Unlike the rest of the crew, for me this crossing is the whole journey. Or maybe more accurately, the second of two adventures. The first at the beginning of Flyer’s year at sea, the other nearing the end. I joined the crew sail Flyer down to San Francisco last year and when I left the Van Dyck family at the Sausalito Yacht Club I figured that would be the last I saw of them until SVD returned to the office. A couple months ago I was texting Steve and told him about my regret for not having written a blog post and mostly that we weren’t able to bring in a fish on the first leg and Steve was quick to suggest that I help with the crossing to Alaska. About 10,000 nautical miles later, I found myself back on the boat! Extra hands in preparation for possible spicy and unpredictable Northern Pacific weather.
Watching The Office has become a nightly ritual and this passage has brought us through Season 8. If we were each a character, who would we be? What is my role as a guest? In many ways, an observer, trying not to disrupt the family patterns and help out where I can. Am I a reoccurring character? Or part of the documentary team behind the camera? Maybe I should setup a private interview area in one of the cabins… although nobody onboard is shy about telling each other what they are thinking!
Now having concluded Season 8 of their own adventure, perhaps a few updates are needed to the character bios, to better reflect how I have found them.
Steve – Captain. Hasn’t worn shoes in 7 months. Everything has a place or a system. And finding that place and system is how he keeps himself busy.
Kristen – Unflappable. Patience when everyone else on the boat is tired and wants things their way. Always has another immaculate preprepared meal out of one of the many hidden caches of supplies.
James – He’s got that ocean hair. Flowing! Not an iPad kid. His iPad has a mouse. James has become both tech support on the boat and the archivist. Thanks for getting me logged in here!
Paul – Lots of hot takes. Dolphins are overrated and False Killer Whales are the worst. False Killer Whales follow him.
Pelle – Walks with the slow wide confidence of an experience seaman. Unshakeable as Flyer pitches. Using the heel of the boat to lean out from the settee for a better look at dinner on the stove
I am flying home to Seattle now, somewhere over the Aleutian Range, the conclusion of a two week journey from hot to cold. A brief survey of the North Pacific Ocean. Reflecting on all that has happened within 44’ of aluminum. As Paul would say, a trip both shorter and longer than expected.
As we all have experienced, it can be hard to leave for a trip, and a couple weeks away is never long enough to really leave things behind. My own experience walking out the door was filled with last minute fire drills and trying to get the next few weeks of work done in a few days. With no time to pack, I had spent the week before slowly covering the floor of my bedroom with different pieces of everything I thought I might need across 2000 miles of open ocean. Last minute deadlines had pushed our departure date out a week and changed to the port of departure from Honolulu to Kauai with a new plan to sail towards the Aleutian Islands, saving Kodiak for later in Flyer’s adventures.
With a duffle bag, waterproof backpack and lifejacket, I landed in Kauai around midnight, on the wrong side of the island. Another 40 minute wait for a cab and hour drive around the island, I was finally at Hanalei Bay to board Flyer. As we neared the bay, and I continued to direct the cab further along the beach, an exasperated cab driver asked me why my ‘friend’ didn’t just pick me up the start with. As Steve came barefoot out of the dark, he finally understood that I was only there to jump on a boat and sail back to where I had come from.
The morning of our departure, we rushed to experience the last moments of Hawaii. My introduction to Hanalei. Canoe racing filled the bay and the beach. Final provisioning looked more like an excuse to delay the departure another hour masked by a need for a few more apples, fresh bread and interaction with anyone other than the now five people on the boat. Sticky, is how Steve describes these comfortable places. And then, with an almost underwhelming practicality, we hoisted the dinghy on deck, raised the anchor and sails, and made our way out of the bay, soon to be thousands of miles from anything.
I had an idea of what I might experience on this passage. I had come to catch a big fish and write a post for this blog. And now as I check off the second of those objectives, I am reflecting on everything else. The profound smallness that you find while surrounded by sea. There are moments out here, where the earth feels almost measurable. An infinite sea where only clouds mark the curvature of the earth, falling away over the horizon, you can at once understand how we might have been called to explore beyond, believing still that there is something spectacular just out of view.
Since my first passage to SF, the crew has become much more comfortable on Flyer. Nearly a year in and now a home, those first passage jitters are long gone and the confidence in the boat and the crew has made for a passage that is far more relaxing than any of us expected. The potential for truly heavy weather never quite reaching, we found ourselves on a watch schedule where Steve, Kristen and myself each felt both well rested and as if we had gotten lucky with our shift hours! Personally I am hoping that my 4am to 8am hours will finally turn me into a morning person. Unlikely.
I regularity of our watch shifts highlight the rapidly changing daylight. Each degree north brings a dramatic shift in the daylight hours. Near Kauai the sunset is comfortably within my 4pm to 8pm shift, with the sunset spectacle a perk of my time at watch. Within days, sunset slips 20 minutes each evening, I quickly find that my new 9:00 bedtime is becoming a day-lit affair, trading the sunset for a 5am sunrise.
We had expected to quickly be in colder weather. Open ocean, northern currents, unpredictable weather patterns. Surely, we would quickly be in our foul weather gear. Instead, we found ourselves looking for ways to stay cool. My skin, coming from Seattle and already red from a few brief swims in Hanalei, had had enough and I was looking for ways to stay out of the sun, even as we desperately clung to each sunny hour. Peeling shoulders and a raw back, the layers of zinc sunscreen unable to keep up with the constant sun. The Van Dyck crew, tan from a winter and spring spent near the equator enjoyed what was for them hot but comparatively cooler weather.
And slowly, each evening, shorter and cooler than the last, had us pulling out extra layers until finally we were no longer wearing summer swim wear. First the evenings long pants and sweaters staying on throughout the day and soon heavier layers. Each day, markably longer than the last, with a sun that no longer seemed to want to set fully, it was finally time to bring out the cold weather gear. The crew, having not seen cool weather in months and a couple of them having grown a shoe size or two since they last wore foul weather boots, had to dig deep in the lazarette to find enough layers to stay warm.
Excitingly, the cool air brought stronger breeze. The trip so far had been relatively modest winds and finally we were having to throw in a few reefs and seeing boat speeds up to 9 knots. We were racing to stay ahead of some lighter pressure behind us and enjoying the quick progress we were making, even with life on board a little more unstable than it had been in the light wind. The higher speeds and distortion of the map at the higher latitudes started making Dutch Harbor suddenly feel close!
It was only after we had all placed our bets for arrival time into Dutch that we started to think about timing the currents through Unalga Pass. With a 9pm slack tide, my arrival time, which had been looking pretty good, had become out of reach. It was looking like we would be arriving around 4am local time, with James the winner by only a few minutes! Our approach was met with stronger winds, the threat of rain and a wild diversity of seabirds and whales. As land appeared, we were struggling to slow Flyer down, with the strong winds easily pushing us to enter the pass earlier than our planned arrival time
Remarkably, the seabirds had stayed with us throughout the crossing. Giant albatrosses, with six-foot wingspans, gliding effortlessly over the ocean, often skimming close enough for their wingtips to brush the surface. Smaller, equally graceful groups gathered around feeding whales and other sea life. As we neared the Aleutians, the variety of birds increased. Puffins and other local birds joined us near the boat, beating their wings with almost comic effort compared with the albatrosses’ ease.
By morning, we had entered the Bering Sea. The winds that had driven us to the pass early, fell off in the lee of Sedanka Island and we found ourselves motoring into Dutch Harbor.
We awoke to the sights and smells of a fishing town, two hours ahead of boat time and full daylight. Alaskan tundra landscape, where everything man-made stands stark against the rawness of the rocks and what little vegetation has taken hold. Here Bald Eagles are like pigeons, and you will find them unbothered, just beyond reach. The owner of the local pub, a world sailor herself and owner of a boat further down the dock, warned us that the eagles would likely damage any instruments left on the mast.
The next couple days, my last, were spent exploring nearly all of the 38 miles or road on the island. Although we did rent a car, we found Dutch Harbor to be a surprisingly walkable place. From our dock we were able to walk to both restaurants, the museum, airport, Safeway and boat supply store.
There is more to be said about the people and place, but I’ll leave it to the photos to describe. I will say only that Unalaska is a truly remarkable environment and the people are equally as complex. All too soon, I found myself walking across the tarmac and boarding the plane. A quick flight home after a long sail to Alaska.
