Author: Kristen

I appreciate a little subjectivity in cruising guidebooks, so I love the Dreamspeaker series which includes hand-drawn charts of most of the anchorages in the Salish Sea with notes on where to find rope swings and blackberry bushes. Now that we’re outside Dreamspeaker territory, I find myself Googling “favorite anchorage [our current location].” Of course, any anchorage is only as good as the weather you have there. At Yellowbanks, we had it all.

We’d been circumnavigating Santa Cruz Island in the Channel Islands for a few days and knew a strong northwesterly was approaching. We decided to ride it out at Yellowbanks, an anchorage on the southeast end of the island with a sandy bottom and good holding.

The Friday we arrived was perfectly warm and calm. We were swimming almost before the anchor was set, no wetsuits needed. We spent the afternoon with Kevin (a different Kevin!) and Melissa of Dark Star, joking about the crazy winds that never materialized and the boats that arrived after us and anchored awkwardly close. They told us about a night they spent in Echo Bay on Sucia Island when a rare thunderstorm rolled in after dark, half of the 50 plus boats in the bay dragged anchor, and frantic yelling rang out through the night. We remembered a 4th of July we spent in the very same spot during the early days of COVID when the only sound that broke the perfect calm was a lone trumpet playing America the Beautiful at dusk. Which experience would we have tonight?

By Saturday morning, we could finally see white caps to the south, but couldn’t feel much in our cozy anchorage. The remote cliffs of Anacapa Island beckoned. We hailed Dark Star on the VHF to see if they wanted to join for a day sail. Kevin, a pilot, sounds pretty professional on a radio, but his natural enthusiasm comes through: “Copy Flyer. I don’t think I need to check with the rest of my crew. We’re in!” Before long, Kevin and Melissa arrived together on a single paddleboard.

We didn’t get far before we felt the wind, 20-25kts and building. And more westerly than expected. It looked like we weren’t going to make it around Anacapa after all, but we got far enough to say we’d seen through its iconic rock arch. It was a rough ride, and even more so when we turned back into the wind to beat our way home. The adults, who had knowingly enlisted in this jaunt, laughed through it. James, who had no say in the matter, emerged from his cabin wearing seasickness wristbands, curled up miserably in the cockpit, and delivered his catchphrase: “This is NOT a vacation.”

By the time we got back to the anchorage, we were in a full fledged gale and every boat other than Dark Star (unoccupied, but looking solid) had fled the scene. Wind gusted down the famed yellow banks at 40kts — no need to back up on the anchor to set it — and whipped sea spray into the air like smoke on the water. The sounds were incredible. There was no chance of getting Kevin and Melissa back to their boat until things calmed down.

Steve predicted that the katabatic winds charging down the hills would die around sunset. We laughed pretty hard when they seemed to pick up after 6pm. By the time the cops showed up (actually the flashing lights of TowBoatUS securing a boat with torn sails to a nearby mooring ball), the three-hour tour had become a slumber party.

Steve and I found this turn of events delightful. We had plenty of food and drink to share — though only half a green cabbage left as far as vegetables go — and were happy to lower our salon table to bed height. Kevin and Melissa, an emergency vet, could have entertained us for days with stories of “dead” turtles come back to life and back woods plane crashes caused by full bladders. But the kids, who have a sixth sense for parental distraction and a Starlink signal, holed up in their own cabins to be entertained by screens.

The next morning, we woke up to a completely different anchorage: calm and sunny. Kevin greeted Steve with a “Morning, Dad!” and paddled back to Dark Star to grab their dinghy. We checked out the forecast, decided to stay put, and headed out in our dinghy with wetsuits and snorkeling gear. We puttered around and debated the best spot to drop in: good visibility here, but close to waves breaking against the rocks; a little milky there, but nice kelp. The further we got from Flyer, the more forcefully Paul pleaded to go back: “I hate when kelp touches me!” Totally unable to reach consensus, we rode back to Flyer and grumbled while unloading all the gear from dinghy again. Paul, now exuberant, talked Steve into rigging up a spinnaker pole rope swing and then talked the rest of us into swimming too.

That night, the seas picked up shortly after we got into bed. Unlike the previous night, when the gale pushed us in one direction, these waves seemed to came from everywhere. From our bunk in the bow — the farthest end of the boat seesaw — it felt like trying to sleep in the Jurassic Park ride at Disney Land. For hours and hours, Steve and I tossed and turned. We were still fully awake (and grumpy) at 5:30, when James came forward to use the head. “Oh wow,” he said, “it feels so NICE up here!” 

As soon as it was light, we pulled up our anchor and made a break for it, but not before taking a picture of a perfect sunrise over Anacapa. We felt like we’d experienced the extremes of Yellowbanks over the course of a few nights, but we shouldn’t have been surprised. The Channel Islands are known for dramatic weather, and I guess our family is too. 

At any given time, the four of us are likely to be living four completely different experiences on the same 44’ boat. One of us may be contentedly trimming the sails while another is cursing every damn thing that fell out of the refrigerator again. One is asking his online English teacher about her other students while another suffers a bout of FOMO as the friend group text chain blows up. One is joyfully playing online with a cousin while another complains about the kids playing Minecraft when there’s a literal National Park outside. One is curled up whispering sweet nothings to the cat while another sees an open hatch and despairs that we’ve really lost her this time.

I try to notice then, when by some alchemy, the four of us find ourselves in sync, making up songs about Pelle over dinner and gleefully vacuuming flies right out of the air while anchored at a particularly beautiful anchorage. One we’ll probably add to our list of favorites.

Returning from the comforts of Philadelphia to our boat in Monterey was a little deflating — and not just because we’d accidentally left some Brie out on the counter for a week. Maybe that explains our sense of urgency to get off the dock and on our way to the Channel Islands, “The Galapagos of North America.” (Though I would have loved more time to explore all the historic buildings from Monterey’s time as the capital of Mexican California, especially the lovely Cooper Molera Adobe.)

We snuck out of the marina early on a Saturday morning. With all this time ashore and dock-bound, it felt good to get going again. Unfortunately the forecast was for boringly light winds the whole way — a forecast that was projected to hold for the coming week. Motoring out into a confused northwest and southwest swell, we all felt a bit woozy rounding Point Pinos. Within a few miles the seas moderated and our left turn helped smooth things out. We were moving south again!

After a quiet overnight trip, we anchored at Cuyler Harbor on San Miguel Island, the westernmost of the five islands that make up Channel Islands National Park. Already in the anchorage were a few boats who had sailed from Seattle to San Francisco as part of the Coho Ho Ho rally. They were quick to dinghy over and invite us to join them the next morning for a hike.

Once settled, it was time to take Pelle’s collar off, get the toys out, and answer the burning question: is the electric outboard strong enough to pull the kids up onto a foil? (Answer: no, but it was fun to try for a few hours!)

In the morning, we managed to land the dinghy through surf without going for a swim, and got to know our new friends on the hike up to the ranger station. Maxi, an entomologist, helped identify the flying ants that had died all over our boats overnight and Melissa, an emergency vet, pointed out footprints of the house cat-sized island foxes who’d been snacking on a seal carcass.

San Miguel is owned by the US Navy and was used as a bombing range, so visitors aren’t allowed on hiking trails without National Parks staff due to unexploded ordnance. We were lucky that — despite the government shutdown — a volunteer ranger was on site. We were even luckier that it was Chuck, a photographer, writer, and general badass who thinks nothing of kayaking 30 miles around the island one day, and hiking 16 miles from one end out-and-back the next morning.

San Miguel is exposed to harsh weather from the Pacific and was overgrazed by sheep in the 1800s, so the views while walking the island’s plateau are wide and barren. James spent most of the hike talking through his E*Trade investment strategy — he bought one share of Advanced Micro Devices and made $70 in a week — but paused to take some photos of the Caliche Forest, an otherworldly landscape of fossilized trees.

Steve and the boys turned back to get to the boat in time for school, but I continued on to Point Bennett, a rookery and resting site for thousands of California sea lions, elephant seals, and northern fur seals. The constant barking from this crowd might have been even louder than a car full of middle-schoolers.

After a few days of perfect weather, a strong northwesterly was approaching, so our mini-fleet dispersed in search of more protected anchorages. On Flyer, we decided to head to Santa Barbara to reprovision and, more importantly, to see LMN’s Interactive Learning Pavillion at UCSB.

While Steve was working on this project, he told us stories of the magical land with a climate so perfect that classroom doors open directly to the outdoors and building specifications include surfboard racks. Somehow, reality actually surpassed our expectations.

The day we visited, Steve’s clients in the department of Design and Construction were having a fall office party, so we got to reconnect with them and even hear Ernie — a former bass player for The Beach Boys and a University architect who worked with Steve on the ILP — serenade the group with his acoustic guitar.

Santa Barbara was very good to us. The harbor marina is bustling with friendly people. The sand spit at the harbor entrance has a sweet mini surf break — about a 30 second dinghy ride from our spot on the dock. The poke bowl from the sushi place near the marina office is incredible, and you might get to watch an octopus chase crabs in the water below while you wait for your order. The local skate shop has a finger skateboard park, and the surf shop has a room full of used boards. Paul visited it five times before spending his life’s savings on his first fiberglass surfboard!

After our three nights at San Miguel, we knew we wanted to spend more time in the Channel Islands. It was exciting to push off the fuel dock in Santa Barbara with poke bowls and new surfboards in hand, clear skies above, and hundreds of dolphins leading the way south across the channel back to the land of kelp forests and tiny foxes.

Remember Kevin from our detour to Newport, OR? We met him on the dock and bonded over being towed in by the Coast Guard after engine trouble. He came aboard to survey our engine and exhaust configuration and helped Steve crack the code. We had a feeling he was special.

Kevin had a job delivering a powerboat from Puget Sound to Sausalito, where he lives when he’s not sailing in Central America. Before he left — headed home to wait for some heat-exchanger parts — he gave us his phone number and a bag of fresh food, including some little pears he’d bought from a kid with a roadside operation. That detail was another clue.

By the time we got to Sausalito, Kevin was back in Newport, but he hooked us up with a boat engine mechanic who made a house call to the Sausalito Yacht Club. Kevin also gave us the keys to his 1990’s era Suburban parked right next to the Yacht Club. We were starting think there was no end to Kevin’s kindness.

We drove Kevin’s car all over town looking for flip flops, as Paul’s feet had apparently grown a full size since leaving Seattle. Steve ran errand after errand to Worst Marine to get yet another part he didn’t get that last time. We drove the beautiful, winding road to Bolinas to meet cousin Keoni for a dawn patrol surf session. And we happily filled the car’s gargantuan tank with Californian gasoline, which still didn’t seem like enough of a thank you. Everywhere we went, people honked and waved, assuming we were Kevin.

When we parked the car back in its lot, a guy stopped to check us out and noticed we weren’t Kevin, but quickly realized we were the family on the aluminum boat Kevin had told him about and offered us “Anything you need. Really, anything.” We wondered if Kevin might be the mayor of Sausalito.

Several days later, we took Flyer to an open slip in a nearby marina to meet Ron, a 77-year-old man in a diving suit. While Ron was underwater, we asked his wonderful wife, Lisa, how often boats come to the marina where they live aboard for bottom cleaning and she said: “Oh never. Kevin asked us to.” Is Kevin our guardian angel?

Who is Kevin??

Our best guess is that Kevin is a regular guy with exceptionally good karma — and also, pretty emblematic of the people we’ve met while cruising around on Flyer over the years: people with enough practical skills to take a boat to remote places and the curiosity to want to, generous enough to share whatever they can, with the good humor to figure they’ll be the ones needing help before long.

Of all the reasons to shove your family into a small boat and spend a year sailing around the Pacific Ocean, meeting the Kevins of the world is top of our list.

* Kevin’s Car is the name of a song by our family’s favorite band, Everything Everything. We listened to it while we drove around in Kevin’s car and sang along with the windows down. If that isn’t nice, what is?

This was James and Paul’s first trip to San Francisco and they arrived by sailboat under the Golden Gate Bridge with family waving to them from shore. In keeping with the non-traditional entrance, we did not see the typical tourist sights. We didn’t visit Alcatraz, Coit Tower, or Paul McCartney’s photography exhibit at the de Young Museum. We did spend an hour using the public exercise equipment in the Panhandle.

After two weeks of sunny Bay Area Fall, some of us were ready to just stay put for the rest of the year. We loved it all, but mostly the warmth of the welcome we received.

So, here are our top ten non-tourist attractions in the Bay Area:

1. Lea the Dog

With apologies to the human relatives who made our arrival feel like a homecoming, Lea the dog was the highlight of our time in the Bay Area. Lea is a certified therapy dog and enthusiastic pool lifeguard, and we all felt better after being with her.

2. Waymo

Robot taxis you control with your phone! James was in heaven.

We found any excuse to ride in a Waymo, including searching for the oldest Geocache in San Francisco County under a big lemon tree in the Fort Mason Community Garden where a clutch of birdwatchers were discussing a hummingbird in hushed voices.

3. Youth Sailing at the Sausalito Yacht Club

Paul’s loud voice and gearhead tendencies have served him well over the years, and maybe never more so than at the Sausalito Yacht Club. After hauling us onto their dock in a gale, the youth sailing coaches heard Paul drooling over their fleet of Fevas and invited him to go out sailing. These kids are not afraid to capsize halfway to Angel Island and neither was Paul.

4. Cruising Club of America

Steve recently joined the Cruising Club of America and his first meeting was a lunch with the ‘San Francisco Station’ in Sausalito. There he received anchorage and mechanic recommendations, copious support for this questionable adventure we’ve embarked upon, and even met my personal safety-at-sea idol, Chuck Hawley.

5. Maya, Jay, Izzy and Talia

I remember when friend’s parents came to visit in college and took us out to dinner at the nice restaurant across the bridge in Vermont. In San Francisco, some of my oldest college friends, Jay and Maya, became the parents. Maya picked us up from the boat in Sausalito — cheerfully hopping into the dingy in her nice work clothes — and drove us to their house in Berkeley where we met their kids for the first time, ate cannolis, and climbed Indian Rock at sunset. Maya dug out 30-year-old photos, our kids laughed at how young we looked, and I felt — despite cold, hard evidence to the contrary — that no time had passed at all.

6. Keoni

Steve’s cousin, Keoni, a genuine good time, met us at Bolinas Beach with a surfboard and spent a morning pushing everyone onto waves. Paul, who had been preparing for this moment since October 2016, was PSYCHED.

7. Cousin Andrew and Soon-to-Be-Cousin Benie

My ridiculously interesting nephew, Andrew, is an engineer at Astranis and gave us an “office” tour that included a fancy espresso, a control room of people communicating with geostationary satellites in high orbit, a vacuum chamber the size of our boat, a giant block of titanium, a Pier 30 real estate history, and fun facts like: goods exported to Space receive refunds on tariffs paid on Earth.

Andrew and his fiancée, Benie, also joined us for a sail around the Bay and have been kind enough to organize a wedding in Berkeley so we have a reason to come back.

8. The Internet Archive Tour

Every Friday at 1pm, there is a free tour of the Internet Archive’s HQ in a former Christian Science church not far from the Golden Gate Bridge. The tour starts on the main floor with a summary of the non-profit’s work archiving websites and other digital material (including video games from your childhood that you might be invited to play in front of the whole tour group), proceeds upstairs to the former sanctuary where humming servers sing to an audience of sculptures modeled after the organization’s employees, and ends in the basement where one of those employees serves you ice cream. Worth a visit even if you barely understand the questions your 13-year-old is asking the tour guide!

9. Apple Park

Every September, James watches a live stream of the Apple Event and gives us a summary the newest iPhone features. This year, according to Apple Maps, we were only 52 miles away from Apple Park on the day of the Event, but — being mere mortals and not tech YouTubers — we were not invited. Also, it was the kids’ third day of online school. We rented a car and drove down to Cupertino that afternoon anyway. The closest we got to the ring building was an AR tour in the Apple Store just outside the company gates, but it was pretty fun to be part of the of the buzz there that day. Like all pilgrims, we bought some merch.

On the way back, we stopped at Stanford to visit LMN’s recently completed Computing and Data Science Building and to give the kids the first in a series of extemporaneous lectures on college campus design. Next up, UC Berkeley and LMN’s Undergraduate and Academic Building.

10. Berkeley Bowl

One of the best parts of traveling is visiting foreign grocery stores and Berkeley Bowl is the Notre Dame of produce. If our boat refrigerator were bigger than a carry-on bag, I would have bought the whole section of Washington apples.

Time feels a little more elastic on the boat, especially during overnight passages when we sleep in our clothes and eat a breakfast of peanut M&Ms at 3am. We keep an eye on the clock because of the watch system and our hourly log entries, but I’m constantly surprised when an hour has passed and I’ve spent the entirely of it watching a curious tern try to navigate around our wind instruments to land on the mast.

We record the dry stuff in a basic three-ring-binder and printer paper logbook: latitude, longitude, course over ground, boat speed, wind speed, wind direction, engine hours, sky conditions, etc. If you’ve wondered how Steve remembers every detail for his technical blog posts, here it is:

What we don’t log is how magical some of these passage hours are. Moderate sleep deprivation has something to do with it, but being surrounded by water as far as the eye can see has a strange effect too. Our screens show massive container ships miles to the west, but our eyes say: you’re the only human awake on the only boat in the ocean. When, just after sunrise, a whale breaches a few hundred yards away, heaving its massive self into the air and crashing back down over and over and over, we might get to thinking that we’re more part of the ocean than whatever is happening in the news.

We’ve now seen hundreds of whales spouting, hordes of cormorants running goofily on the water to get up and away as we approach, and packs of sea lions swimming past us like porpoises. But, by, far, the most surreal and wonderful offshore experience was the midnight watch change when Steve and I caught a pair of dolphins racing Flyer through bioluminescence, trailing blue light as they swam out and back. Another sailor we met calls these Cosmic Dolphins and watching them from a boat in the middle of the night feels like a dream.

Afterwards, I couldn’t stop thinking about the children’s book, Amos & Boris by William Steig, about a romantic mouse who goes to sea. I read this page out loud at least twenty times in 2018 during one of Paul’s boat phases and still love it.

“One night, in a phosphorescent sea, he marveled at the sight of some whales spouting luminous water; and later, lying on the deck of his boat gazing at the immense, starry sky, the tiny mouse Amos, a little speck of a living thing in the vast living universe, felt thoroughly akin to it all. Overwhelmed by the beauty and mystery of everything, he rolled over and over and right off the deck of his boat and into the sea.”

And that brings us to the #1 priority of this trip, higher even than finding a cosmic sense of oneness with the natural world: SAFETY.

Our primary goal while offshore is to keep everyone on the boat. At night and in any daytime swell, we wear inflatable PFDs that clip into jack lines running the length of the boat. (Even Pelle has a life jacket!) If we need to leave the cockpit while underway, we let someone else know. We put a reef in the mainsail in the daylight before it gets dark, or one more than we’d normally have if already reefed. If we ever have to try out our life raft, we have procedures laminated and posted near the VHF.

We are fortunate that Flyer is designed for heavy-weather offshore sailing. She’s got a snug cockpit, a manageable sail plan, simple systems, and a doghouse that keeps us comfortable even in the worst conditions. When things get ugly, or we just want to take it easy, sitting in the doghouse is the place to be. We can keep watch with an almost 360 degree view, monitor all the sails and steer the boat using the autopilot from there.

In general, we avoid adventure in favor of hours of quiet offshore reflection. (Ha! Just kidding, the kids still want to spend their quiet hours playing Minecraft.)