Future, Failures and FEARS!

What I Thought When I Started the Sea Portion and Why I Thought It

My love of the pacific ocean is derived from my childhood and no other national park, desert sunset, mountain peak, majestic lake, or inland adventure of any kind can give me the feeling that the Pacific does.  There is such an emotional pull. The view of atop Superior looking down on my past or turn the corner on PCH to see Crystal Cove reveal itself touch a part of me deep inside that no other place in the world can but the beauty of Big Sur, Carmel, Montery and the like, the majesty of Moro Bay, the solitude of the Northern Coast, the natural beauty of the PNW, there is nothing like it in the world of which I have basis for extensive comparison. When times are good, I want to share my history and love with anyone that will listen. When times are bad, it is my place of solitude, mindlessness and escape. However, my love has always been on the shore peering out onto the horizon.  Sailing was something I always admired but never thought attainable, I just never had the opportunity to learn, the cash to burn, the knowledge of what it really takes.  Now I have two out of three and I am working on the latter.

I was thoroughly enjoying my new life as a nomad with a couple of rescue dogs traveling the whole of

the west coast with plans to go even further.  My home is Newport Beach and after time on the road, the feeling of getting back to a familiar environment with familiar faces would outweigh the joys of traveling.  In those times I would return, I would slip back into a familiar routine of people, places and OCD.  It also included an abundance of downtime looking for new adventures, which are hard to come by in such a familiar place.  I don't know where the idea came from, or what motivated it, but I suddenly found myself in sailing school. If you have read previous post, you know the story so we can skip ahead.

I am called the grasshopper for a reason. I want what I want, when I want it and usually, I want it now, I put little thought into the reasons why I should wait.  In an RV, that was fine.  I had to learn to make wider turns and how not to burn it down.  I knew how to drive so if calamity happened, I would be protected physically by the rolling four walls that surrounded me and the insurance would pick up the tab.


Once I learned to sail, that was it! I could now expand my love of the pacific to include things that I never dreamed of.  So now, I have the gotta wannas, and it is not possible to talk me out of it! I did what I do and the series of comedies and tragedies brings us to this place in time.
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Sailing is a different animal than the RV, in so many ways i.e. purchasing, fixing and maintaining. Not knowing what I didn't know would kill me. But not knowing what I don't know has never stopped me because I will know with experience.  I learn by doing, that is my nature. However, educated people do not do quasi research that only supports a particular position but, I did. I wanted the dream to become a reality so desperately and so quickly. Aside from the romanticized videos of COUPLES circumventing the globe, I took particular interest in those that said they had zero sailing experience when they started but now seemed to be as comfortable under sail as they would be behind the wheel of a small automobile. I got excited by articles that said things like, "you just get on board into open water and start pulling on lines to see what they do....." Afer all, that IS my motus operandi in all things and it has worked quite well for me.

Leading the pack, Xiffias!

If you have followed along, I was blessed with a Cal 25 sailboat and as soon as the motor was working properly, I headed out for open ocean. No life jacket, no real understanding of Xiffias, no thought of things going wrong or what my response would be when they did, no idea how to work the VHF or who to call on my cellphone if I even had service out there.  I just wanted to be out there and, If I was really lucky, see some marine life.  Each time I went out it was during calm seas and the worst thing that happened, thank God, is seaweed getting tangled up in the propeller.

But then it all changed, in the confines of the harbor after a great trip out, disaster struck. Xiffy still bears the scars from that day but she hides them well. Me however, I was changed immediately. Once back on dry land, I ran far away scared and humiliated with my tail between my legs.  I had to deconstruct the event over and over in my mind to make sense of it all.  The problem was, I did not have the experience to draw from to come to the conclusion that "if I had only done this" or "next time I will do that."

Now I knew what it was to end up in the water in a moment of panic;  Now I knew what it felt like to see the boat drifting away; Now I knew that it was almost impossible to get back on the boat with its current configuration.  The actual event is not what scared me! I was in a closed harbor and I could swim to safety and just let the boat do its thing.  It was the thought of that exact thing happening on one of my thoughtless excursions out into the ocean.  Things got real in a hurry and safety became paramount.  My mentor, henceforth, mackrat, just rose in stature from overly-cautious, cantankerous old salty dog to sailing God. I learned what true surrender meant over the next couple of days as I thought through everything.  If he says no, I listen but I still question.  Not to be difficult but because he will not be with me in every situation and I want to know why he thinks the way that he does and what corner I am not seeing around.

What I Think Now and Why I Think It

I have some good experience on Xiffy now, mostly under motor around the harbor.  The open areas of the harbor do not pose any significant challenges because of my life long experience but the tight quarters were a challenge with boats and people, especially tourists with no sense or understanding of rights of way or basic etiquette.  But the dock posed the biggest challenge, coming and going.  With the placement of the motor in relation to the rudder, the effects of the wind on such a lightweight boat and my own technique that was not at all refined yet, it was a hard learning curve to get to the point that the butterflies left my stomach.  Now we are there and I have been tested various times with differing circumstances, winds, and obstacles to overcome. Each one is an experience that I can put in my pocket and now I handle the boat with confidence, IN THE HARBOR!

Experience has also taught me that I am not ready for open waters.  One day on choppy seas that mackrat laughs at, seeing how the boat gets tossed around, thinking of my previous disaster, and thinking of my dogs, the physical demands, working on the for-deck in those conditions, or worse, there is still much to learn in the way of technique, safety precautions and anticipation and most importantly, who to call, and when, if things go really bad. If I go into the water again, I want to be sure that it is not in a panic and that I have done everything to the boat to prevent it, for myself to be prepared for it, and a plan for any experience with a real probability.

So we get to Xiffy and how prepared she is.  She is water tight and very sturdy.  The VHF works perfectly and I do a radio check every time I go out.  Moreover, it is current enough to have a DSC button.  Why is this important?  Anything I do will be single handed and this is the final act of desperation if I cannot physically call a Mayday.  If I push the button, it will at least transmit my identity and location, that is if it were hooked up to a GPS!  Did I have that? NO! Do I have it now? Absolutely, but only after a false start.

As ready as she is though, she is a completely manual boat.  No furlers so sails are raised/dropped by hand; no lazy jacks so I wrestle with the sails flaking them as I go; no Windlass so anchoring will be by my alone.

Moving on to the next safety issue, is the standing rigging (the things that hold the mast up) ready for whatever comes my way? No!  I get teased all of the time for not having my sails up but this is the reason. The issue was discovered in a video I posted online on a moderate day. I received an urgent text from makcrat.  His instructions were never to do that again because he noticed the inner stays were flapping in the wind and that I was lucky the mast had not come down.  Great!  Something else to think about that I had not considered.  I did a lot of research on "tuning" the rigging and it is pretty straight forward, enough to get me on the harbor under sail on a calm day, but it will be professionally inspected and tuned before I take any kind of trip.  I have learned that assurance of, and confidence in, your boat is critical and I cannot say that I am there yet.  I know her history of racing in the open sea and I can look around to see that no expense was spared, but she sat for a while and a conversation with the previous owner is not possible.  Relying on my own understanding will never give me the full confidence so thankfuylly, not only is mackrat my guiding light but I have access to the skipper that won the class nationals with this boat and he HAS the intimate knowledge that I desire so.

Now on to the bigger question, am I ready physically and mentally for what I am about to undertake? Are the dogs ready for a life of being tossed around on a boat for hours on end.  The answer to both is NO!  For me, the physical limitations have really come to light.  My back is what my back is and sailing, especially single handing, is as hard as it is.  Then I have the shoulder that was injured recently and has not been the same since.  The neck with the herniated discs; the arthritis in the back and hands; the knee that is starting to act up and is quite painful when it does; the overall stamina and how I get worthless in a hurry once my energy is depleted.  I never pay attention to these things!  I push through them, until I can't, and then I rest.  Obviously this will not even be an option on the water.  So what to do?

I plan to get on a regimine to streangthen the muscles and build up the stamina that I will be able to test and confirm the results as I progress. But there is a burning quesiton in my mind that I have no answer for: what am I going to do, not if, but WHEN I throw my back out? Pain is one thing, OUT is another. Cant stand, can't walk, I am called Mr. Peanut when that happens because my body is so contorted by spasm.  I wish I could keep typeing here to lay out my plan, but I don't have one. I do know that If I have any chance, I have to figure out an Ice strategy!

My research now has really gone the other way altogether.  Rather then feeding the dream with unicorns and rainbows, I look for worst case scenarios in the form of videos, articles and questions to those that have been through it.  I was enamored with flying one of several racing spinnakers that came with Xiffy, with the carbon fiber pole and achieving racing speeds, all on my own!  And then I learned all about accidental jibes, Chinese jibes or whatever you want to call them.  I watched many videos very carefully and when such a thing happens it can be devastating.  I observed that most had a spinnaker flying and it was just a simple shift of wind that would cause things to go catty-wampus in a hurry.  But more importantly, I never saw a single instance of a single-hander going through the recovery process. Rather, I saw many accidental jibes with an experienced skipper at the helm with a capable crew that followed verbal commands, and there are many, to pull the spinnaker in and upright the boat.  Take my physical limitations and my experience level into consideration and the only question now is, do you want to buy a spinnaker sail or carbon fiber pole?

In the vein of what I call negative research, or disaster planning, I viewed many distress calls and understand the importance of communicating the facts e.g. position, boat specifics, lives on board, urgancy level, X-Ray-India-Foxtrot-Foxtrot-India-Alpha-Sierra, etc...; I have learned the importance of becoming a psuedo metorologist, plotting charts, reading charts and hazard markers, audible signaling, nav lighting basics of when, why and what it all means.  I have seen docking disasters as well as docking mastery under all conditions.  I have read about pirates boarding the boat; I have watched many MOB drills; I have seen engine failure, sail failure, rigging failure, and demasting (scary!)..... With all of this negative research I could easily slip into the mindset that I will never be prepared so I have to get back to just going and learning by experience. Otherwise, I would never go!

Before I head out I know I need some basic safety fundamentals and equipment, a lot of which has already been addressed.  I am not afraid to die at sea but not in a panic for lack of preparation!

Now the fun part.......Future Plans!

Once I have learned enough in my own environment,  in and around the harbor or within 10 miles of shore where all of the landmarks are so familiar, and under myriad conditions, I will embark on an inaugural trip to Catalina.  Everything I have seen and read indicates a motor out with a nice sail back in.  Certainly not my first time to the hill that meets the horizon that I grew up with, but definitely the first time on my own and on such a small boat!  As I write this, there is a race taking place with teams of outriggers going there and back.  Really? False confidence sets in again!

I think I will learn a ton from that trip about myself, the kids and Xiffy and, with that newfound knowledge, I hope to have a debriefing with mackrat, get any work done that I require, hone some techniques and then move on to the next leg of the overall journey. First though, I should probably learn how to drop and anchor and pick up a mooring!

Next step, move the boat North for several reasons.  First being the bottom paint.  It is the final, and most costly, to-do item left to be done to be able to call Xiffy fully resurrected and restored to her former magnificence, just as the previous owner had planned.  Needless to say, work like this is much more cost effective if performed any place other than Newport Beach, about half the price actually.

More importantly, the location fits perfectly into the bigger vision of harbor-hopping for the next year! I have inspected every significant marina from San Diego to Moss Landing and here is what I know. Going northbound is a lot of work and a lot of motoring due to prevailing winds, so south under sail is the way to go.  Having said that, the further up the coast I can go, the longer sail I will have south and the more marinas, harbors and coves I can hop.  Too far North, however, poses a real problem and dangers, doable but not fun at all so what would be the point.  So let's look at options......

Channel Islands Harbor Entrance

I have spent an abundance of time in the Ventura/Oxnard area and that seems to be the sweet spot.  I love the calmness of the community, especially Channel Islands Harbor as there are no real draws for tourists.  The downsides are food, shopping and entertainment options.  Shopping is close by and convenient but the neighborhoods can be a little dicey.  The area is very Betty friendly and she is a familiar vehicle to the local authorities due to her unique look and branding.  The dogs love it there and it is very familiar and friendly with big open areas of grass and an abundance of friendly beaches.  Cost of course is a consideration too.  At a third of the cost of what I am paying now to be in Newport, it is less than someone could rent a small room for!

Ventura Harbor

Ventura Harbor, on the other hand, is slightly more expensive, touristy with the Village, has my favorite restaurant right there and a lot more of a social scene.  The propinquity of the boat yard is convenient so the bottom painting, and other work on the hard, would be a breeze.  I have talked extensively with the marina manager and the boat yard about the details and the process and they are very reassuring and informative. Very dog friendly and guests would probably enjoy it more. The drawbacks are 1. it is not Betty friendly for more than 2 days per week WHEN I am allowed to stay on the boat and 2. seems to have a lot more crime in the harbor than most with outboard motors and other equipment knicked right off of the boats!

A choice will be made soon between the two.  The plan is to only stay long enough to get the work done, become familiar with the harbor and local islands (3 months) and then move on, South under sail of course.  Ventura makes sense for this reason as well since the first hop would BE to Channel Islands Harbor transiant dock!

To understand the plan, just look at a map from Ventura heading south and look at every marina and cove along the way.  Destinations would include MDR, Santa Monica, Long Beach, Huntington, Newport, Dana Point, Oceanside, San Diego........ and then the decision will be made whether to cross into Mexico. There are also a few cool little coves along the way with free anchorages!

Once concluded, the vision in my mind says that at that point I will be ready to execute the next part of the plan. Something will have to be done with Xiffy at that point. Hire somebody to sail/motor her back? Transport her by land? Sell her (gulp)?

That next part of the plan could be many things based on several factors.  Was it everything I thought it would be? Did I feel limited by coastal cruising and long for the blue waters more now than ever?  After all of the day trips, am I ready for weeks at sea?  How did my body hold up? How are my relationships? How are my finances?  How did the dogs like it? Have I overcome my fears?

If I can answer in the affirmative, it will give me permission to fully commit to the overall vision!  I will say nothing more about it other than to post this picture.

“Do the thing you fear and the death of fear is certain.” -Mark Twain

"a mans reach should always exceed his grasp" -Robert Browning

I'm Going To Need A Bigger Boat!

Patience Grasshopper!!