Belly of the Whale

“There are Two things a Sailor Cannot do: Sail into the Wind and Pee into the wind.”
—George Shimert
A Story of Not Quite Making My Destination.


Preface:
There is nothing “crazy” about this story. I don’t want any of those, “Oh,….you’ve got to be more careful…..yadda, yadda” emails. This is sailing, for god’s sake! This is just how it is sometimes. It isn’t nearly as bad as it sounds, I promise. Because I hadn’t seen anything like it before, I focused on the details and the intensity, which tend to make it all seem a bit exaggerated to me. But it wasn’t all that dangerous or anything like that, just intense and powerful. And not that I don’t want you to write—I live alone out here—please write, but I thought I would go ahead and quell the obligatory objections that always arise from my “less than calm” stories.

Have you ever read the quote by Nelson Mandela, “There is nothing like returning to a place that remains unchanged to find the ways in which you yourself have altered?” It is as if we need landmarks, constants by which to gauge our change. Without them we would not notice how we slowly grow or erode. The same dictum works in other ways as well: the parameter being not space, but time. This is a story about how two similar events, separated by several months, helped to offer me perspective on where I have come.


Monday I left port for Orcas Island in the northern San Juans. I wasn’t set to go until after twelve, so I assumed I would dally around close to home, in the Strait of Juan de Fuca, and catch a mooring ball in Worden State Park, then set out from there first thing in the morning to the islands. The winds were strong leaving Admiralty Inlet and I was having trouble balancing my sails to ease the strain on the tiller. Single-handing without self-steering gear was proving more frustrating than I had anticipated. I wasn’t stoked about three full days of it.
I was taking myself far too seriously.
As soon as I left Admiralty Inlet and entered the strait I realized it was far too nice out, far too nice. It was beautiful; perfect sailing. Why not press on? What was the big deal? Waiting would change nothing. I knew where I was going. The wind was now at my back. I was relaxed and settled. Onward. I took a big breath and resettled in my seat.
Indeed, it was perfect. I made great way heading north toward the islands. I saw but one boat all day. Tonight’s anchorage was on the east side of Lopez Island, the south-eastern most of the San Juans. I dropped my hook just as the sun was setting behind the bay. Watmaugh Bay—it had great cliffed walls and a narrow strait blocked by an islet.
I made a salad and some clam chowder and hit the sack early. When at anchor, I get up regularly to check to see if we are dragging the anchor any. Faulty anchoring is actually the easiest way to wreck your boat. When the tides shift, the direction of the pull can shift as well, loosening an anchor. Or a rising tide can change the vertical pull and dislodge an anchor.

When the morning had come, around six or seven, the wind had shifted all the way around to the north. It was really howling too. The skies were clear, but a high pressure system was over B.C while a low was over Oregon. I figured that was the cause of the northerly. (I could be mistaken.) Watmaugh Bay was north facing, so simply getting out of my anchorage was going to be tedious. I generally try to do everything without my engine, but when anchoring I have it on as a precaution. This instance is exactly why. To keep the bow clear for bringing in the anchor and chain, I don’t usually set my headsail until after I am underway.
I hauled in the anchor. Just before it was up I hoisted the mainsail. The mailsail set as I finish bringing in the anchor. Here, to get out of the bay, I was beating into a headwind with only a reefed mailsail in a narrow bay. I couldn’t get over three knots of speed, the speed I needed to tack (turn across the wind). I had to put my engine in gear to get enough speed to tack, otherwise, unable to change course, I would have drifted into the cliff—there was no other way and no room. So engines do have a valid use after all. (Lesson 1 of this trip.) I got out of the bay without problem.
Now in Rosario Strait, a north-south running channel between the San Juans and the mainland to the east, the wind was coming directly out of the north, directly down the strait—exactly where I was trying to go. No problem, I thought. It was early. It would be slow, but I could tack back and forth, back and forth, slowly making northward way. I don’t remember if I was thinking about the tide or not, but at the time, progress was so slow I was assuming it was working against me. (It turned out that it wasn’t, not yet.)
The weather was invigorating. I dropped the working jib for the storm jib (a smaller headsail). The boat was getting too overpowered, healing over until the gunwales were flooding up to the windows. It was awesome. The intensity, you could feel the power vibrating through the shrouds and lines, all taut with pressure. The swells rolled with great bellies and crests. The crests, meeting the boat on the windward bow, would throw us off the wind. So every time a swell came I had to turn up into it as it pushed us back. This was the rhythm that kept us on course.
Again, headway was so slow with the headwind, the swell on the bow—and I thought the tide as well—that we were hardly making three knots. This slow speed made tacking a bit tricky. I would wait for a gust to get my speed up, and turn up just before a swell would hit. If a swell would hit upon the leeward bow it would push us on over. The real trick, I learned, was to hold the jib to leeward and back it. Normally I would release the sheet and let it flutter as we came across the wind, but now, needing all the help in the world to turn, I realized that by backing the jib, I got an extra bit of momentum to push us through the turn. Once the jib backed, the bow would come fully across, then I could loose the jib and sheet it in on the other side. This was a huge lesson, and I got plenty of practice too.


It is said that the sea seeks out your weaknesses and exploits them. I, being the unpolished and inexperienced sailor, have a plethora of fruit for the picking. For instance, my port-side jib sheet is too long. It must be a spinnaker sheet, a line for a very large, balloon-like headsail. The sheets look alike, one a bit longer than the other. Even though the sheet runs through a block (pulley) and has a knot stopping its end, when I tacked, the sheet was carried overboard by the weather, and because it was so long, it had enough of a bight to carry down all the way to the prop which was free spinning—and there became marred. Just my luck.
It wasn’t even really a mistake. I didn’t do anything all that wrong. So it was a long sheet. Big deal! Well it now was a big deal. I never would have thought that with the end tied it could possibly have gotten that far. From now on I think I will leave my prop locked so lines won’t get wrapped up in it so easily if they do make it there. I had nearly run over a crap trap earlier.
Remember—this is my second time fouling my prop! Oh the shame. At least I noticed this time. At least my motor wasn’t running. At least I know the procedure.
I sailed on. I needed to find somewhere to anchor so I can dive in and un-foul my prop. It was nearly time for lunch anyhow—lets call it a lunch stop. There were some islands dead ahead on the eastern side of the strait. Behind them I could find some shallow water. I wouldn’t even have to tack, which now I couldn’t do without a leeward jib sheet.
To make for the bay behind the island I had to run down wind a bit. What change. When you turn and go with the wind, the seas calm, the wind becomes sedate. You’d swear the weather had changed altogether. The waves seem to loose their muscle and all of a sudden you feel like you are really moving again, which I was.
The anchor stuck hard where I dropped it, nearly in the middle of the bay. It was easy to tell with so much wind weighing on the boat. I didn’t mess around at all. I was feeling warm, knew the procedure. I stripped to my long johns, no socks, clipped on the chest harness, clip-on knife, and webbing to tie myself off with. I tied the webbing off to the stern Samson post, stepped over the stern pulpit, took a few deep breaths, focused and let myself down into the water. I had to regain my breath from the shock of it and then dove right down. I wasn’t quite as methodical, but it seemed to want to come out easily. Three dives did it. I bet not more than a minute, minute and a half tops—but I couldn’t tell you.
I was pretty ecstatic about the success. I had handled it so nonchalantly, a simple matter of course. The last time it had been such an ordeal. I dried off, screamed out with pleasure, naked on deck. Redressed, I ate a sandwich and some fruit. It was then I checked the tides again and realized that the tide was only just then changing. Now the tide would be going out, south to the Juan de Fuca.
Utterly doomed.
There was no way. I knew it. I’d have to anchor out again. I had expected to make Orcas Island and I had gotten only half a mile in four hours. I started looking for good spots on the chart. There were a few mooring balls by state parks that should be great. They were still a ways north, but I still was confident that I could make at least a bit of ground.
During my lunch the seas had grown out in the strait. The swells, still only four feet perhaps, but now coming with the wind and tide, were regularly knocking me off course. It was disheartening and I took it all personally. I saw only one sailboat all day, and he motored past without a sail.
It was brutal. My bow occasionally plunged through a swell like a skewer. It made me question the strength of my anchor lashing, only a double backed clove hitch. Water was flying everywhere. Waves jumped the bow and doused the sails on the other side.
At some point, I snapped out of it—the Nelson Mandela thing—I noticed that things had changed. It was worse now. I hadn’t noticed it gradually, but it was blowing harder, maybe gusting to thirty-five or so. The swells were knocking the shit out me. I realized it was time to go. I was through. The fun was over, the lesson learned. It seemed a gale was on the way.
I hadn’t even gotten anywhere. The bay I had lunched at was still due east. I had made zero northward progress. It was maybe five o’clock. I figured to sail back down and around the island, again, back into the bay and anchor somewhere off the shore, somewhere a bit more protected than where I had been before. I thought better—drop sails and motor into the harbor there in the northern part of the bay. Anacortes was just to the north.
Getting the jib down was a rush and no mean feat. It was done quick and right, but being on the bow, furling sail and then looking down when you feel your stomach drop and you see eight feet of height, the bow dipping fast into the coming, rising swell—then the wave crashes all around you. That lift and drop, lift and drop—like a slowly bucking horse, or a jumping horse, to be like a gargoyle on a prow looking over the streets far below—a fantastic emotion. It was a thrill, but this wasn’t thrill seeking; this was doing what had to be down. And I didn’t want to stay there long and I didn’t.
The weather was so strong that the engine wouldn’t even turn me up into it. There was a cut in between two islands nearly due east. I couldn’t even make it. We had to veer off and go south and around, which was much easier. It is humbling when your engine can’t even head up into the weather.
When we started crossing the bay, heading north-north-east, it was more of the same. We were making two knots, under motor. We were hardly moving—I can walk twice that fast. Was it worth it? This would be a marginal anchorage at best. The marina was out of the question. The fact was we couldn’t go north.
It was time to run.
I then had two choices: to find a safe north-facing anchorage south of us or go out into the Strait of Juan de Fuca and heave-to for the night. Heaving-to is a way of parking the boat at sea in heavy weather. Essentially, you just safely drift half a knot backwards, if done correctly. (When I practice, I always make about a knot of headway, which is not good, but I sum it up to not having enough wind.) This certainly would be a decent time to practice. But anchoring would be much more simple and comfortable. Floating around the Strait of Juan de Fuca all night would be rather lousy.
There was one spot on the map, Deception Pass, which had couple of little coves facing up into the weather. It was hard to say from the chart, but they were only a knot or two away, which, heading south, would only take twenty minutes or so. The sun was already setting, so I was anxious to get there so I could see the lay of the place.
The first spot seemed too small and deep. I’d have to drop very close to shore. If the tide shifted, as it would, the boat could swivel around and wind up on the beach. I decided to check the next spot. This spot gave me a much better feeling despite the fact that it had gnarly boulders jutting out of the water to the lee and east, one quaintly named corpse rock. I devised a plan: I would set my anchor as usual. I would be pulling southward. Off the stern I would pitch out my “lunch hook”, a smaller anchor I keep in my lazarette (aft locker) in case of emergencies (or a quick lunch on a quiet day). This way, if the tide or wind shifted in the night, it would then serve as a primary and would keep me farther from the shore. Even if it were to fail, the original should still keep me safe. This is more precautionary and preventative than necessary. After all, anything could happen out here, and there were some ominously named rocks to suggest just that.
Amazingly, it was a calm night. When the tide shifted the boat didn’t even budge. She sat over her anchor all night, never a tug. After a few checks, I slept the morning hours soundly, and even slept in later than usual. No pressure. I was heading back to Port Townsend now. I needed to wait for a change in winds. The VHF said the winds and conditions were the same for the San Juans, but the Strait of Juan de Fuca was 10 to 15’s, not bad. It should be a pleasant ride home.


As I surveyed my anchorage, I noted that it would be a tricky exit without my engine—I would need excellent exit strategy to pull it off, but I felt it could be done and since it was morning and I was full of vigor and renewed esteem, I had to try for it. The strategy involved something I had learned from the day before, a backed headsail. The wind was faint. When I pulled the anchor, we hardly drifted at all. The engine was running at idle as usual, but this time I had my storm jib hanked on and ready. I figured a way of keeping it out of the way of the anchor, and yet still available. When the anchor was aboard, I raised the jib and sheeted it to port (windward). The calm wind allowed me to do this. This is, in essence, a backed sail, the same theory that helped my tack with low speed. This time I had no speed. I was facing north. The wind was coming over the port from the west. The idea was for the wind to hit the sail and spin me around to starboard / east. The mainsail was up, but sheeted out. When the wind hit, hopefully it would spin me around then I could sheet in the main and gain some speed to run out the back with the wind on my beam, hopefully in front of the rocks. That was the trick. It was sort of a sailing u-turn from a standstill.
I didn’t expect the wind to be so light. We hardly drifted at all. A gentle gust came and, like magic, the bow started to turn to the east. Then more calm. We were slowly turning though. The rocks were lurking, waiting for me to blow it, to drift to far. Then the wind picked up and blew us full around. I sheeted in the mainsail; the jib was now were it aught to be, and we were on a beam reach (90% to the wind) with plenty of room to clear the rocks.
That was my coup of the day.
I couldn’t believe it. It was a great trick. It was perfect. No engine necessary.
Once in the Strait of Juan de Fuca it was lovely soft, smooth sailing. This time the swells, now milder, were at my back. Of course, halfway home, the wind came around nearly 180 degrees, almost to the south, what would have been a great breeze to make Orcas Island on, but I was almost home. We were running seven and a half knots, cruising. The wind backed off to the west, driving me right from the beam. I was home just after lunch.


Parking was a jiff. Parking used to be my most dreaded part of sailing a boat. Did you know I ran over my bike with my boat once. That’s talent!