was a friend of Sue and Bob named Kelly.  She had assisted that day by dropping us off (and picking us up) at the marina where Rod keeps the boat.  Then she surprised everyone by showing up at the locks and waving us off on one of our practice sailings!

The point is, there are many people who are helping with the upcoming trip.  As a reader of this blog, you may be one of them!  We thank each of you, even if you are just sending positive thoughts our way. 

You may notice that we are privileged to be going on a beautiful sailing boat.  In the image above we are passing thru the "small locks" in Ballard which are really nifty since the wall that we tie up to actually slides up and down with the changing of the water level!  This means we do not have to loosen/tighten the lines as the boat is raised or lowered.  Somebody was clearly thinking when they designed those locks.....

The Planning Continues

A trip like takes a tremendous amount of planning.  Recently the crew met over dinner at Frederic and Marta's lovely home in Redmond, WA. to get to know each other and discuss important trip details. 

In this photo we see our Captain Rod - pouring over a map.  That is Fredric on the left speaking to Kay.  Sue is partially seen in the background.

We also had an incredible dinner that night and realized what great cooks both Frederic and Marta are! 

The first of two preparation cruises for the IPT

We put together a familiarization cruise last weekend in preparation for our Inside Passage trip.  Rod, Kay, Bob, Sue, Frederic and Marta participated - great crew, great weather.  Almost everything worked out as planned.  Six people on board was cozy, but it wasn’t so bad that it felt too crowded.

Frederic and Marta joined us and departed at shilshole, but the delay in the start time worked out well because it gave the fog time to dissipate.

On the way through the locks we tied up next to a woman who had bought a boat for herself for her 30th birthday and was also heading to Liberty Bay with a flotilla of a dozen CYC boats.  That concerned us a bit as we imagined hoards of people and boats competing for dock and anchor space on a gorgeous Saturday afternoon, but we needn't have worried.  Liberty Bay has ample transient moorage and acres of anchorage.  We never even saw them again.

We practiced anchoring, using the jack lines, did a man overboard drill, pumped up the dinghy, did plenty of sailing in lovely sunny, windy weather, and got used to cooking onboard and on the barbecue.  Everyone slept comfortably and got along famously.  

On the way back as we were transiting the locks the tide was so low it was difficult to see all the tourists that normally look down from above us.  Suddenly flowers started raining down on the boat from above.  Someone was showering the decks with purple flowers.  It wasn’t until the level of the water in the locks had risen and we were almost up to the level of the crowds that we noticed Frederic and Marta lurking in the background with grins painted on their faces.  What a hoot those two are.  They had driven around from Shilshole to greet us as we transited the locks.  This week they're off to France.

The only thing that didn’t work well was the outboard motor.  We never did get it to start, so I’ll have to figure that out this week.

Inside Passage blog Introduction

This is a sailing blog for our Inside Passage Trip on the Sailing Vessel Quijote (our so called IPT on SVQ).  Planning is still under way and the boat is moored at Northlake Marina on the north end of Lake Union.  On the 15th of May, we will transit the Ballard Locks and dock the boat in Seattle's Shilshole Marina before an early morning departure on the 16th to head north.  Going North to Alaska! Our furthest point North will be Glacier Bay with a rough return date of August 27.

The trip has been broken into a dozen segments that range in duration from 4 to 14 days.  The segments are intended to have easy access for crew who will join and depart the trip.  At this point there is still ample opportunity to join the fun.  We have the desired two persons minimum for each segment thanks to Kay who signed on for the entire trip.  A few of the segments are full, but many of the remaining segments have room for two or three crew, so please contact Rod (that's me) at roderick.g.mercer@gmail.com if you'd like to inquire about participating.

The primary requirement is that crew members be easy to get along with.  Flexibility, consideration, tidiness, a desire to learn and to contribute in whatever way you can go a long way toward making the trip pleasant for everyone.  Sailing and cruising experience is also helpful, but not necessary.

The primary costs include fuel, provisioning, and occasional moorage at marinas.  These costs will be figured on a per day basis and divided by the number of crew for that day.  Crew are responsible for personal equipment and for transportation to and from the points of access.

We have two spreadsheets that provide detail on our planning.  The first is a day by day estimate of our intended stops.  The document is likely to change under way as the trip unfolds.  Extra days are padded into the itinerary every few days to allow for days to chill, explore or be delayed by weather or mechanical problems.  It's just a rough guess that allows us to plan for meeting crew along the way, but there is little doubt that it will evolve as we go.

https://www.icloud.com/numbers/000ivvQtPdSAI1JU4YcO-SZoQ#Inside_Passage_Itinerary_2.0

The second spreadsheet shows the twelve segments of the trip chosen for convenient crew access.  There will be a two week break in the middle of the trip with seven segments before and five segments after.  Each row of the spreadsheet is dedicated to a segment that shows where and when we'll arrive or depart and how many crew are currently committed to the segment.  The boat sleeps seven, but six is the maximum crew size that I'd like to accept.  Three or four is optimal.

https://www.icloud.com/numbers/000s2gDj2AcBcqsNgzP7nXx1Q#Inside_Passage_Segments_2.0

The boat is a 2007 Hallberg Rassy 37 of good ocean sailing pedigree.  It is in excellent condition and quite comfortable for its size.  I've owned the boat since November 2014.  I've been offshore a couple of times on other boats, down the west coast and across the Atlantic, but the bulk of my cruising experience has been in coastal bare boat charters: Jan Juans, Gulf Islands, Sea of Cortes, Thailand, Vietnam, Croatia, Greece.