A Dream Begins

      by Ginny Gerlach - October 1989

As the Big Dipper gets ready to spill its contents and disappear with the first rays of dawn’s light, sitting alone on watch I realize that now I have time on my hands.  Time for adventure, the adventure of sailing in tropical waters, visiting exotic islands, facing new challenges and making new friends.

 Night watches provide me with time to contemplate and remember.  Only four days out of the Straits of Juan de Fuca, enroute from Vancouver , Canada to San Francisco , Hawaii and tropical dreams south, “Eagle”, our thirty-one foot aluminium sloop seems to have control.  Greg and I are merely passengers and crew obeying the commands of the ship, the wind and the ocean.  Everything is as it should be on board at the moment, Greg asleep below, the wind vane steering “Eagle” south as we broad reach with just the genoa making five knots in three to five foot seas.  Just three hours ago “Eagle” demanded attention, she and the wind let it be known that a sail change was in order.  We had been running down wind with our cruising spinnaker for the last three days and finally it was time to reduce sail.  Socking and dropping the cruising spinnaker at night was a new experience, but when the job was finished I felt content that we had performed the task safely and with no damaged gear.  Moving around on deck wearing our safety harnesses with sheets from the furling headsail, furling lines and sheets from the cruising spinnaker on deck can get complicated at times, but it feels good to be attached to “Eagle” and we each sleep easier off watch knowing that the other is safely attached in the cockpit.

I am constantly amazed by the different faces of the ocean. Last night, with only a slight breeze and cloudy skies, we crept silently along on an inky black sea that flowed like syrup.  In contrast, the sea during the day has sparkled and glistened as the sun caught the edges of each ripple and the tiny crests frothed and bubbled as though we sailed in indigo champagne.  But by far my favourite face of the ocean to date has been on the clear starry nights with enough wind and wave action to awaken those tiny luminescent creatures that provide a wondrous biological light show.  We have enjoyed three nights of this light show and looked in awe and wonder at our glowing wake only to find we were being attacked by glowing torpedoes dancing and playing at our bow.  The dolphins seem to love this face of the ocean as much as I and their mastery of their environment is accentuated by this natural lighting.

Every time the dolphins come to visit I feel an overpowering sense of well being and joy.   This was especially the case as we motored out of the Straits of Juan de Fuca on the first night of our passage and were visited by a lone dolphin just for a few minutes.  It seemed to be a good omen for our passage.  A little superstitious perhaps but sailors are by nature superstitious!  In contrast to the dolphins’ obvious joy and interest in us, we glimpsed four pilot whales cruising by one afternoon and, apart from their deep sound as they passed under “Eagle”; there was no sign that they were even aware of our presence.

These are the days Greg and I have been working towards for the past year.  During that time we gradually brought together our ideas and experience to make “Eagle” our home and a safe, sturdy ocean going vessel and to turn our dreams into realities.  We enjoyed that time immensely and the satisfaction of using each little change or addition and seeing it function as planned is rewarding. 

Our shake down cruise through the Gulf Islands from Vancouver , BC to Port Angeles in Washington provided its own challenges.  We learned to trust our engine and our reluctantly growing mechanical skills.  We took our first steps towards being “real” cruisers by fixing a potential problem before it was too late and by not relying on the convenience of the dockside umbilical cords.  We also survived our first encounter with fog.  Fog, the dreaded enemy of sailors, we can deal with strong winds and heavy seas, but sailing blink is a frightening experience.  Our encounter with fog came after departing Canada from Victoria at the southern tip of Vancouver Island for a leisurely day sail of fifteen miles across the Straits of Juan de Fuca to Port Angeles in Washington to clear US Customs before commencing this passage.  Four miles offshore the fog appeared and our world became a circle one hundred meters in diameter in which we were the centre.  I rapidly became familiar with the finer details of our newly purchased Loran while Greg strained his eyes and ears as we sailed through the whiteness.  Although we felt vulnerable as we sailed silently and sightlessly across the Straits, we never felt as if we were in a situation beyond our control.  This was a small test as the distance was short, wind and sea conditions were favourable and with all our new navigation aids we had plenty of information to help us.  However, we felt that we had passed the test when the docks and boat haven marker buoy appeared out of the milky whiteness exactly where they were supposed to be.  We did say a prayer of thanks to the god of electronic navigation equipment as we motored to the fuel dock – just in case!

Port Angeles was our introduction to the cruising community.  It is a port of call for sailors headed down the coast to a life of adventure in Mexico or the South Pacific.  These cruising sailors seem to be instantly bound by common goals and dreams and everyone wants to help, to take a dock line, to share information, to discuss strategy and to complain about bureaucracy.  Our two days in Port Angeles was a time to get prepared mentally and physically for the ordeal ahead.  For all Pacific North West sailors know that sailing down the Washington/Oregon coast is an ordeal that must be endured to be able to enjoy the delights of sunny, warm ports.  Nearly everyone that we told of our plans to sail to San Francisco , even the non-sailors, had some horror story to tell of sailing the treacherous Oregon coast.  Se we were steeling ourselves for the gauntlet we must run.  Food for the first couple of days was prepared, Customs papers finalized, last minute touches to sails and rigging completed and the all important last shore side showers were enjoyed to the last drop.

Finally it was time to depart and face that dreaded coast, but the last four days have been wonderful and tomorrow we will be off the coast of California with no horror stories to tell, just wonderful memories and as I hear Greg stirring down below, getting ready to take my place on watch I realize that sailing adventure begins, not when you arrive in a tropical island paradise, not when you leave your home port and not when you commence your first ocean passage, but the day you begin turning your dreams into reality by sharing them with someone special, talking and planning together to create your own adventure.