Getting Somewhere, and Four Weeks of Photos.

You know that feeling you get when it seems like nothing is going on, and then suddenly everything happens? Like... it's like you're pedaling an exercise bike, spinning your wheels getting nowhere, and you space out for a little bit and then realize (much to your confusion) that you're rolling down the road with the wind in your face?

This week I had that feeling again. I was starting to get frustrated with how The Great Job Hunt has not yet resulted in lucrative employment, and frustrated with the inertia that results from really, really enjoying not having a job. And then BAM! something amazing popped up when I least expected it. It isn't definite, so I don't want to describe it yet, and it isn't full-time, so it doesn't resolve the whole income issue. And it won't be simple or straightforward, and it's a tiny bit risky... but today I realized that those are things I especially like about it.

So now I'm gripping the handlebars for dear life, but also grinning a huge wide bug-catching grin: wheeeee!

* * *

The photo-a-day project isn't even a month old yet, but it has already been my most successful collaboration with Ashley since People In My Neighborhood (link to the original by Baldwin and Gregory; our version isn't online, but it was kinda like that, only better).

Years of crappy cameras, together with the irritations of paying someone else to develop my film, made me a reluctant photographer. But I love to look at good photography, and I always sorta wanted to learn how to use a camera well, or at least not so clumsily.

I'm kind of a penny-pincher (when I'm not buying food), so when I got a low-end digital camera last year, that was a big deal for me. I was glad to have it to capture my sailing adventure, but I didn't want a fancy gadget like that to start collecting dust when I got back home. I didn't want to take it for granted. I wanted to learn how to use it better, and I figured the only practical way to do that was to use it more.

So now I'm taking more photos. Lots more photos. Since I got back from New Mexico, I've taken an average of 24 photos a day. And in doing so, I'm learning what my camera is good at and not-so-good at, gradually getting a grasp on what makes a shot work, learning to trust my gut and to take chances. I'm also learning how much I still have to learn.

Even better than learning to use my camera, though, has been learning to use my eyes: to see the world in a new way, to notice things I wouldn't have, to pay attention. Light means so much more to me now. And I realize almost daily now how amazing my eyes are, all the things they can deal with (low light, motion, obstructions, depth of field) without any conscious input on my part.

I'm also learning that if you go out looking for an interesting photo, sometimes interesting things happen to you. Yesterday I met Mr. Beet of Beet's Auto Body, which is kind of a landmark around here. On MLK Day a bricklayer told me the wall he was building was the last of 25 years' worth of projects in Portland. I thought for a few thrilling moments that I might get to meet a resident of The Scary House... but it was only a neighbor. Pointing a camera at stuff, I've learned, makes people want to talk to you. Sometimes all they want to say is "Can I help you?" which is of course code for "What do you think you're doing pointing your camera at my car/house/merchandise?" But even one question and one answer is still dialogue, and more than I usually share with strangers.

* * *

Friday is Hourly Comic Day. I've always been more than a little intimidated by 24 Hour Comic Day, but this I think I can maybe handle, if I'm not working (and possibly even if I am). Join me?

The Mystery Solved.

The mystery bone introduced in this post has been identified by an anonymous commenter as the pelvic bone of an ostrich. All the images of skeletal ostriches I could find seem to confirm this. I compared it with an emu, and it's definitely a better match for the ostrich.

The complete, unbroken bone is actually even more fantastical than what we saw:
Check out that crazy curly bit on the lower left: it actually connects in the middle, just like your pelvis. But different. (Image from this site, where you can buy an ostrich pelvis of your very own.)

There used to be ostrich farms in the area our Mystery Bone was discovered, so this find isn't as bizarre as it may seem.

Nice work, Anonymous (you know who you are).

Progress Report: A Report on Progress.

Look, I changed my header! The image width still isn't right, and I may not ultimately use that image at all, and I'm still missing one of those whaddyacallems, uh, titles? But it's progress, and I'm into celebrating progress these days.

I've made a lot of progress lately, actually. I've kept up with the daily photo challenge. I found an alarm clock that I actually don't hate. I rebuilt my resume from the ground up. I installed my Shiny New Printer (thanks, Santa!) so I could print it. I am currently in the process of applying to: a bakery, a company that does something-or-other with music licensing, and a sailmaker's loft (yes, there's one in Portland!). I have a list of about 10 other jobs I still want to apply to before I start calling temp agencies. But since I already have plans to go away for the summer, temp is probably where I'll end up.

I also got rid of a lot of stuff: I recycled an old phone and printer. I found new homes for bags and bags of clothing. I whittled the feeds in my reader down to a mere 1740 unviewed posts. I dumped a lot of MP3s that I never liked anyway. (Don't worry, I still have 2283 of them!)

Now the excess stuff in my room is mostly down to Projects, about which Decisions must be made. For example:

Q: Here is a computer I built in 1998. It has a 3.5" floppy drive and a keyboard that doesn't really work anymore. It also houses some really important files. What should I do with it?
A: Obtain hardware that will allow you to eat its brains. By which I mean pull the hard drive, suck out the good stuff, and erase the rest. Then, because you love it, set it free. Let it lope unfettered on the technological veldt. That's what FreeGeek is for.

Q: What shall I do about all these papers that need to be filed, but the mere thought of filing them is incredibly painful?
A: Get yourself a decent filing cabinet, for crying out loud: one that opens and closes easily and doesn't leave your files all bendy. Look into the hanging folder thing, which is Probably Worth It.

Q: Here is a paper model of a castle which I almost finished circa 1990, but then got frustrated with and abandoned. And yet somehow it has followed me ever since, without getting crushed. What should I do with it?
A: Dust it off and inspect it. Discover that it is Awesome. Consider how your dexterity and problem-solving skills have evolved in the past umpteen years, and set it aside for completion (for reals this time).

And so on. It's amazing how much easier it is to figure this stuff out than it was seven months ago. Hooray for progress!

Archæology and Paelæontology.

So I haven't fixed the template yet, even though it makes me cringe. Nor have I chosen a new title, which also makes me cringe a little (I have yet to come up with one that doesn't). But other things have kept me occupied since I got home from my visit to New Mexico.

The past couple of days I've primarily been settling back into my own space. This endeavor is complicated by the disarray I left behind when I got on a boat last summer. My room is piled with abandoned projects and objects which have yet to find a home, all visibly dusty. I am not the kind of person who can just throw armloads of things in the garbage, shrug, and move on. No, I pick the debris apart and dust off each piece carefully, like an archaeologist, reconstructing the life of the room's previous tenant. I interpret the clutter as a series of messages passed through time from her to me, from past-Lindsey to present-Lindsey: "Help! I can't deal with this!" And I feel a maternal sort of compassion toward her, because I remember how it felt to be so discouraged that even simple problem-solving tasks, like figuring out where to put things, seemed impossible.

And I also kind of hate her, because she left me this freakin' mess to clean up. But I'm itching to get it under control, because as soon as I do, I get to go to Ikea. I've never been there -- was out of town when the new store opened up -- but I've been studying the catalog, and some of their stuff looks like it might be just what I need to make my home more attractive and orderly and awesome.

(Having Ikea in town is humbling, because it squashes my delusions about not being an overly materialistic person. I feel like a character in the Sims, that game in which the secret to happiness is buying new stuff. Would you like this couch or that couch, or how about a moose head? Watch me jump up and down and clap my hands and burble some pseudo-language.)

Today also marks the beginning of The Great Job Hunt. At this stage I'm very optimistic (perhaps inappropriately, given how much luck some of my friends have had finding jobs in Portland). But man, there's some interesting stuff they'll pay you to do out there. And also, there are about a bazillion temp agencies. I have spent quite a bit of time today exploring possibilities online, and am at this very moment procrastinating on my resume. Yeah, I should really finish that. But before I go, I'll leave you with a link and a riddle.

The link is to my newest Fun Internet Project, which I was hesitant to jinx by exposing too early in its infancy. It's two weeks old now, though, so here: the new photo-a-day blog, a joint project with Ashley. Props to Jason for giving me part of the idea, and to 3191 for giving Ashley the other part.

And here's the riddle: What kind of bone is this?
It was found in the New Mexico desert. Clicky-click to zoomy-zoom.

I do not know the answer to this riddle.

Goodbye, 2007.

I was going to have a new blog template in place by now, but Blogger has made customization (real customization, not just shuffling elements) a lot harder than I expected. And also I spent the time I thought I was going to use for that on a completely different web-based project, which you'll get to see pretty soon.

[Postscript -- oops. It looks like my experimentation with my blog template was more permanent than I realized. This isn't what I want the finished product to look like, but it'll have to do for now.]

Also I thought I would have something witty and heartfelt formulated to say, here at the end of the year, but all I really have is a short list of things I wanted to remember to mention in my next blog post. A very short list. Two things, in fact, which make a lopsided sort of list.

1) My sister has a sweet etsy shop up. Check out all her cool designs and consider: do you know anyone who doesn't need a shirt with an old-school boombox on it?

2) On a more serious note: If any of my readers are wondering what the big deal is about this whole domestic partnership thing in Oregon, here is a link that explains what's at stake.

The delay in passing the law affects people I care about, and that makes me sad. Then I read news stories where people cite "Christian values" as their reason for objecting to domestic partnerships for homosexuals, and that makes me angry. For shame! Take a look at the list linked above, imagine the past and future stories each of those numbers certainly represents, and tell me: Since when was Christ in the persecution business?

I don't want my blog to get political. But this has become personal.

[deep breath]

So, yeah, that's what I wanted to cover. And here I am in Roswell, NM ringing in the new year with Meep, as has accidentally become tradition. She has a new old house that she's just moving into, and back in Portland I have a new old life that I'm moving into, and everything looks pretty achievable from here, messes to sort and stow, tasks to undertake and conquer. We are capable and eager, and life just now is full of the kind of chaos that precedes creation.

Happy New Year, all.

Of Presents and the Present.

I was going to post last night, but then I got an early Christmas present from Sean, and I was no good at all for 3 hours 41 minutes 29 seconds, by which time it was really really late.

(There was an all-too-brief period in my life where I didn't have to look for new music to get excited about, when friends would regularly force me to sit down and listen to this marvel that they just uncovered, or that had been growing on them for the past two weeks like mold on an unrefrigerated pizza. And if I was really lucky they would explain, in words and gestures that a musical dilettante could understand, how it blew their skulls open to let light in; how it coiled around their hearts with a python's grip; how it hung their dreams and nightmares out to dry.

For years after I moved away from these people who were excited! about music!, I read reviews in Spin and Rolling Stone, looking for that contagious spirit of discovery. But the subtext of every review was: "I know so much about so many bands that I am too jaded to feel passionately about any of them (or too cool to admit it)." Also, they were constructed primarily of run-on sentences.

So my discovery of saidthegramophone two years ago was cause for much rejoicing. There are three guys who write for the site, but one guy whose passion carries it. That guy is Sean. Sean writes about how a song makes him feel, and oh, how he feels. He writes about the pictures a song makes in his head, and ah, what pictures he sees. Sometimes it's music that I love right away, and sometimes it's music that I wouldn't have given a second glance if he didn't sit me down in a beanbag by the stereo and explicate it for me. Either way, I'm grateful.)

Sean's Christmas gift to me -- and you, too -- is a list of his favorite fifty songs of 2007. Fifty little wrapped boxes: here, I picked this out for you. There are wonders and terrors here, tidy griefs and messy celebrations, scraps and shards of other people's hearts, each downloadable for the next week or two. If you are in the least bit interested in knowing about good music that happened this year, start at the top and download as much as your patience, or your bandwidth, will allow. And then read what he wrote about them.

You won't be sorry.

Anyway, yes, I'm back. I took the train home, which I would highly recommend to anyone who is going through a transition which deserves lengthy reflection. I was warmly welcomed by friends and family at several stops along the way. The journey was good, and the homecoming was good, and life is good in general. I've been thinking about some things that have changed in me since I left my library job, and though I hate to jinx it by making any specific claims, I'm optimistic that I've actually... well, grown.

After the holidays, I will be in Portland for several months, and I'm happy about that. I don't know where I'll be working, but it will be on a decidedly temporary basis. My taste for adventure has been whetted, not sated. I already have Big Plans for next summer (which involve boats of a different sort), and enough other ideas to fill the next couple of years at least. I tried settling down for almost a decade; now I'm going to try not settling down for a while, and I think it may suit me a lot better.

* * *

One of my many projects this week is to get all my boat photos sorted. I am gradually posting a selection of the best ones on my photo sharing site of choice. For privacy reasons, there will be no link to that here, but I'll gladly share with any friends who ask for it.

Pau Hana.

My last day was good, too. As usual, nothing went quite as expected: while setting out for the afternoon's battle sail with the Lady Washington, we saw waves crashing over the top of the breakwater, nudged one another and said "That'll be interesting." Things did indeed become interesting, in a rollercoastery kind of way, as we rounded the breakwater: lots of green choppiness, and the boat plunging up and down madly, and things tumbling around below decks (yes, we stowed for sea, but there are degrees of stowing for sea, and we hadn't expected to need quite this much). The line between scary-fun and scary-not-fun is often a fine one for me at sea; we stayed out right to the near edge of that line before turning around and telling the passengers to come back tomorrow instead.

So then we actually had time to rig the lights (yes, rope lights in the rigging) before the evening's sail, which wasn't actually a sail so much as a motor through the marina for the lighted boat parade. This was much better than having to rig them underway. The lighted boat parade was cold and rainy, and the passengers lost enthusiasm after the first two hours, so we got to come back early from that too. But in the meantime I didn't feel the cold, because I was busy helping the new gunner clean the guns (and touching off a few as well (whee!)). The lighted boat parade was an exercise in jaw-dropping tackiness, with giant glowing snowmen and blaring music of the "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree" variety, and it became apparent relatively quickly that our captain's strategy was to fire on the all most obnoxious vessels. I was fine with that, personally. And so, apparently, was my loyal friend Janellie, who braved traffic and weather to join me for my last outing on the Chieftain and to take me out to Pinkberry afterward.

* * *

And then a night, and a morning, and pau hana: work is finished, time to go home.

* * *

Every time I leave that damn boat, I leave another chunk of my heart behind. I was so careful when I packed up my things, not one object forgotten to be lamented over later. But my heart, it seeped into the bilge and twined around the yards and I couldn't untangle it, had to feel it tearing (ow ow oww) as I walked away with a smile on my face and the voices of the crew in my ears:

Safe and sound at home again,
Let the waters roar, Jack.
Long we've tossed on the rolling main,
Now we're safe ashore, Jack.
Don't forget your old shipmates,
Folly-rolly-rolly-rolly-rye-oh!

Penultimate.

December 7, 2007
1130 hours

Santa Cruz was hard on us all. Oh, it's a nice port; the people were friendly, and the town was pretty cool. But the swell in the marina was terrible. We had extra mooring lines out, and extra chafe gear, and still the lines groaned and the dock screeched and clunked all night. And that was when the weather was nice.

When the storm kicked up offshore, we moved farther into the marina. The night of the 3rd was the roughest: the boat popped two and a half cleats and broke a mooring line (a flimsy excuse for a mooring line, but still) before we all ran up on deck in our pajamas and moved to a spot with stronger cleats. Two of the boat's heavy ironwood kevels splintered like balsa under the tension of the lines wrapped around them. We put out even more mooring lines and stood night watches thereafter. The water under the pier sucked and swirled, and the dock bowed upward under the heinously creaking lines, but the boat stayed put until the weather cleared enough for us to leave the harbor for good.



We got into Marina del Rey around 4 a.m. today. The weather window we caught was a good one; after getting some distance between us and Santa Cruz, the transit was surprisingly smooth, even around Point Conception. The last few hours were a little bumpy, but not terrible. I quit taking the dimenhydrenate around 11 p.m. last night and felt fine thereafter.

What I remember most about the transit to San Francisco is sunlight, blue skies and blue water. What I'll remember most about the transit to Marina del Rey is the stars. This evening, through Los Angeles' urban glow, they were only a pallid reminder of the profligate brilliance I saw over the Pacific two nights ago. Those are the stars that inspired the ancients to visions of heroes and monsters. The sky opened into an unobstructed view of outer space, and we floated in it, the tiniest of specks. And there were stars in the water too, flecks of phosphorescence glinting past in our pale wake.

So today I got to sleep in late, and then I got to hang off the side of the boat and prep the stern windows for a new coat of varnish, which was really fun for a while and then really not fun for a while (cold wind, and legs getting numb in the harness, and the masking tape not sticking). And then after dinner I went out for one last time with crew, and we listened to a fairly bad U2 cover band and swapped stories and stayed up way too late. Tomorrow is a busy day, with dockside tours in the morning and public sails in the afternoon and evening, and it will be cold and rainy, and no one will want to do anything but sleep at the end of it. But today was a really great next-to-last day.

Good and Sick.

December 3, 2007
0900 hours

Less than a week to go now. It's my last day off, and I'm lying in bed trying to work out how to pack a box to mail home so that my remaining luggage won't be too much to carry. The trickiest part is that the box also has to be easy to carry: the post office is about a half an hour away on foot. Meanwhile, the Chieftain is underway, children on deck screaming "All hands aye!" in response to a new education coordinator. My departure is taking place around the same time as a couple of other long-term crew members, which to me indicates that I timed it just about right.

There are other indications too. As hard as it is to leave -- and believe me, it's hard -- it would be even harder to stay longer. I look at the incoming crew, full of enthusiasm and ideals, and think about how well they'll work together. I so wish I could be part of that. But I'm dried up, bleached out, burnt down to ash. My stated intention at the beginning of this tour was to stay until I was "good and sick of it," and I think it's fair to say I've reached that point. I'm always tired and often cranky. I have a cold (aka "boat plague"). I take things for granted that I shouldn't: the good-natured banter of my shipmates, the feel of a mooring line in my hands, the patterns the light makes on the water. And my fatigue shows: I'm no longer trying to be the best I can, just trying to get through the day.

So it's time to get off the boat. My successor's contract begins today; she's already very good at this job, even though it's a new one for her. I can see that everything is going to go just fine without me, and that makes me both happy and sad.

I have one last transit to make, from Santa Cruz to Marina del Rey. We were scheduled to depart this evening, but the weather may not allow us to leave until Wednesday. It's actually been clear and sunny wherever we are almost every day since we reached California. Offshore, though, big weather is brewing, and the route south will take us around the notoriously choppy Point Conception. So here we stay until the forecast clears. (Meanwhile, back in the vicinity of Tillamook, the waves are around 30', and Gray's Harbor appears to have some sort of hurricane situation. Yikes.)

Postscript: The box was 21 lbs 13 oz. It took me an hour to get to the post office. My future self (the one that will be traveling home by train next week) better be grateful. Having shipped off all the stuff I won't need before I leave, I immediately bought a bunch more: Value Village was having a storewide 50% off sale, and there was this cool Asian discount store... erm, let's just say that apparently I've been craving colorful clothing. In other news, the waters outside the harbor were so choppy that we had an average of 10 ralphing children per educational sail today, much to the secret glee of certain crew members. The ones who weren't queasy, I mean. Me, I was just happy to be on land for the afternoon.

1/2 Moon.

November 25, 2007
2130 hours

It occurred to me with a shock today that it's one month from Christmas. One month from today, I will have returned home after various stops along the way, will have accomplished (or not) all the things I hope to do before the holiday, and will be sitting around my parents' house, oversaturated with gifts and food. Now that we have finally (hallelujah!) left Sacramento behind us, the final countdown of my tour begins.

We've been in Half Moon Bay with the Lady Washington for the past several days, doing public sails, mock cannon battles and dockside tours. It's been glorious to sail in the ocean again, even without much wind. There is room to maneuver here -- a broad plane of water to navigate instead of a twisting line -- and there are waves. Not huge ones, but enough of a swell that those of us aloft while going in and out of the harbor today got quite a ride. Alas, we cannot stay; we're headed for Santa Cruz tomorrow (0430 departure, ugh) and leaving the Lady behind. Santa Cruz has its own pleasures, no doubt, but it also means I'm that much closer to The End.

On the surface it doesn't seem to make much difference, this looming terminus for my life aquatic. Yes, I'm spending more time training my replacement. And I said goodbye to a dear crew member of the Lady Washington today who'll be departing before the boats cross paths again. But everything goes on much as it did before I began to consider that my days on this boat are numbered. There's just an underlying awareness that things will not always be as they are now. Soon, this or that issue that I feel really ought to be dealt with will be someone else's problem. Soon I will no longer brush my teeth while looking up at the stars through the rig. Soon I will sleep on a much softer mattress. Soon I will be parted from people who have invaded my personal space and my heart for these many months. Soon this volume will conclude: time for a different set of characters, different setting, different genre. And the transience of this segment of my life is a sharply pointed reminder (an etching in miniature) of the transience of human life, how quickly its beauties and pains pass, even while you're thinking it's lasting forever.

At least, those are the kinds of thoughts I had today while rubbing neat's-foot oil into the leather chafe gear in the rig, while the setting sun cast a coppery light across the harbor at Half Moon Bay.

All Hands Aye!

November 10, 2007
1000 hours

We left the Lady Washington behind in Rio Vista and went up the Sacramento River, where the waters are shallow and the bridges low. Now we're docked behind Joe's Crab Shack in Old Sac, which has a tendency to blare "Wild Wild West" and other songs of a similar quality late into the evening. I am amazed by Old Sacramento, with its boardwalks and souvenir shops: 160 years since the rush, and still pulling in the gold. It reminds me eerily of the Western Town area of my favorite amusement park, the Enchanted Forest. I keep expecting to glance in a window and see an animatronic barber pulling the last tooth out of an animatronic prospector's head, or an animatronic formerly-Chinese-but-now-politically-correct fellow doing laundry in a washtub. If only it had a fort with a big slide, or an underground maze that exits through a tipi, I would be so happy.

Anyway, I'm forging new frontiers in exhaustion here on the Hawaiian Chieftain. Here is our daily schedule: 0700 reveille, chores, breakfast, muster, prepare to meet the public. 0900 we load the boat up with schoolchildren (typically 5th graders) for an educational sail. Our education coordinator is among the most energetic people I've ever met. He gets the kids' attention by shouting "All hands!" at the top of his powerful lungs, to which they scream "All hands aye!" If they're not absolutely deafening, he makes them do it again, "about ten million times louder." And Nigel, they go to eleven.

An ed sail schedule goes something like this:
- Board passengers and leave the dock
- Break up into small groups and teach line handling basics (safety, commands, belaying and coiling)
- Students set the sails (under close supervision by crew, naturally)
- First rotation through stations taught by crew (Life of a Common Sailor, Officers and Navigation, History of Triangle Trade in the late 18th century)
- All students on deck for a moment of silence while they close their eyes and imagine what it was like to voyage in the Age of Sail (O, brief blessed peace!)
- Second rotation through teaching stations
- Students douse the sails
- Third rotation
- Kill any remaining time with shanties and silly songs
- Dock and disembark passengers

All of this, as you can imagine, makes for a very long three hours. Then if we're lucky we get about 20 minutes for lunch before the next group of kids comes down the dock and we do it all again. And then, when we've finished with the second group (around 1530), we get to furl the sails and re-belay and coil nearly all the lines, while simultaneously opening the boat to the public at 1600 for an hour of dockside tours. After dinner (1800, if not delayed because we're so short on crew that we need the cook to help with furling) someone usually puts in a movie, which I rarely get all the way through before stumbling off to my bunk, listening to 1/2 hour of soothing music and falling asleep. Getting ten or more hours of sleep, I have learned, really helps with days like this.

Of course the ed sails are pretty cool. By this time I can teach all three of the stations, each of which has its own nifty props and fun facts. Most of the kids are really into it, because this is pretty much the coolest field trip ever. And teaching other people to set the sails means you really can't fudge anymore on knowing the names of the lines or which ones are supposed to be going up or down, something I, er, may or may not have been guilty of in the past. It's just that it's an insane schedule, especially taking into account that we don't get weekends off. Even our lively education coordinator is looking haggard after only four straight days of this.

And that is why, even though my contract is up in less than a month, that still seems like a long, long time from now.

Fran Sancisco!

October 25, 2007
1025 hours

We made it to SF in less than three days. It took almost a week to get a decent weather window, but what we got made up for the wait: blue skies and calm seas all the way south, with an approaching storm front Wednesday giving us enough of a push in the right direction that we cut the engines and just sailed at 6-7 knots for a good four hours. Whales spouted in the distance. Dolphins played under our bow. Orion clambered up from the horizon every night. We motored under the Golden Gate Bridge around 10:30 p.m, the city sparkling all around us. Sunrise found us anchored off Sausalito; we rested there a while, gazing at the whimsical architecture and the sailboats gliding past (on which people were, naturally, staring back at us), then made for our moorage at Pier 40. We are all exhausted and excited and as carefree as we are likely to be for some time.

I did some experimenting with drugs on this trip -- namely dimenhydrenate, which I took at the bare minimum recommended dosage to help with seasickness. It left me very groggy at first, and mildly stoned the entire time, but I would have put up with a lot more than that to avoid the chronic dry heaves I experienced between Westport and Tillamook. I don't know whether I actually needed drugs for such a calm transit, but I know I had the pre-transit jitters pretty badly, and the stuff calmed me down minutes after it hit my system. So on the whole I think I chose wisely, and now that I know how it affects me, I won't be afraid to use it again as necessary. Of course (of course!) I would prefer to be the kind of sailor who doesn't need medication, ever, but I'm not too proud to take it if I do.

Tonight the female members of the crew made an excursion to Haight-Ashbury, which turned out to be kinda like the Hawthorne district of Portland, only more so. Fine chocolate and various articles of clothing were purchased and exulted over (best! transit hat! ever!), and scrumptious Indian food was eaten. In the window of a bookstore I saw a sign advertising Nanowrimo and felt a little wistful; this will be the first November in three years that I haven't participated. If your life is less busy than mine, I urge you to sign up and write yourself a novel. When else are you going to get around to it?

Now the younger members of the crew are having a hookah/dance party on deck, and I am settling in for the night. I am not looking forward to the 0700 reveille tomorrow, but we have a Grand Arrival (formal entrance into the city with the Lady Washington and lots of press) scheduled for 1000 hours. That will be cool, but it marks the beginning of a schedule that will be fairly relentless until my departure from the boat in December. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad to be getting back to sailing on a regular basis. I'm just reluctant to move on from this brief blissful rest.

Postscript: For reasons unknown to me, the Grand Arrival was canceled. There doesn't seem to have been much preliminary PR done for us at this port -- no one seems to know we're even here -- so things have actually continued to be relatively chill. The afternoon's battle sail was canceled because no one bought tickets. That was okay, because this evening we took out a singles group charter. They arrived dressed up in pirate costumes and bearing large quantities of alcohol. They weren't a bad crowd, but I was still unusually eager to go aloft. By the way, the Bay is magnificent from the course yard at night.

Here Comes the Coast Guard!

We've been in the news lately. Did you see us? If not, that's probably for the best, as accounts thus far have all been more inaccurate than not. Here's a prime example. It contains an average of one inaccuracy per sentence. For example: "foundering" means "taking on water and sinking," neither of which was even a little bit true.

Here's what really happened:
Early the morning of the 16th, the weather off the Oregon coast went from really unpleasant to downright nasty. Swells were up to 20 feet, and winds were gusting up to 50 knots. Though both engines were fully operational, the Hawaiian Chieftain is a relatively lightweight vessel with a draft of only five feet, and she was unable to make headway against the wind. With no sea anchor aboard, our captain was occupied with trying to keep the vessel from broaching (i.e. veering broadside to the swells). The forecast coming over the radio called for still worse weather in the next few hours.

There was really only one logical thing to do at this point: call on the Coast Guard. They came out to assess the situation, and by the time they arrived, the weather had calmed temporarily (thus the report of merely 14 foot seas and 35 knot winds). They agreed to give us a tow into the nearest harbor, which happened to be Tillamook, and there we are even now lying low until the forecast looks a little friendlier.

It's simple enough in retrospect, but while it was all going on it was much more confusing. I was awakened by our steward at 8 a.m. (midway between watches): "Put on your foulies and harness and stand by for all hands on deck." Weak with nausea and exhaustion, I struggled into my foul-weather gear and harness, then numbly donned the lifejacket handed to me, trying really really hard not to wonder what was going on.

On deck, the world was cold wet chaos. I planted myself on a quarterdeck bench next to a couple of similarly dazed shipmates and tried to wrap my mind around what was going on. The captain was whipping the wheel back and forth. Several of the crew were struggling to rig the giant yellow tarp as a makeshift sea anchor. The steward was getting everyone into big orange vests. Eventually the salt spray and adrenaline brought back my wits, and I was able to make some bumbling attempts at usefulness.

The waves gradually began to settle a bit, and the next big swell I was bracing myself for finally just didn't come. The Coast Guard radioed that they had a visual, and eventually we spotted them too, zipping through the waves in their rough-and-ready vessel. As they drew alongside to send heaving lines, a ray of sunlight burst out improbably through the heavy cloud cover and radiated a brilliant rainbow against the gray sky.

And so we were towed into Tillamook Bay. The waters in the harbor were calm and the sky was blue, which made it seem as though everything we had just been through was merely a ridiculous nightmare. Residents of the town raced down to the dock to see what strange vessel the Coasties had brought in. (One of the Guardsmen had radioed ahead: "Tell my wife to come down to the dock with the camera.") And I called up my aunt and uncle who live in Tillamook, and they invited the entire crew over to their place for pizza and showers and much-needed rest.

So we're not in Fran Sancisco. We're not even in Newport, which is where we hoped to be before the storm hit. But we're safe, and very grateful to be so. And as soon as the weather clears, we'll be headed south again.

I've posted this MP3 before, but this is the song that popped into my head the first moment I sighted the Coast Guard vessel:
Tennis - Here Comes the Coast Guard!

Escape from Aberdeen

Monday, October 15, 2007
1400 hours

"Then the whale went all the way to San Francisco," said the storyteller to the row of preschoolers in the aft cabin.

One little girl raised her hand. "One time I went to Fran Sancisco," she began, and the other children chimed in, "My gramma lives in Fran Sancisco!" "My dad went to Fran Sancisco!"

The storyteller hushed them, but it was too late. For those of us who were in the aft cabin during that storytime in Seattle, the city in question was ever after to be known as Fran Sancisco.

Today we played the song (you know the one) and we put flowers in our hair (Queen Anne's lace and red clover were all we could find in Aberdeen). We hugged each other and cheered. We are finally going to Fran Sancisco.

But the weather forecast is ominous. Twenty-foot following seas are predicted for Wednesday and Thursday, with some hefty headwinds to add to the chaos. Odds are good that we'll be ducking into Newport, Oregon to sit out this gale.

At least we'll be out of Aberdeen. Both boats have passed Coast Guard inspections and survived rainy days, frayed tempers, and plans gone awry. And there have been a couple of bright spots that made this interlude bearable. One was visits from a few good friends. Another was our proximity to the seaport office. It's been great to finally meet the people I've been working with via phone and e-mail for the last couple of months, and to sit down and hash out some of the details of the paperwork I do. Everything makes more sense, and I've helped contribute to the process as well.

Also, we repainted the anchor hawsepipes in the fo'c's'le and refinished the sole (floor) in the aft cabin, heads, and library. (Ah, you thought I was getting away from libraries, didn't you? The "library" on the Chieftain is a passageway with a wide seat and a single bookshelf.) While filling our boat with toxic fumes wasn't immediately a happy thing, it did result in us getting a room at a nearby hotel -- along with access to a pool and a hot tub. And that hot tub just made everything so much better.

So now we're sitting in Westport refueling. We'll shortly be on our way, racing the weather south. The captain is plotting out waypoints on the GPS with the watch leaders, and I'm sneaking a blog post on the ship's computer. (Turns out the whole charged-by-the-minute thing was a myth.) The suspense is palpable.

Maintaining.

Friday, September 28, 2007
2000 hours

We did splash that Friday. Unfortunately, a couple of leaks became immediately obvious, so we got hauled right back out of the water again. It's good to find problems like that before you sail away, we agreed -- but it still felt like defeat. Most of the crew got up at 2:00 that morning to install the propeller shafts, or had been woken up in the process, and we had all worked extra hard to get everything seaworthy again in time to leave that day. I was hunkered at the end of the haulout dock on Hermes the boat-bike, taking photos of the Chieftain's re-introduction to the water and grinning like a madman, when I saw several of the crew get back off the boat, their faces and posture telegraphing the bad news.

It really was just a temporary setback, though; we were put back on the blocks, but remained in the lift so we could easily return to the water the next morning. And then we set to fixing the leaks, which (with the help of a welder from the next boat over) proved to be completely doable before nightfall.

The second splash was successful, but the subsequent transit was hard on us all. We were fatigued to begin with, and the immediate transition from a boat that doesn't move to a boat that moves a lot was rough. This was also my first ocean transit, as we left the Sound and headed for Grays Harbor, and I spent most of it feeling cold and queasy and, well, miserable. I felt sick before we even got back in the water, though, so I have hope that ocean transits without pre-existing tummy upsets may be easier. Or if not, that I'll learn to suck it up and make myself useful. In the meantime, my current blog subtitle will just have to be poetic license.

We reached Westport in under 24 hours, and spent the next couple of days recovering. Our new captain, who got on just before the transit, brought a cold that promptly spread to 4/5 of our exhausted crew. Still, Westport was kind to us. I'd forgotten how much fun it is to sail in Grays Harbor: good wind and (unlike Puget Sound) just enough swell to remind you that you're really on a boat. Besides, Westport has the Knotty Pine, my favorite dive anywhere. Every booth in the joint is layered thick with memories for me, and I took care to add a few more this time around.

Now we've begun a 3-week period of vessel maintenance in Aberdeen, or as sailors from the region call it, Aberdoom: Where Dreams Go to Die. It is ironic that the home port for these boats is the most unpleasant and ill-appointed I've ever stayed in. We're moored behind the Walmart, at the mouth of the muddy, smelly Wishkah River, on a tiny crumbling cement dock. There's no fuel dock, no pumpout, no marine supply store, no shore restroom facilities except the port-a-potty and the Walmart. Several other major chain retailers are conveniently close by, but what I've seen of the rest of the town is run-down and seedy and thoroughly depressing. It seems oddly appropriate that Aberdeen's most famous resident is known for sad songs and suicide.

But there are compensations. We are finally reunited with the Lady Washington and her crew; the two boats are rafted together, so we can conveniently attend each others' parties, steal each others' snacks, and perform daring raids with Nerf dart guns. And maintenance is both more fun and more relaxed than haulout. I spent today scraping, sanding, and refinishing the gorgeous teak rails around the perimeter of the boat, and I expect to spend the next several days on it as well. I find it very soothing.

And in other happy news, I have a new little brother: after a wait of many months, my family has been approved to adopt an eight year old boy. I can't wait to meet him!

On the Hard.

Tuesday, September 18, 2007
1750 hours

We are hauled out. This means we are sitting on blocks in the yard, literally.

Seeing the boat come out of the water was a thrill, yards all cockbilled, hoisted up on a massive lift and rolling, suspended, over dry gravel. And living on a land-boat was an exciting novelty at first. The public doesn't complain because we're not open for tours. Daily boat-cleaning chores are cast aside. We climb a 20' ladder to get on and off the boat. It's like living in a big crazy treehouse, only without the tree.

But we have been hauled out since the 10th, and we are all getting land-sick. We have all of the inconveniences of the Chieftain with few of the conveniences. That big ladder? Every time we want to wash dishes, or clothes, or our hands, or use the head, we have to climb down it and walk a long way across a gravel parking lot to the facilities. Dirt and mud from that parking lot gets tracked all through our usually tidy boat. And though it's refreshing to have a break from dealing with the public, we've been working a lot of long days trying to stay on our haulout schedule.

We've been successful in staying on our haulout schedule, actually. We were given a very short timeframe to do a lot of work, and we met it. The bottom has been cleaned and painted with a substance that is hostile to the growth of marine life (read: extremely toxic). Hull paint has been touched up along the waterline. All the throughholes in the hull have been opened, checked and cleaned, and the propellers, shafts, and bearings have been pulled and prepped. The Coast Guard has inspected us twice, and seems to think we're more or less all right. The problem has been with the stuff we can't do ourselves, the propeller parts that have to be professionally machined in a properly equipped facility. This continues to hold us up, so that our departure date hovers out in the future, always moving away as we approach it, like the end of the rainbow.

For me, it's really only mildly annoying. It could be a lot worse: Port Townsend really isn't a bad town to be stuck in, as seaside towns go (despite the dearth of wireless internet within a mile of the shipyard), and our workload has lightened considerably since we finished painting. But other crew members were expecting to be in Westport by now, counting on it in fact, and they're starting to trickle away by ones and twos, off to schools and jobs and family, disappointed and vexed at having to find transportation by land instead of by sea.

Summer is losing its grip, skidding away from us into the mist. Rainclouds and flocks of geese pass overhead as we commiserate about how much we miss being rocked to sleep at night. This evening I rode the tiny one-speed boat bike (Hermes, messenger of the gods) a mile and a half up the path beyond the paper mill, pedaling hard, inhaling the scent of rain-washed autumn herbs. On the long lazy slope homeward, I gazed out at the little boats coming in from the sound. None of them were as cool as my boat, but they were out on the water, and I envied them that. I want to be on the move. I want to chase after the geese, clutch at summer's outstretched hand and slide on southward into brightness and warmth.

Postscript: The propeller shafts are back and getting a sleek coat of fiberglass at this very moment. We should "splash" sometime Friday. In other news, I just found out about the free wireless at the Safeway across the street from the yard(!).

On Internet Access, and Other Joys of Boat Life.

Monday, August 27, 2007
2130 hours

Most of the time, my only access to the internet these days is through the ship's computer, which has one of those Verizon cards which works just about anywhere but only gives you a certain number of minutes per month (after which there's a per-minute charge, what is this, 1988?). This obviously limits my access quite a bit. Occasionally some generous land-dwelling soul will allow me to use a home or office computer. This is really really nice. However, it's generally just enough time to catch up on some correspondence, not enough to read anybody's blog. So I have no idea what most of you other bloggers are up to.

However, due to some fancy equipment brought by a generous volunteer, the Lady Washington is currently a wireless hotspot. Here in Tacoma, we are moored next to the Lady. This means that if you take your laptop out on the deck of the Hawaiian Chieftain while the wireless thingy is active, you can actually get a fairly decent connection. (Below decks, not so much; the Chieftain has a steel hull.) This has been really really really nice. Unfortunately, said volunteer will be taking his technology home with him at the end of the month. Also unfortunately, it's cold outside, so I'm writing this in my bunk and will run up on deck to post it when I'm done.

I've been lucky enough to have several friends come out to sail with me on the boats recently. Some even drove long distances to do so. It's fun to show people (meaning, people I know) what it is that I'm doing out here. I mean, not all the hours that I spend punching numbers into the computer and growling, but the other things. Things I don't think twice about anymore, but which would have amazed me a year and a half ago: things like belaying and coiling a line, or knowing which line to go to when the mate calls out commands, and what will happen if I haul on it or let it go. Or going aloft. I do still think twice about going aloft, but my second thought these days is usually "I am so cool right now."

A friend of mine back home, after finding out that I have to wear a costume for this job, said, "Oh, now I get the appeal." This struck me as odd, particularly the implied assumption that the clothes are the best part. For the record, I'm not actually all that jazzed about the 18th-century clothing. It gets in the way of sailing. I'm not an actor, and I'm not a re-enactor. I'm a sailor.

My job as purser is how I pay for the sailing. As purser, I'm in charge of accounting for all the money that is spent and received by the boat. This is a little ironic because I've managed to avoid math classes since midway through high school. In retrospect, that wasn't such a good idea. If I were half as comfortable with numbers as I am with letters (I can alphabetize in my sleep, and probably have), or if I'd ever taken a single accounting class in my life, I'd have been a lot less intimidated by all this paperwork. As it is, it's taken me quite some time to get used to it. One thing I learned the hard way was that I can really only deal effectively with spreadsheets when I'm not tired, hungry, dehydrated, or aching. This means not after sailing. With that and a few other lessons under my belt, I hesitantly claim that I'm actually getting kinda good at this now -- not as good as I'd like to be, but good enough that my hair is no longer in danger of being torn out every time I try to assemble an income report for the seaport office.

So there's sailing, and there's pursing, and there's various chores inbetween, and there's living in a steel box with a cast of genuinely interesting characters, and a dozen new things to learn every day, and taken as a whole this job is challenging and satisfying on every level: physical, mental, emotional, relational, and yes, spiritual too.

With all of that going for me, if my internet cravings are not satiated, well, I guess I can deal.

How I Got Back On The Boat, etc.

Wednesday, August 22, 2007
1100 hours

So I went home for my brother's wedding, and what a glorious shindig that was. The tricky part turned out to be getting back to the boat, which was in Coupeville the day after the wedding. The crowded Greyhound (sold out for the weekend, as Amtrak wasn't running) got me as far as Everett, but then what? Coupeville is at the north end of Whidbey Island. Everett is south of Whidbey Island. The closest ferry to the island leaves from Mukilteo, the next town over from Everett. There are buses between all the towns and ferries in the area -- but most of the buses don't run on Sundays. And of course it was a Sunday.

So... I walked four miles, with a pack that weighed 23 or so lbs. (darn that laptop), to the Mukilteo ferry. And then I called the Chieftain from the ferry, and they said they'd send somebody for me when they got back from the evening sail. Some very generous and hospitable Coupevillains drove the length of Whidbey (about 40 miles, if I recall correctly) to pick me up and, it being very late by the time we got back, took me in for the night. Which meant that I got a much-needed shower that I wouldn't have got otherwise, and slept on a much better mattress.

It was totally worth it, of course. But next time I try to travel by public transportation in northwest Washington, it will not be on a Sunday.

From Coupeville to Everett, to Seattle (Lake Union), to Brownsville, which is north of Bremerton, and which is where I am now, on my day off, watching the Chieftain from the window of the port office. And in between, by little and by little, I am getting better both at sailing and at pursing. I am less exhausted and more even-tempered. There are several people aboard who are newer and know less than I. When people ask how long I've been aboard, I have to guess because I've lost track. And I am not tired of it yet.

On The Flip Side.

Saturday, July 21, 2007
2110 hours

I spent the second (and last) night of the camp at Cypress Island, on Pelican Beach. It went fine, actually. The rain kept the mosquitoes down, and we stayed dry under a pre-existing shelter. There were very nice mulching toilets, with an interesting diagram on the inner wall so you could see what would happen to your poo. And Annoying Passenger stayed on the boat. In addition, there were s'mores, and singing. It was great. The next morning we had pancakes and cheesy scrambled eggs, cooked over a campfire by the Lady's crew, and then a few of us walked to Eagle Harbor. We were trying to get to Smuggler's Cove, but... you know, Eagle Harbor was pretty cool too. And it was a good walk. Very, very quiet. It was incredibly pleasant to have a break from human voices for a while. Since then, we've been in Anacortes doing dockside tours and battle sails. And I'm feeling a lot better -- still tired, but no longer on the verge of coming down with the boat plague (colds get passed around and around the crew). At the moment, I'm sitting in the Chieftain's aft cabin, where most of the male members of the crew are playing that pirate card game (the one with the little boats you assemble) and drinking whisky and talking loudly, and several of the female members are watching "But I'm a Cheerleader" and eating peanut butter M&Ms and laughing loudly. It's the polar opposite of anchor watch. I really like how these two posts balance each other out, how I get to have both of these extremes in my life.

In other news, I organized my bunk and, in doing so, found the missing aloe vera. And there was much rejoicing.

Edit: I fixed the map so you can zoom in if you click on it.

Anchor Watch.

Wednesday, July 8, 2007
0010 hours

I'm on anchor watch off Sucia Island, in the San Juans. This is my first time on any sort of watch. It's a beautiful night for it, calm and still, with a generous amount of stars overhead. Earlier we could see the shore group's campfire and the bouncing flames of a firedancer. We're far enough offshore that the mosquitoes can't find us. My watch companion is congenial and a patient teacher, both of shanty lyrics and boat check procedure.

Still, I'd really like to be asleep right now.

I've been so busy telling everybody how much fun sailing is that I forgot how hard it is. I'm really exhausted, just a few days in. I know it will get better, and I know there are times it will be much worse. But right now, just for the record: I'm tired. And this is hard. It's still totally fun and awesome and worthwhile, but, yeah, really really challenging.

Some fun things we did today: a laid-back sail/motor transit from Port Townsend, pretending we were the first palefaces to ever set eyes on the San Juans, rowing the jollyboat in to the island, rowing the jollyboat back out and in again when it turned out we'd forgotten several items, eating food cooked over a campfire, hiking in the woods, climbing around in the shallow little China Caves.

Even though I have some apprehensions about the night I'll spend on shore tomorrow (nobody brought mosquito repellent; don't know what kind of toilet facilities will be available, if any; one of the campers is really incredibly annoying; etc.), I'm genuinely sorry to be missing the next camping session. But my brother's getting married the day after that five-day session, and the real problem with being in the middle of nowhere without a car is that it makes it very hard to get anywhere else. So this means I'll need to skip out before the next camp, resulting in more days off than intended for me. Admittedly, I'm not entirely sorry about this. I can take home stuff I didn't need (can't wear my own climbing harness, rats) and bring back stuff I do (where, oh where is my aloe vera gel?).

And sleep.

A lot.