The Alaskan Boatyard

Hello Friends,

Spring came abruptly to Alaska. Seemingly overnight, the understory erupted in the fresh, verdant green of deciduous foliage. A sleep-muddled bear fell through the roof of a Juneau house into a child's birthday party and, in Sitka, a grumpy grizzly wandered the streets preying on dogs while taking generous gunfire from the locals.

Leaving Sitka was a bittersweet occasion, but the weather was fair and the endless wilderness beckoned. Several consecutive going-away celebrations left us a little groggy, but the brisk spring air pushed the boat slowly north. Kara's brother, Nathaniel had joined us for a brief sojourn, a rather inexplicable occurrence given that his last visit had consisted primarily of large, wicked seas and a terrifying collision with a humpback whale in the southern Indian Ocean. Not knowing any better, he considered the sea conditions in the Gulf of Alaska just fine, if a little chilly, as we worked out way up the outside of Chichigof Island.

Chichigof Island, incidentally, is renown for having the highest population density of grizzly bears on Earth. Kara, of course, wanted to hike daily and so I'd borrowed a 12-gauge shotgun. I was under no illusion about stopping a charging bear—or even my ability to locate the gun's trigger under such circumstances—but I hoped it would make loud, presumably bear-scaring noises. This theory proved fantastically incorrect; the bears we encountered were decidedly unperturbed by gunfire and I started to worry that, just maybe, the more curious were coming to investigate the unfamiliar noises. Their reactions to our presence ranged from imperious disinterest to nervous retreat, and after several peaceable encounters I stopped worrying.

As the last grocery store faded astern, Kara's role as provision-shopper began to evolve. In the course of her endless quest for fresh food, wild mushrooms, greens, and berries gradually supplanted their storebought predecessors. She perfected her salmon-trolling technique, and there were several halibut dramas; the largest catches were tremendously muscular and impossibly difficult to subdue, even after being hoisted aboard. The ensuing cockpit battles all culminated in an abrupt, deadly silence, the clank of a gore-spattered anchor dropping from Kara's shaking hand, tears leaking through beads of sweat as she grappled with the harsh realities of wresting food from the wilderness.

In July, we entered the inside passage through Icy Straight. In the late 1700's, the first European explorers reported the area unnavigable, choked with ice, and named it accordingly. Other, recent sailing publications advised caution around large bergs. We sailed through with a sharp lookout, but the ice had vanished. We kept Orca pointed east—deeper into ice country—and finally the first bergs appeared. The sea became deceptively peaceful as we spiraled further inland; the waterways tightened, cliffs soaring. Four times daily, the twenty-foot tides struggled to squeeze through narrow passages and in places the currents ran at 15 knots with large standing waves and tumbling, house-sized ice cubes.

Ford's Terror

Orca was feeling sluggish and the swirling tidal currents had us at their mercy. Her bottom was dirty, but the frigid glacial waters left Kara disinclined to dive the hull to scrape the vigorous Alaskan growth—with twenty hour days, the marine ecosystem was booming. We gave ourselves a crash-course the use of the Alaskan boatyard; I drove Orca aground at high tide. In an hour, she was high, dry, and ready for paint.

With a clean bottom, we sliced decisively through the currents. Orca pushed even deeper into the fjords than should have been possible; our nautical charts, last updated in 2009, told us we were buried beneath five-hundred vertical feet of ancient tidewater glacier. Finally, miles further inland, we sighted the Dawes glacier. Cracking ice echoed louder than thunder, and hundreds of tons of ice cascaded from the face. The slabs rained into the sea, explosions of spray rocketed hundreds of feet up, and the entire waterway sloshed endlessly. Floating bergs scraped, crashed, collided, broke, rolled, and groaned.

Powerboat at Dawe's Glacier

But even floating in this raw, roiling granite basin surrounded by the awesome power of the ice, it was obvious that something even bigger, even more tremendous, was conquering the glacier's hold on this land. The ice-scars on the valley's smooth walls, like high water marks, were thousands of feet up. Plants—even lichen—had yet to colonize the fresh rocks and scree adjacent to the glacier, and meltwater roared from a hundred waterfalls. This glacier was in full retreat.

We turned south, pushing through a slurry of shattered ice and into Canada. The salmon vanished at the border, unable to spawn with their home streams choked by the muddy runoff hemorrhaging from from clear-cut logging operations. Signs of civilization began to appear; boarded-up sportfishing resorts, networks of logging roads, and industrial salmon farms where desultory attendants shoveled pink food pellets laced with antibiotics into vast pens of imported Atlantic salmon (without a steady diet of artificial dye, farmed salmon fillets would be grey and unmarketable).

Three hundred miles into Canada, the first vacation homes appeared—at first just tiny cabins. As our latitude decreased, their size and density exploded until, finally, we re-entered the U.S. at Friday Harbor on San Juan Island where the water's edge is an impenetrable wall of five-story condominiums. The adjacent tiers of mansions had swelled to include every conceivable inch of waterfront space, and 'no trespassing' signs were ubiquitous. Somehow, throughout the San Juan Islands, it is common practice to market exclusive access to the tidelands, resulting in a beautiful coastline of forested beaches almost entirely owned—and fiercely defended—by private development interests. They made it abundantly clear that little Coconut was not welcome ashore, and our excitement about exploring the islands withered.

 

Missing Glacier?

With the notion of finding a berth and a job for the winter, Kara called each of the fifty marinas in Seattle. Confronted with lengthy waiting lists, large insurance minimums, and a general distaste for live-aboards, Orca, seemingly of her own volition, turned west, out into the Pacific and was swallowed by a dense fog. She emerged fifty miles off San Francisco Bay, where her course began to angle east and we soon found ourselves on a course for Thanksgiving with our families in Monterey.

Thanks to everyone who bought a copy of the book, and especially those twenty-seven friends and strangers who contributed to the 4.8 star average on Amazon.com.

Fair winds,

John & Kara

Find us soon on
https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA



 

Book Release

Sitka, as seen from across the Sound at the summit of Mt. Edgecumbe

Hi friends,

Just a quick note.  The Orca book is now available from Amazon in both paperback and e-book formats at $8 and $3, respectively. The book-jacket summary is below. 

The inspiring and hilarious true story of an unworldly twenty-two year old California surf punk and his faithful girlfriend who tire of their parochial and drama-filled home town. They decide to buy a thirty foot sailboat and disappear.

They must overcome spectacular nautical ignorance and defeat a cunning sabotage attempt by safety-conscious parents armed only with a shoestring budget and an unshakable sense of humor. Once on the high seas, unexpected enemies and incredible allies soon propel little Orca across the Pacific and into the unforgiving Southern Ocean. Before long, the crew realizes they've gone too far downwind: in order to return home, they must sail around the world. Nothing will ever be the same.

It is a 290-page novel that seeks to entertain as it informs. If this sounds interesting, please follow this link or search for 'Orca sailing' from Amazon's website. Positive reviews greatly appreciated!

Thanks again,

John & Kara

Hello Everyone,

Even though it's only February, it seems like worst of winter is behind us. Kara is ecstatic.

We're told that a winter in southeast Alaska is often longer and darker than many areas further north because of the perpetual cloud cover. The occasional glimpses of the dim, watery sun held no heat and Kara could stare into it, unflinching, for hours. Orca's cabin was murky for three months, daylight's presence only betrayed by a greyness in the southern sky and the blazing cabin lights that pierced noon's gloom. Periodic snowfall covered the hatches, exacerbating the situation. For a while, Kara was acting strangely, shoveling snow off the deck hatches during a blizzard and mumbling about digging for the sun. Our Sitkan friends said she was SAD.

Seasonal Affective Disorder is prevalent here—weeks of incessant rain, sleet, snow, and months of thick cloud weigh heavily on the town's collective psyche. Super-doses of synthetic vitamin D seem to help, though others swear by a therapy of sixty minutes staring into a lightbox from a foot away. We compromised by stringing white Christmas lights around the cabin, and Kara's mom bought her a new kerosene lamp. Kara keeps the sunlight-gold brass immaculately polished with religious dedication.

The learning curve has been steep. We scrambled to get Orca hooked up to city electricity in October, when the last electron trickled out of our solar panels. In November, a cold snap solidified the dock plumbing, and we hadn't filled Orca's water tanks. By December, Kara was experimenting with her contact lenses, which had frozen solid in solution, to determine if they were still serviceable after careful thawing—they were. In January, Kara learned to wear a hat between the shower and Orca when her wet hair froze into a helmet of disarrayed spikes during the commute; the fishermen were greatly amused. We made extensive modifications to our chimney and fireplace, which has been burning non-stop for four months. Though the distinction between diesel #1 and #2 still eludes me, #1 seems to flow better when the temperature plunges. The battle against moisture and condensation is uphill and futile, though the whisper of ice along the hull no longer keeps us awake on cold nights.

 

The Sitkans seem to take all this in stride; they just don't know any better. Surfing and—stranger yet—snorkeling are inexplicably popular wintertime activities involving slabs of neoprene and the requisite waterproof flashlights. A huge turnout for outdoor ultimate frisbee in torrential 33-degree sleet and 30-knot winds during the afternoon night is not unexpected, and a great way to meet the locals.

We stumbled into an acquaintance with David, a ballerina and the self-designated ice-tester at the town lake. He skates wearing a life jacket and falls through often, but doesn't seem to mind. His 24-year-old brother is the local political celebrity, the house representative for SE Alaska, an ultra-marathoner, and mountaineer who climbed a 22,000 foot high mountain to measure it's precise elevation trigonometrically for a school project. Together they maintain a tradition of midnight winter-solstice naked harbor swims.

Little Abby was once trapped in her car seat, strapped into the family SUV on a camping trip as a rampaging brown bear tore off the tailgate and climbed inside. Her parents watched powerlessly from afar as it ate through much of the food but left Abby unharmed. Afterwards, her mom, though shaken, opted to continue the vacation on reduced rations.

Dave was recently hospitalized when a bird flew into his window. The bald eagle had a wingspan of seven feet and the impact turned the window into high velocity glass spears that stuck, quivering, into his flesh.

Taylor is a frisky 23-year old blonde who runs the local aquarium. She says sea otter makes excellent soup, whale meat is best stir-fried and, when pressed, reluctantly admits to fighting off a twelve hundred pound brown bear using a chainsaw ("I'm just glad my old Stihl started on the first pull!").  Away at college for the first time, she was forcibly removed from her Seattle dorm by an angry mob of vegan roommates after she mistakenly grilled a slab of self-slayed elk in the communal cookware. She still doesn't understand what she did wrong.

 

About three weeks ago, the winter precipitation gave out with a final gasp—eight inches of rain in eight hours. Ever since, the sky has been blue and the sun seems to pack more punch. Though the temperature hasn't sallied above freezing in two weeks, everybody is outside in shorts, skin translucently white, squinting, sun-dazzled, and smiling. They say we're through the worst, and a good thing too.

This winter's project has been to write a book about Orca's voyage. Given the awful weather and our quest for any excuse not to venture outside, progress was almost inevitable. The rough draft includes some Orca Update text but is mostly new material with an emphasis on the personal—and often humorous—side of our misadventures. Does anyone know a publisher who might be interested in having a look?

Thanks again,

John & Kara

S/V Orca

Sitka, Alaska