July 24 to August 3,
2012:
What do we have in common
with Preston Sturges, “Golden Age” movie mogul, Howard Hughes and John Wayne?
We all sailed Destiny, a
1934-built, 85’ wooden schooner.
Destiny was custom-built in 1934 for Preston Sturges. Howard Hughes bought Sturges out. John Wayne leased her to sail from
California to Hawaii. Destiny’s current owners, Dawn and Mike Hilliard, got
comfortable with celebritydom, too.
Dawn worked for “Animal Planet” and Mike’s linked to the entertainment
industry through his grandfather’s pioneering work in cable installation.
Today, after 78 years, Destiny
sparkles, thanks to the Hilliards to the tune of $2.7 million. They spent 7 years lovingly restoring
her. Destiny’s prior owner
quipped, “Destiny needed you like a drunkard needed a drink,” though, “as a
parched, temporarily tea-totaling aristocrat needed a really, really good
Bordeaux.”
We joined Mike and Dawn and
their two rotund kitties, Rustle and Bad Ju-ju, as crew. Our fellow Milltown
Sailing Club compadre, Diane Kissinger, completed the crew. This was Destiny’s first ocean
adventure since her rebuild and the Hilliard’s first open ocean sail. We’d sail
over 1,000 miles, from Roche Harbor, San Juan Island, which is a stone’s throw
from the Canadian border, to Santa Barbara, Southern California.
We wanted experience working
a watch (divvying up our time sailing 24/7) together in the open ocean. That stretch, from the Pacific Northwest
to Southern California is known to be one of the most consistently snotty
stretches of ocean, worldwide.
Sailing it is considered a solid notch in a sailor’s belt; that too appealed. Even though we’re hardly the star-struck
types, how often would we likely get the opportunity to sail a schooner, the
likes of something John Depp would sashay across in “Pirates of the Caribbean?”
I did have a major concern,
however, which had nothing to do with my relative level of sheer sailing
ignorance and ineptitude…. After falling in love with the simplicity of our 27’
O’Day sailboat and getting accustomed to its small 27’ size, I feared a severe
and nasty case of a near-ubiquitous sailing disease… bigger boat envy. Instead of going from a 27’ sailboat up
to a much bigger 37’ sailboat, we’d now be going down from an 85’ sailboat,
with not only several staterooms (bedrooms), but also a hot shower, a near
commercial-sized washer and dryer, a full-sized standing refrigerator freezer
(in addition to a chest freezer), multiple deck loungers, Sunbrella cushions and
coverings for nearly everything, and a state-of-the-art navigation system and
overlapping alternative energy systems, to our comparatively Spartan 37’ boat,
Journey. Yikes! “Destiny doesn’t hide,” chuckled Dawn,
used to gawkers with camera, snapping away.
Regardless, we were
determined accept our date with Destiny.
Door to door, getting to Destiny was an 8-part, 13-hour commute… a car
ride to the train, Amtrak train to an Amtrak bus, another bus, another bus, a
ferry ride, another car ride and a dinghy ride. All that, just a few days after 3 weeks of sailing and a mad
scramble to and around Portland, OR.
That night, Maggie, Mike’s
Mom hosted us all to a fabulous home-cooked send-off dinner of salmon encrusted
in a cinnamon and orange rub, salad, rice and a birthday cake for Mike’s Dad,
Les, and their friend Katie.
Dinner was followed by a thorough discussion of boating safety and
emergency procedures. There were
also some uncomfortable conversations where conflicting practices between
contributions from standard unpaid crew and guide services. In the case of the former, $10-20/day /
person toward food is customary.
In the case of the latter, their wallets were smarting from a just
completed $1400 Costco run and your average boat doesn’t offer $400 designer Thai
silk settee pillows, long hot showers and washers and dryers on board. Tip to prospective cruisers … initiate
this conversation earlier and more explicitly with the captain.
The next morning we joined
the Hilliard’s friends and family for a send-off celebration, paying careful
homage to all sea superstitions…. Gifts, blessings, a good (un-regurgitated,
for those who read the Port Townsend post) rum offering to Capt. Nemo, a clean
axe cut of the dock lines and no bananas on board. Success… under fair morning skies, we set sail.
Destiny was a floating home
for the Hilliards, so their digs were not set up for bumpy seas and
company. We all did our best
finding the right place for everything.
As is often the case, it seemed there was more stuff than right places,
especially the dive tanks on deck, which left as is, would become deadly
missiles on the loose. Thus, we
tucked into Reid Harbor overnight, a short hop from Roche, where there would be
minimal distractions so we could more efficiently finish getting ship-shape and
ship out.
We did, on yet another fine,
sunny morning. Unfortunately, as
we headed south, and away from the coastline by a good 70+ miles, it ceased to
be balmy. We were mostly on the
front edge of the storm the majority of our trip, sailing and motoring dead
downwind, though at one point we clocked 42 knots per hour in gale winds. Temps hung out in the low 50s, though no
rain up until we anchored in Santa Barbara, where a got a brief but respectable
downpour. My foulies (nasty
boating weather attire) got a good workout, and Dawn bailed me out by finding a
spare pair of rubber boots, which, amazingly, fit!
In the first part of our
trip we were shaken, rattled and rolled pretty well. One of the more amusing moments was watching one of the
kitties, Bad Ju-ju, sway cross-eyed, drunkenly, with the rolls. She got even, fully living up to her
name, as she expressed her displeasure in a stream of cat pee, twice, on Dawn
and her bedding, which was en route to the well-traveled companionway
exit. I discovered that I am much
more prone to nausea from odors (like cat pee, cigarette smoke, diesel fuel and
oil from fresh caught albacore) but that even an 80-ton vessel can have one
helluva consistent swing on her back porch. At least, in my more charitable moments, when I didn’t refer
to her as “a rolly b----,” that’s
how I described having the ever-lovin’ s--- knocked out of us as the boat
rocked a minimum of 10-15 degrees side-to-side and up to 27 and more degrees,
with water regularly sloshing under the bulwarks (low openings in a rail just
above the deck) across the cockpit, and once up to my waist and down my foulies. Wave sets got up to 15’ tall, which may
not seem like much unless your desk is low and you’re looking up at them from
your position in the cockpit and they’re coming 6 seconds apart from several
different directions. Worse, our
bunk (bed) was parallel to the waves, with one side getting soaked by a now
spurting porthole (window – which in this case looked like the window on a
washing machine in spin cycle) and the other side a hard fall several feet above
the floor. We relocated into
the settee area to sleep, akin to sleeping in a U-shaped Denny’s booth.
The motion created other
challenges. Adams “oil on top”
gallon-sized peanut butter is not pretty when it flies off the seemingly
momentarily stable galley (kitchen) countertop. Ditto bowls of salad and spaghetti noodles. Crossing open areas on a lurch with
minimal grab-holds (some boats have more than others and / or less open areas –
Destiny at this stage, has less) is exciting at best. Refrigerators are not designed to be kept closed by duct
tape and contents within them don’t like being jarred rapidly in multiple
directions when their door is open.
Bilges (below deck areas designed to collect water to before it drains
out) on boats with lots of recent remodeling continue to wheeze and gasp as
they struggle to expel the swirling bits and pieces of construction waste. Sometimes
this occurs at especially unwelcome times, such as 2 am, shortly after a night
shift.
Whether more sail or less
sail and which sail(s) – we had 7 and 85 lines between them, more motor or less
motor, back inland or sticking outside the shore currents were stressful daily
decisions with ambiguous answers.
Is the head (toilet) only flush #2? Or always flush? The seemingly obvious is often not so,
and there are consequences to guessing wrong. They are the bane of passage making.
All was not doom and
gloom. We saw beautiful sunsets,
magical moonrises, whales, and one glorious morning, a pack of about 125
porpoises frolicking in our midst.
Learning about the various boats – what they are, where they’re from,
where they’re going, what their cargo is, how fast they’re going, their weight,
width and length -- that crossed our path was interesting. On and off watch was a great time for
storytelling, sharing hopes and fears, really getting to know each other in a
way most of us rarely do.
More than anything, we were
there to test our mettle. And we
did, and were even on speaking terms enough at the end to opt to stay an extra
night to celebrate our safe passage over a phenomenal steak dinner we cooked
together, wondering what the future Destiny and destiny, held for each of us,
and where in the wide embrace of the ocean we would meet again.
All that, and, with all due
respect to Destiny and the Hilliards, I am at least temporarily cured of boat
envy. As much we enjoyed our brush
with fame, we’re much more comfortable quietly observing the scenery rather
than being part of it.
