Sailing into the Bering Sea and anchoring at night

Inanudak Bay, Umnak Island, The Aleutians, Alaska, US, 14-JUL-2020 10:13 HST — Umnak Island has the distinction of the being the limit of the range of a type of kelp called Bull Kelp. And yep, as we arrived we saw bull kelp. The first we’ve seen since leaving Southern California last fall.

Bull kelp doesn’t, generally, wrap around propellers, so it is not much of a worry. The outer limit of the range of dragon kelp is the Aleutian Islands in general, at a maximum length of 150 ft, it does wrap around props and we have seen it here and we do worry about it.*

We arrived here in the bay at 2:30 am the night before last after motoring for about 16 hours. It was not what we had planned. Well, we had planned on eight hours of motoring. Wind and waves were calm, and, while it was our first time anchoring in the dark, we have anchored several hundred times, it went very smoothly.

We didn’t consult our radar, as we should have, entering the bay. There was no moon, so while we were certain there were no vessels anchored here, unless they had an anchor light, there was no way short of bumping into one to know if one was here. Yes, it was that black.

We set a couple of anchor alarms and went to sleep. Attached to land in a safe harbor allowed us to sleep for hours uninterrupted. It was lovely. I did the same last night and feel very awake and rested.

We have been corresponding with other boaters, both the crew from Hawaii and boaters who have sailed and are sailing through this region.

We’ve become particular friends with Thomas and Anja on SV Robusta transiting from Japan and just realized we were thinking of hurrying our plans so we could meet them in Dutch Harbor. Wait a minute, we realized. We will never be this way again. Not in our lives. We can meet Anja and Thomas in other places.

As I write this the wind has shifted to the east, between ENE and ESE, with very strong gusts. It looks like we may have dragged a bit as the anchor resets, but our granularity is so fine that we can tell the anchor has moved ten feet and in what direction. Previously drag was measured in boat lengths as the minimum one could assess and generally by keeping an eye on things ashore.

The anchor is doing fine as the gusts move into the 30+ knot range.

I have time to think and read and reflect on this time of life as my cohort group moves to the top of the generational pyramid and some have started to leave the stage.

I think this fall, winter and spring will be a time of visits. Inviting friends to come stay for weeks or more, if they would like. We contemplate organizing a large gathering at a house Jennifer owns in Phoenix, if it is not rented for Christmas.

We have the means this year to help those who can’t afford to travel to do so. We have more than one friend who is looking down the wrong end of the gun barrel of mortality. A mix of friends and family who don’t know the same stories is a great opportunity to retell those stories and find, occasionally, that our memories of the events barely overlap, other than knowing, through physical evidence that we must have been there together.

On Caro Babbo, we plan when we will travel and what the weather will be like. It is so difficult here to predict what the weather will actually be, despite what the forecasting software says.

Today, I should start working on the bilge pump situation. I can assemble a fully working automatic bilge pump from the remaining pieces that do work.

Of the things I am buying for Caro Babbo, and I am buying major, reputable brands, more than 50% fail during warranty.

To list a few things:

The new ventilation fan failed after a few days. It seems to be the motor.

The wheel drive on the auto helm failed after a few hundred hours (I think many fewer) on the trip from San Diego.

One of the two electronic float switches failed within a month of installation.

The new Rule-Brand bilge pump failed.

It also seems that our Vesper XB-8000 AIS Transceiver (it is not a Transponder no matter what the marketing lit says) looks like it is starting to fail after three years.

I must increase the number of spares I carry on board to include single point of failure electronics like the AIS Transceiver and the Iridium Satellite communicator.

Bouncing around on anchor is always nerve wracking when the winds are high and gusty. Once the question of dragging crosses one’s mind it never leaves. Even writing a post like this the topic continually comes to mind.

It is quite cold. The cold causes lots of condensation inside the boat and makes us reconsider stripping naked in the cold to go into the hot springs that name this cove, should we ever get ashore. With the wind being such that we will not launch the dinghy, the point is moot. (Launching the dinghy requires lifting a 148 pound boat vertically in the air before guiding it into the water. We’d rather not have that type of missile, attached to a halyard, flying around our foredeck.)

We still have a lot of distance to cover. 100 nautical miles to Dutch Harbor, then an additional 550 to Kodiak. So we have distance to travel in the coming weeks. The goal will be to day hop 30 miles per day on average, so that is 23 days to travel to Kodiak and then onto wherever we will leave the boat for the winter. We’ll stop somewhere for four or five days waiting for parts, most likely. I expect we will replace the Vesper.

Some things are as envisioned. We are safe and warm at anchor. We have had the teak main-cabin doors closed, which make the cabin very much like a club room: teak paneled and fully enclosed. Yesterday afternoon I put in the plexiglass drop boards turning the cabin into an anteroom for the world outside, We look into our cockpit whenever we glance in that direction. The insular snugness of the cabin has been voided.

I also envisioned us watching videos together. I downloaded a bunch from Netflix, but leaving a week late because of my injury meant that the licenses expired as we arrived. We found we did not like to watch videos underway.

Tonight will be less relaxed than the last two, if the wind does not die down. But we’ve used this ground tackle in larger winds and all has worked well.

We will start moving to Dutch Harbor soon, and then onward and eastward. We’re in a place where few cruising boats venture. There is a feeling of accomplishment in that.

Now, if the weather would let us go ashore.

*The excellent book, ”Field Guide to Seaweeds of Alaska” by Mandy R. Lindberg and Sandra C. Lindstrom is the resource for this information.
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