johnjuliano – Page 7

Waiting, Waiting, can’t Wait

Home Bay, AK, 27-AUG-2021 — [Flora embroiders, Jennifer reads and I write. The solar panels are producing as much power as I have seen from them. Friends text us through the Iridium-satellite soda straw. Leonard Cohen plays on a pink metallic Macbook.]

Jennifer is much more cautious about weather than in years past. The reasons may be many. This year we are coastal sailing along the rough Kenai Peninsula with less frequent and less secure hiding places. This year Jennifer’s daughter is with us; no matter the age of the child the need to protect never leaves. It has been the longest we have been off Caro Babbo and perhaps Jennifer is more timid because of that. Perhaps because we are both getting older. I wonder, if it is because of the better, more accurate and more scary weather data available: there is generally always one model that predicts doom and gloom, which is why we sit and wait for weather to pass. The models are in agreement that forty-knot winds will come by late this afternoon or tonight. There is some disagreement about whether the winds will pass over us or just south of us, but with forty knots agreed upon, I am quite happy to wait until they pass by.

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Reflections at midpoint

Eshamy Bay, Eshamy Bay Marine Park, AK, 60° 27.125N 147° 58.393W, 20-aug-2021 — Yesterday, we left Whittier and started our return to Homer. At a trip 1/4 of our normal length, this feels very much like starting the return 1/8 into a normal year’s trip.

We’ve cruised enough times that we have no trouble settling into a routine but there are differences we’ve noticed.

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So how old is Glacier Ice?

60° 32.825N 148° 09.863W Nellie Juan Cannery, AK 15-AUG-2021 — Caro Babbo is traveling with a crew of three this year. Although I view Caro Babbo as Jennifer and me, having Jennifer’s daughter, Flora, with us has not only been very pleasant, but a great addition.

Even though I’ve known this young woman most of her life, there are two generations between Flora and me. So, there is a difference in how we interact and how much time we each feels appropriate to spend with a family member that great distance of years from us.

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Yo, hee, ho, yee-oh, ho

Abra Cove, Aialik Glacial Basin AK, 8:00 a.m. on a Saturday 7-AUG-2021 — Jennifer sleeps. We’ll spend the day here. An audio book plays in Flora’s cabin. Sleep comes to Flora with great difficulty and only for short periods of time.

Across the sound, giants grumble in the glacier. The rumbles, which must be down around 40 Hertz, seem to be something we should feel in our ribs instead it is the rumble of distance thunder, of dinosaurs, of giants.

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Yesterday we sailed, thrice upon a time, and me and MF

Shelter Cove, Beauty Bay, West Arm of Nuka Sound, Alaska, 5-Aug-2021 — Yesterday was overcast and a mild day. But there was some wind. We motored some 10 or 12 nmi to a lagoon that we wanted to see.

Technically, looking up the definition of a lagoon in the dictionary, it was not a lagoon. By definition one cannot sail into a lagoon because it is blocked off from the ocean by a barrier, typically a natural wall or beach.

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A quiet cove and contemplation

Tonsina Bay, AK, 2-AUG-2021 — It is midday at anchor in a bifurcated cove, alone, the three of us on Caro Babbo. It is an unusual time for Jennifer and I to be anchored in a cove anywhere. We spend most mornings and middays moving from one place to another whenever we are traveling in British Columbia or Alaska. These few days following our departure from Homer have been full days, long days, which like many days here at 59 degrees north in the summer, feel like multiple days, both in their duration and the amount that we experience.

Flora has been, in the months leading to our departure, eager, ambivalent and decidedly against making the trip. In the end, rather than come for a small time she has decided to join us for the entire adventure: 5 weeks. A small trip for us, 1/4 its normal length, and a long time to be on a small boat with your mother and her partner.

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Airplanes and Nail Polish

Homer, AK, 16-JUL-2021 — I’m here. I’m in Homer getting Caro Babbo ready to ”Splash” at the end of the month.

Splash is a very visual word and a bit joyous, making a big splash is what many of us want when we make it big. When launching Caro Babbo that is the last thing we want to envision. Splash is a sail boat falling from the TravelLift into the water, a crane tipping over and other very visual mishaps that must be pushed from my imagination.

Count down to Homer

Port Townsend, WA, 23-Jun-2021 – In 22 days I will board a Delta Flight from SeaTac airport to Homer, Alaska changing in Anchorage. Rental cars are scarce; I will pay $125 per day for a three days rental car in Homer. In Anchorage, there are none – Jennifer and I paid $13 per day for a rental last September.

I am flying to Caro Babbo. The surge of returning has taken a long time to build in me. I once saw an interview with Norman Mailer describing the effects of using a testosterone gel. He said he hadn’t felt that way in years. Norman is long dead, but returning to Caro Babbo sharpens my senses and gives me purpose.

There is never the return to her that doesn’t have some apprehension. It is the not the uncertainty in the back of one’s mind when seeing a lover after an absence: Have things changed? Will I still be loved?

No, returning to a boat, our boat, is the apprehension of returning to a house that has been shut up: Will everything still be there? Will there be damage?

Maybe it is closer to returning to a loved exotic car. All of the above for a house, plus will it start? Can I get parts for the repairs I must make?

Unique to a boat: once I get it running, will it sink somewhere with me aboard? Will the rigging fail and Caro Babbo become dismasted?

Two Caro Babbos, Two Johns

Scottsdale, AZ, 29-MAY-2021 – There are two pictures of Caro Babbo that have special significance to me. The first is Caro Babbo at anchor on our first trip north along the inside passage. In the scheme of things we didn’t go very far, only as far as the top of Quadra Island, but to us it was an unimaginable adventure. Caro Babbo is at anchor. Her transom is nearly naked and, in my mind’s eye, not even her name is there, but it is, so this picture must be from 2014. There is no windvane, there is no EPIRB, nor outboard engine. She is uncluttered.

The Long Dark Tea Time of the Sail

Rocky Point, New York, April 4th, 2021, Easter Sunday – Winter has passed, the snow here in New York is long gone and Maxi 95 owners in Scandinavia and elsewhere in Europe are putting their boats in the water.

Preparing this house for rent has taken longer than any similar project I have worked on, and is coming up on four times longer than I had planned. I hadn’t planned to be away from Jennifer this long, I hadn’t planned to spend this large percentage of my remaining life here, doing this.