Lord’s Pocket, AK, 14-AUG-2018 — I’m not writing as much as I’d like. To be honest, as much as I feel I should. Traveling in Caro Babbo has become life, it is not an adventure or a vacation. It is our life, or at least my life. Jennifer is feeling she has had enough of this trip and wants to return home, wherever that is now. But we are headed south and it is nice traveling.
We’ve traveled from Juneau to Baranof Warm springs, after Tenake springs, and then Cosmos Cove.
Cosmos Cove was lovely. It is wide with nothing particular to recommend it looking from a chart, but from inside it is silent with a focused view of the mountains across the strait. The trip to Cosmos had been a long 10 hour motor with mirrored water rather than the predicted 10-15 knots. We’ve been shadowed recently by two sail boats, Laiva and Balloon. We’d seen Laiva in Juneau, where it sat empty for a few days before showing signs of life.
My Caro Babbo life is different that my non-Caro Babbo life — I don’t think of myself as living anywhere in particular, other than with Jennifer, so one way to divide my life is on Caro Babbo and off. Of the past 26 or so months, 15 of them have been aboard.
Away from Caro Babbo I keep a daily journal, mostly details of where I am and what I have done that day. Each day is journaled at 5.30 am the next morning. I exercise each morning as part of starting my day, along with making coffee for Jennifer and showering.
Making coffee for Jennifer is all that remains. The months and months aboard are not recorded other than the ships log, which is kept by Jennifer.
The sense of accomplishment that traveling from place to place up and down the inside passage diminishes. It is part of life, and enjoyable life, one which gives me pleasure, but the sense of accomplishment lessens as this life becomes routine.
Here in Lord’s Pocket, today’s promised wind may have arrived. All predictions were for 15 knots this morning in South Chatham Strait, lessening in the afternoon.
I learned in Port McNeil in 2016 about calling vessels in whatever strait lies outside the current harbor to ask about conditions. I never have before this morning, but I did.
Yesterday was an easy motor from Cosmos Cove to Baranof Warm Springs. Some towns feel like returning home; both Tenake and Barnof feel like returning home. The winds were out of the south at six or seven. We wanted to arrive when we expected the boats that were leaving would already have and those that were arriving would not yet have.
We hit the timing on the money and docked on the inside between a live aboard, old wooden fishing boat, which was floating a foot below its waterline and a plastic 36-foot motor vessel, QB, who we’ve seen on AIS in years past. The skipper of QB grabbed lines for us while we docked.
Diagonally across the dock were Laiva and red-hulled Balloon, rafted up together.
We spoke for while with Diane and Marc on Laiva. Laiva’s home port is Port Townsend.
Jennifer said something about what we were doing and Diane responded enthusiastically that we should get together for drinks. Instead of speaking briefly for a few moments with drinks to follow, we overstayed our welcome standing on the dock. New friends and drinks wafted away from us.
We have met so many people on this trip that are wonderful people that we hope to stay in touch with, but sometimes we meet people that we feel we have so much in common with that we lose the sense that they might not feel the same way.
Diane and Marc keep Laiva in Port Townsend but live in separate cities hundreds of miles away. Jennifer has a house in PT, we are rarely there but keep Caro Babbo in Seattle.
Balloon had cast off before we spoke with Marc and Diane. Jennifer and I walked to the falls, explored a trail, walked a second trail to the lake and then decided to use the baths. In Baranof Warm Springs there are tubs that the hot springs water is piped to. We decided to bath together in the center, hottest tub. I walked back to Caro Babbo to get soap and towels. When I returned Jennifer was speaking with Jim from Balloon. Jim has ties throughout PT, he knows Brion Toss and considers himself friends with the sailmaker Carol Hasse, who I’ve spoken with a couple of times, but do not know.
Jim told us the story of the red Balloon and how he and his spouse Anna are living aboard full time. He is a recently retired park service geologist. We spoke for a while, too long, again I suspect. When I suggested drinks, he said he would make arrangements, but it came to nought.
I thought of inviting everyone to breakfast but by 7 am, all three boats were leaving the dock and heading our separate ways, after heading south east though Chatham Strait.
While the water for Jennifer’s coffee was heating, I called Notorius, a 40 meter fishing boat heading up the strait. The weather was reported to be lovely, but a bit rolly, completely calm.
The two mile entrance from the strait to the dock was socked in; we used radar to check for boats not on AIS. There were none.
In the strait there was a two- to three-foot swell but very little wind. Before leaving the entrance we raised our main sail to act as a ”riding” sail so that we would not roll excessively: the mast acts like a pendulum. We watched Laiva, ahead of us, roll from side to side.
As we rounded Point Gardner, the breeze came up; Laiva and we raised sail. The breeze was nice and the favorable current moved us between six and seven knots. In time, the breeze died. Laiva furled her genny and motored; we continued sailing towards Lord’s Pocket, as did it seemed, Laiva. In time our courses diverged and Laiva headed for Rocky Pass, where she would make the current shift to ride the flood halfway through and the ebb the rest of the way, which we’ll do tomorrow, one hour later.
In Southeast Alaska, Seattle is its center, where supplies and technology come from, where one goes for medical care, but Port Townsend seems to be its southern soul. Everyone has been there, many have lived there. Everyone knows everyone else, or so it seems.
As we feel less and less tethered to anyone place, people become the anchors of our lives.
Sent from Iridium Mail & Web.
