Category: By John

Leaving Juneau

At 5 am, after I had showered and returned the key fob to the marina office, Jennifer and I cast off from the dock at Juneau’s Harris Harbor.

Caro Babbo had been on the dock 16 days, while Jennifer and I went off to Atlanta to get work started on some properties there. We are currently hands-on investors and are trying hard to transition to hands-off by selling our real estate investments there and giving the money to Roy who handles the rest of our money.

We arrived Juneau Sunday evening, shopped for groceries Monday, and cleaned house Tuesday before Erwin and Laura arrived. This is the third of four years that Erwin and Laura have joined us. Last year we didn’t feel we could have guests while we were dealing with Hilary’s needs.

We hit the gift shops yesterday and were treated like cruise boat tourists. It is a very different way to be treated. The sales people quickly qualify a prospect, deciding whether there might be a sale. Jennifer and I were in the way of people making their living.

Continue reading “Leaving Juneau”

Leaving Juneau

At 5 am, after I had showered and returned the key fob to the marina office, Jennifer and I cast off from the dock at Juneau’s Harris Harbor.

Caro Babbo had been on the dock 16 days, while Jennifer and I went off to Atlanta to get work started on some properties there. We are currently hands-on investors and are trying hard to transition to hands-off by selling our real estate investmemts there and giving the money to a Roy who handles the rest of our money.

We arrived Juneau Sunday evening, shopped for groceries Monday, and cleaned house Tuesday before Erwin and Laura arrived. This is the third of four years that Erwin and Laura have joined us. Last year we didn’t feel we could have guests while we were dealing with Hilary’s needs.

Continue reading “Leaving Juneau”

Sorry to be out of touch.

Decatur, GA 14-JUL-2018 – Everyone, I’m sorry we’ve been out of touch.

We went a few weeks with no internet, except for the Iridium, which does terrible internet. I did not write posts to be posted when we received internet and still haven’t set up the facility to post by email. I don’t feel like a slug, but apparently have been.

It has been a busy time, divided amongst sailing, motoring, and surprisingly, engaging in social activities with people we’ve met before and people we’ve met for the first time. Continue reading “Sorry to be out of touch.”

Dear Dear Deer, Thoughts on Unintended Consequences

Dundas Island, BC 15-JUN-2018 – At Windy Bay, the Watchmen are two men named David and Tory. David is all teeth, practiced at dealing with visitors in his sixteen seasons, and is an eager talker.

Tory is handsome, tall, muscular with black hair streaked with gray. Between twenty-eight and thirty-two years old, Tory has been working in the Alberta oil fields for ten years. While Jennifer was speaking to David, he told me that he missed family; family was part of who he was. In the ten years he’d been gone, he’d only come back twice. He was home now and did not intend to live away again.

 As we walked from the watchman residence, we saw a couple of deer walking out in the open, grazing. Tory told us he hadn’t asked what equipment he could bring with him onto the island: he would have brought his compound bow; he intended to kill all of the deer on the island. Continue reading “Dear Dear Deer, Thoughts on Unintended Consequences”

Hecate Strait: Advance Class in Feeding The Fishes

An unnamed cove west of Welcome Harbour, BC, 13-JUN-2018 – We’ve crossed Hecate Strait twice now. Jennifer says it’s not too bad this second time. In the past she is thought of this as the worst possible thing that could happen. Now, she tells me you just vomit and get it over with, again and again and again. No pictures in this post, the waves are never as impressive in pictures as they are on the water, and the rest of the activities we engaged in are not pleasant to watch.

Hecate Strait, we were told by more than one person, is the fifth most dangerous body of water in the world. It is quite shallow, generally less than 80 feet, winds of 50 knots are not uncommon nor are four meter waves.

You pick your weather carefully.
Continue reading “Hecate Strait: Advance Class in Feeding The Fishes”

Water where it’s not supposed to be

Bag Harbour, Haida Gwaii, 6-JUN-2018 – It’s been raining in Haida Gwaii. As far as I can tell that’s all it does. The wind is variable: it might be good sailing wind, or 40-50 knots, which sends us and every other boat to find a safe harbor and hunker down. While in the safe harbor we use the dinghy when there are breaks in the wind.

When we first bought Caro Babbo I hadn’t considered a water maker. All the books and long-distance sailors I’d read talked about two things: a mister for rinsing after washing in salt water (everyone washed in their cockpits after stripping off their shorts or bathing suits – they don’t sail the waters we sail in*), and collecting rain water.

Continue reading “Water where it’s not supposed to be”

Gwaii Haanas National Park and Cultural Sites

Rose Harbour, Hadia Gwaii, BC, Canada, 3-JUN-2018 – We’ve been in Haida Gwaii for twelve days. Six of those days have been spent waiting for weather to pass. The two days before we crossed Hecate Strait we spent waiting for weather, so by my count, eight of the last fifteen days have been spent waiting for suitable weather to travel.

Some anchorages are more protected than others.
Some days waiting for weather have been on board in a harbor, or inlet, or sometimes little more than a dimple in a coast line out of the wind and waves, waiting. Waiting isn’t too bad. I get to spend it with Jennifer. We read, I cook, I do maintenance, but I haven’t been writing a lot – only one published piece in Three Sheets Northwest, which I haven’t seen yet. Continue reading “Gwaii Haanas National Park and Cultural Sites”

Technology Summary

20-May-2018 – Technology runs a sailboat and always has. In our age, technology has become synonymous with electronics. On a sailboat, electronics is just one of many.

Let’s start with Caro Babbo’s most troubling technology, cooking:

Taylor’s Stove

Taylors model 030 kersosene stove and oven (parafin cooker)

2016, on the advice of most pump jockeys, we used Jet A as a fuel. Jet A burns significantly hotter than kerosene. The hotter fuel caused the fuel in the bottom of the burner and the fuel line to turn into hardened carbon: coke. Continue reading “Technology Summary”

Part 3: Threads reweave, one ends

At the fuel transfer station office, Wendy sat at her desk speaking to a deep-voiced man who I could not see. When I asked her where he was, he stepped out of a door. He was tall, craggy faced, muscular and handsome.

When he learned I wanted some kerosene, he told me I must be a sailor, which I confessed I was. He introduced himself as Lyle, and told me about the sailing courses he had taken, and how he would quit his job right now to join us. Wendy told him, oh no he wouldn’t. I countered he could join us for a short while if he would like, and he told me he was very interested. Continue reading “Part 3: Threads reweave, one ends”

Part 2: Threads reweave, one ends

The prawn boat docking did not go quite as smooth as one might hope. The crew seemed new.

The crewman on the starboard forward deck, dock line in hand, watched the dock as it got closer and as he prepared to loop a line around a cleat, the aft most deckhand called forward, “get a bumper.” The forward crewman replied out loud, “oh yeah,” and dangled a faded orange ball of a fender between the dock and the boat.

The front of the boat pressed against the dock as its stern rotated to starboard pressing against another orange faded ball-shaped fender. I went back to work. When I looked down again the crew had finished docking and were preparing to leave the boat.

On the stern was written Nordic Star. Continue reading “Part 2: Threads reweave, one ends”