Month: June 2022

Sitkalidac Strait, Kodiak Alaska, 25-JUN-2020 — I’d never made an actual, conscious decision to convince someone to stay with me. I’d fallen in love before and been in long term relationships but it was never quite as conscious. It was emotions and lust and love and confidence in the world.

But with Jennifer, I was older, over 50. I’d been in love and lost, been in love and destroyed the relationship, been in love and been loved by someone who should have known better, as should have I.

I remember the moment where I made my pitch; it was only a single sentence. It was in the living room of my house. On the wall was, and is painted a red circle, a blue square, and a yellow triangle. They had been there for years overlapping, and somehow incomplete. Two or three years later Jennifer would contribute an oval mirror and the wall would be complete. It is still there now.

I don’t remember what couch we sat on. The couch that is there now I hadn’t yet acquired, the other couch in that room is, in fact, Jennifer’s, so it wasn’t that one. It might have been the love seat.

On my calendar is a date from that year that says that Jennifer broke up with me. So, I expect that the relationship had been at a temporary end and somehow I had gotten her to come over to the house. To pick up something, perhaps.

The pitch was simple, ”We can build something.”

I know I explained a little more, and we discussed getting old together, and I spoke about the reality that at some point in our life together one of us would most likely be taking care of other. And I, probably, since I tell this line to almost everyone, said, ”Every relationship ends in pain. It is the cost of entry. There is only one relationship that will not end up that way and that’s only if you die first.”

We are motoring down the coast of Kodiak Island, slipping through passes between the smaller islands off the coast, and at this moment have the open ocean to the left of us and a Kodiak Island peninsula to the right. Further offshore it is blowing 20 knots, but close to the shore it is often like this: no wind at all, slow langarous, flattened ocean swells slowly rolling. The water is beaten pewter, but the period of the waves does not yield the shapes that we see in all of the native art east of here in the inside passage.

Jennifer and I were talking, marveling really, about how we got here.

We were recounting to each other the trips we’ve made and how far they are outside of how we saw ourselves.

I tell her, though it’s not true, that I promised we would build something together. I didn’t actually promise anything. I said we could build something. I said I promised we would build a life together. Even that’s not true.

But it has come to be the folklore that we build our life together upon.

Alone, neither of us would have done this. I sailed, entirely day sails in Long Island Sound. Jennifer said she didn’t like day sailing anymore and wanted to go places, but so we started.

A start is all it takes, like the start of an oak tree, or a popular, or maple tree. Put the start in the ground and time and the world will take care of the rest.

Tomorrow, at 5:00 in the morning, we’ll start heading southwest across 175 nautical miles of water to Chignik. It’s been a little less then 2 years since we were last there. It’s unlikely that the harbormaster will remember us, but we were just in from Hawaii traveling with the sailing vessel Robusta who was just in from Japan. So it’s possible.

It’s where we met Tim Gervais, and his child. Both of whom became good friends and are close to me.

We’ve been doing day hops, averaging probably 40 miles a day. 175 miles is 5 days at the rate we’ve been going and gets us further down the chain.

This afternoon I will set up the windvane to steer us, rather than using the Raymarine electric autopilot; we’ll return to the magical silence of sailing. The trip should be somewhere around 35 hours, perhaps faster, perhaps slower. We’re on a sailboat, we have a destination not a schedule.

I say, ” I love you, Jennifer.” Jennifer often looks at me quizzically when I say this. Today she responds, ”I love you, too, John. ”
Find out location at Carobabbo.com along with it blog posts

Greville Cape, Kodiak, AK, 23-JUN-2022 – There is not a breath of wind, the rollers are very low. The hoisted main sail keeps Caro Babbo from rolling as we motor 50 nautical miles to our next stop.

Curiously, on the land ahead, the white tall structure is not a lighthouse but a rocket launch tower. I never knew they existed any place outside of Cape Canaveral Florida. I don’t know what they were designed to launch. I wouldn’t think any sort of military missile because we can see the tower 20 miles away.

We’ve gotten over the ”did it always make that noise?” phase of the journey. Some sounds have changed with maintenance changes I’ve made this year. Other sounds were new last year, the result of the replacement cutlass bearing, straightened propeller shaft and balanced propeller; the improper sounds of seven years of cruising are gone but not forgotten.

Yesterday day was an easy day. We’d anchored the night before in a small harbor on Long Island. The entrance to the inner pool was much shallower than any directions we had received.

We took a slip for a few hours at the St. Paul Marina in Kodiak City and were charged, to our surprise, for a full 24 hours. The answer we’ve discovered is to not call the harbormaster: tie up on the transient dock, shop, and then leave. We get the feeling is this is how it’s done, completely with the harbor master’s knowledge, but to make your presence official the harbormaster must comply with the rules and charge.

After spending some time at McDonald’s for fast Wi-Fi and picking up some heavier gauge wire at the chandlery so that I can install some additional cigarette lighter plugs, we motored across the channel to a larger marina where we met Wade and Sara of Comfort Cruising.

Sara told us she was starved for other cruisers and we talked about cruising things. She gave advice on where to anchor in this area, and I gave her the horrifying news about how poorly an IridiumGO actually works.

She had bought one IridiumGO from an unofficial dealer, figured it couldn’t possibly work this poorly, and then bought an official one from PredictWind, which, of course, worked just as poorly.

Their vessel is a 46-foot Beneteau with 5200 watts of solar panels. Enough to run all of their refrigeration and air conditioning in Hawaii!

We learned that Sara and Wade never go into the inner pool on Long Island, so their directions applied solely to the outer pool. Most sailors don’t venture where Jennifer routinely takes us.

The time together went much too quickly. Jennifer and I made a mad dash back across the channel to the fuel dock before it closed, which had been occupied by the Coast Guard cutter, Mustang, when we came through in the morning.

Caro Babbo’s new wet exhaust system works properly, although the sound of the water rushing through the exhaust hose is a little bit different. However, when I turn off the engine something between a pint and a quart of water finds it way into the bilge. This takes about 15 minutes to a half an hour; this is the problem I was trying to solve.

I need to turn on the engine, turn it off and then stick my head down into the bilge while wearing a headlamp to see if I can figure out where this water is coming from.

We started the trip with about 70 days to cover a little over 2,000 mi, there and back. Jennifer is weighing how hard she wants to push. This would be an average of 30 miles per day. If we were to go offshore and sail directly it’s not very hard, but then we miss everything along the way. Jennifer is considering our options.

At the McDonald’s, I bought airfare for myself for September: Seattle – New York – Atlanta – Seattle. I have a high school reunion I want to get to, friends to see, and further work to do on the Willivee house.

If you are in the New York region, or in Atlanta I would love to see you.

Very unusual for us, we have watched the occasional video in the evening. Most cruisers we know watch dozens of movies during the course of a trip. We watch rarely. We generally read, and I keep saying I’m going to write. I also do maintenance.

I need to do an oil change and install additional 12 volt sockets around the boat.

While I was in Homer I installed an alarm buzzer for the Vesper AIS. In addition to tracking all the vessels with AIS, it has a very good anchor drag feature. The device will notify us through an app, but if the screen is off, or the app is not at the top the alarm does not go off. Basically, it’s useless in that form. However, with the buzzer installed the device is able to sound the alarm whether or not any software is turned on. One must install the sound device and a momentary button to cancel the alarm. It works terrifically well and I am actually sleeping through the night, something I have never done except at a dock.

At anchor I generally wake up once an hour to check our swing. This is life changing.

At the fuel dock, we met Christian, who is Philippine. I mentioned that everyone who worked at McDonald’s was Philippine, Christian commented don’t go to Walmart.

He furthered that everyone at the fishing processing plant is Philippine. He’s been here 12 years, since he is 17, worked his way through the processing plant, and now works at the Petro fuel dock. He is a very valued worker because he does not like to sit in an office and wait for vessels to approach the dock: he does electrical work, welding, painting and everything that’s necessary to maintain the dock.

He was married and had a child at age 17 just before he came alone to join his mother who was already working at the processing plant. He spoke no English when he arrived. He finished high school, now speaks perfect colloquial American English and has brought his wife and now two children here. He views himself as an American success story.

As we motor towards the launch site between an island and Kodiak Island, there is a blue sky overhead and haze all around us. The water undulates like satin cloth.

The color of the top of the undulating waves is a light blue almost white, the reflection of the sky, the sides of the waves are in darker blue and now the tiniest little ripples are visible as the water passes by our boat.

The land, a few days ago, was entirely rocks: hard bare and impressive. Here there are sharp peaks, the taller ones are completely snow covered but lower everything is green. On the land there are grasses close to the water. Parts are evergreen forests with large spaces between the trees: lovely for walking. Other places, which look like they should be moss, are dense shrubbery between shoulder and head high, nearly impossible to make one’s way through.

Tomorrow and Saturday are short little hops, and then Sunday is an overnight. There will be wind and waves Saturday night coming from the southeast. We’ll anchor in a place called Japanese Bay which which is open to the Southeast but has a protuberance of land that forms a well-protected cove. We will anchor in that cove.

We’ve been eating very light on this trip as we both arrived carrying the rewards of living the high life. Living alone like this, we are able to live simply and hopefully return ourselves to the image of ourselves we carry around in our heads.

There has been intermittent and unexpected phone and internet service since arriving in Kodiak. I wonder how long it will last. I prefer to be without. T-Mobile just sent me a text about the benefits of banking with them.
Find out location at Carobabbo.com along with it blog posts

Port Chatham, AK, 17-JUN-2020 — Jennifer studies weather and I apologize for being out of touch.

In the two and a half weeks I spent in the Northern Enterprise’s boatyard I completed over 30 tasks, I’m not sure a single one is visible. The invisibility makes me feel as if I accomplished nothing; a lot of the work was physically taxing, and I was unsure whether some of the tasks were successful given I really wouldn’t know until the boat was in the water.

The largest item was replacing the wet exhaust system hoses. Each time we turned off the engine last year, 15 minutes later the bilge pump would kick on and pump perhaps a pint of water out of the bilge.

I decided that there was a leak on the bottom of the exhaust hose that would only leak water after the engine was turned off and the water sat, rather than being pushed out by the exhaust. I replaced the hose from the engine to a right angle coupling in 2016 in Ketchikan. I carried around the guilt of not replacing all of it since then and figured now was the time shed that guilt.

To do so required removing the waste tank, and all of the batteries.

The house batteries were stone dead when I arrived. My guess is that the diaphragm pump had turned on and stayed on though the water in the bilge was frozen. The year before, there was only the impeller pump in the bilge. It jammed on the ice and blew the fuse, rather than drain the batteries.

I charged the batteries for three or four days and then tested with a hygrometer. The house batteries tested little better than water – they were done. The cranking battery tested as brand new.

When I plumbed the waste tank, I plumbed it in such a way that the only way to remove the pipes was to cut them, meaning I needed to replace the plumbing from the toilet to the waste tank when I reinstalled the waste tank. On the advice of a friend, I had put a check valve in that run of pipe, which clogged easily and never worked. So re-plumbing would allow me to remove the check valve.

With the waste tank and batteries removed, I was able to pull out the two sections of wet exhaust hose, one running from the 90° fitting to the muffler, the other from the muffler to the through hull exhaust fitting: about 10 ft total.

It was remarkable the amount of physical effort removing the two pieces of hose and reinstalling them. The hose is quite resistant to bending and, with wire inside, it is completely kink resistant. Good about the kink resistance, bad about the resistance to bending at all.

I wasn’t surprised that I was tired carrying the old batteries down the ladder, and the new batteries back up. I was surprised that my quads weren’t killing me. 200 half knee bends carrying 40 lb in weights 6-days a week, I guess, does have its benefits.

With the muffler and hose in place, it was just a matter of getting Caro Babbo in the water to understand whether I had done it right. Any water I might have wanted to bring to the boat to somehow test the connections required me carrying it by hand 150 yards and then up into the boat. I was fairly sure of my work and had many many other tasks.

A newly discovered task was that the stainless steel water tank or one of the hoses leading from it has a very slow leak. About a quart every 24 hours.

When I tried to remove the water tank I found that I would need to remove an inch and a half valve connected to a through-hull nipple. Try though I might I could not get that valve off. I decided we would live with the small leak and move the repair of that tank to the top of next year’s list.

We have three water tanks on board: the 25-gallon stainless, and two 15-gallon water bladders, together with a water maker I think we’re fine.

I had a bit of a social life this year. I saw our friends Morgan and Douglas, and made friends with Don Keller, his spouse Brenda, and there two young friends Morgan and Ryan.

I spent time with Jennifer’s and my friend Tim Gervais and his wonderful child.

The list of things that was completed goes on forever. The list of things that I did not complete is manageable and while only one required task was still undone when Caro Babbo went into the water, I finished it at the dock.

For our initial shakedown, Jennifer took us over to Seldovia. It’s a town we know well, but we did not run into anyone who remembered us.

Jennifer took us out to dinner at the bar that is across the strip of water from where we tie up to the public dock.

We spent a few hours sitting in front of the public library setting up the IridiumGO and sending everyone who needed to be notified of our new satellite phone number and reminding them of the email address that will come to us via the satellite.

You can find both of these pieces of information on the front page of this website.

Jennifer’s ability to move Caro Babbo underpower has become innate. There is a confidence that shows in how she moves the vessel and a confidence that Caro Babbo will move as she intends it to. To me, this manifests itself most evidently in the amount of time Jennifer will wait while the boat does her bidding. At slow speeds, a vessel does not react quickly because there’s not a lot of water passing over the rudder. Additionally, the arc of a turn as the vessel begins to move will tighten as the force of the water over the rudder increases. I know to be quiet and to wait.

So far, everything we have expected to work on Caro Babbo is working.

Today, Sunday, Jennifer decided we should have a day of rest. I took two days off in the 18 that I was in Homer, and Jennifer worked hard every day she was there.

I have always wanted an enclosure for the cockpit for use when we are at anchor.

In part two of this post, I’ll tell you about the enclosure that Josh Kastelle made for us. It is exactly what I asked for. It does what I wanted it to do. Jennifer and  I are deciding how much ambivalence we have toward it and when we will use it. It changes the experience.

Tomorrow, Monday, we will cover 60 nautical miles to an anchorage, depending on weather, we may stay for a few days.

When we were leaving Homer we saw that our tracking page said we were somewhere between China and Taiwan. We are not.*

Hopefully, by the time you read this, it will have been corrected.

In the next post, I will tell you about the room, more about the repairs and improvements made to Caro Babbo, very few of which are visible, and the improvement in solar panels since I started buying them 10 or 15 years ago.

Jennifer and I are well. We have 70 days to head west and then return to Homer.

Our warm regards to everyone and thank you for being our friends.

P. S. The software to use the IridiumGO is only on phones this year, meaning I am writing on a phone. I also did not replace my broken Bluetooth keyboard. This may effect my writing. Famously, a Japanese author wrote an entire novel on his first generation iPhone. I think the novel was only famous for how it was written, not what was written.

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*I emailed PredictWind support, who provided the excellent support they always have. Shockingly, to me, it was actually a bug, which they repaired and changed my level of service on the tracking page to keep all of my tracks forever, instead of the limited time they normally allow. I love these people.

Sent from Iridium Mail & Web.