A Year of Firsts

It was a year ago the 13th we motored into town. One whole year and we feel ourselves slipping into the woodwork. I know the bus schedule without looking, where the best deals on food are, have a consignment account at the local children's store and am involved in various activities. Nadejda now has growth on her; clusters of barnacles, some white plumed anemones and long stringy algae drift around her. We've become live-aboards tied to the dock instead of the cruisers we'd dreamed of. Thinking in retrospect though I did discover there were quite a few things we've done for the first time.

A First City Pirate. Ahrrr!

1st Time in Alaska
While Peter had come up here with his grandpa 20 years ago, I nor the kids had ever been here before. The landscape reminded us of our old home in the gorge, but here it's a deeper green, brighter blue and just... closer. The surrounding peaks are topped white with snow, with the town just at the edge of the water. It still has a frontier feel as if just built and the forest would take over given the chance. Buildings and canneries crowd at the shoreline standing on pilings. A few streets are still just a boardwalk heading up the hill. Houses on the outskirts gather rainwater from roofs to store in cisterns for household use. This coming season the kids and I are going to explore as many of the hiking trails as we can along the bus lines.


1st As a Waitress & Paychecks Over in a Year
I had a list when I was younger of jobs I'd like to try, one of them being a waitress. Shortly after moving to the northern marina I was hired at the best restaurant in town, the Bar Harbor Restaurant. I love working there, the atmosphere's filled with so much camaraderie I am spoiled and couldn't imagine working anywhere else. Peter had already started working for the tour company and so began our first paychecks in over a year.

How many salmon can you see?

 
1st Halibut Caught & Saw Salmon Spawning
In all Caleb's time of dropping a hook in the Columbia, not even getting a bite, he caught his first fish from the dock, a kelp green ling. Peter caught his first halibut and had us all feeling very Alaskan as we feasted a week on it. Katie caught a shark but let it go as we weren't sure what to do with it. Seeing the multitude of salmon come in, heading up the creeks they were spawned in, is amazing. Working their way past fishermen, bears, seals and eagles, let alone the current in the creeks. We spent about an hour one day standing around the creek just watching them. Their tenacity & determination to reach their goal is inspiring and one to remember.

1st Violin Lessons, Highland Dancing & Children's Choir

Outside O'Brien's Pub performing

Living so far out on the farm we didn't participate in many activities. Now one of the benefits of being tied to a dock for a time is that the girls were able to join various lessons. For the first time Addy had a violin teacher and she improved rapidly. Elaine joined in soon after with a 1/4 size violin, followed by Annika learning cello. They definitely have a gift for learning instruments, one that I don't have. A lady, who loves highland dancing, started lessons for anyone that was interested. I figured it would be a great way for the kids to get out of the boat and excersize this past winter. No joke, it wore me out in just 5 minutes of trying it! They were able to be in the 1st ever St. Paddy's Day parade here & perform outside the local pub. The three oldest girls participated in the children's choir, after 7 months of instruction & singing together, they will break out in song in the boat and sound good. As much as I'd like to be out cruising, this has been a time of enrichment for them & experiences they won't get when we are once continually on the move.

1st Dentist Appointment

Show those pearly whites!

This is one of those scary moments as a mom, the evidence of how I've taught & taken care of my children is exposed. Already knowing how much they've brushed over the years (very little) and flossed (non-existent), I wasn't looking forward to this. The pediatric dentist office we went to was able to fit them all in one morning, so at least my trial would be short. Starting oldest to youngest they filed in for x-rays & cleanings. Turned out whatever I was doing was working (ha! ha! maybe just genetics) as we only walked away with one chavity in a baby tooth. Big sigh of relief!

1st Head Lice
Those have to be some of the dirtiest words to say with as much cleaning that's involved. My head itches just thinking about it! Sometime early last summer one of the girls picked them up. Apparently that's a common situation in this town, as no one was surprised and everyone had one or more stories of it happening to them. I bought the medicated shampoo, picked through hair, washed linens & bagged the rest all in one day... THREE TIMES! I even washed one head twice in a row as I saw a bug walking around while using the fine tooth comb. (I'm convinced now that the bugs here are resistant to the medicated shampoo, so use mayonnaise and suffocate the little buggers!) Even though the girls hair got shorter each time, it was time consuming. I cried that last time and asked Peter if we couldn't just shave heads... there would be no place for the little pests to live. So every single one of us, including me, had our hair cut to 1/16 of an inch. It was second hat for the boys, but another first for us girls.

Boys? Girls? but hey... not a louse!

Keeping Everthing Charged

Living on a boat in the age of rechargeable devices presents a unique set of challenges when it comes to keeping them all charged and ready to go. Space is limited, and power is limited; not just the amount but the type of power available changes constantly. If you are plugged into shore power, have the gen set running or using the inverter than AC power is available and this is what most devices come with is an AC wall charger. This leaves the times when AC power is not available and the fact that I don't have space for both AC and 12VDC chargers.

I made a couple of decisions that helped to minimize the number of battery chargers required on our boat; Molly and all of the kids have the same camera, our flash lights all take AA or AAA along and our phones all use the same micro USB connector to charge along with Caleb's MP3 player. This helps to minimize the pile of chargers necessary to keep everyone running and additionally simplified the charging of spare batteries. Even with this amount of forethought we still would struggle to find the right charger and where to plug it in, was the AC power available when we needed it. I needed to do something as we were missing photo and video opportunities due to not having everything charged when we needed it.
 

Camera Battery Chargers

The first thing was to buy 12VDC chargers for all of the devices on board. These are readily available off e-bay or a myriad of other sites for a very reasonable cost and many come with an additional battery. I purchased mine from East Coast Photo; they had a good price and shipped USPS which is important to us folks living in Alaska as UPS often cost more than the item being ordered. I also needed a AA-AAA battery charger that could be powered by 12 VDC and I went with a Titanium MD-1600L charger to fill this need (I purchased mine off e-bay, but they are readily available). Next was to mount everything in one place with storage for for the spare batteries close at hand. For this I bought a piece of lumber (1x8 Hemlock) and stained and varnished it before mounting everything to it. Then I made up a wiring harness from the ones supplied with the units to keep things neat and tidy and a fuse to make sure my new contraption didn't fry any wiring.  I mounted the "charging station" on a wall below a shelf that can be used to store the spare batteries and threw away a grocery sack full of chargers cables and other miscellaneous charging paraphernalia.

The Titanium MD-1600L

We have really enjoyed having the charging station done, it had been in the works for some time but took a certain level of frustration with the status quo to actually get done. It only took an evening to complete (once the varnishing was done) and I can't believe I didn't do it sooner. One more frustration eliminated and no more missed opportunities due to dead batteries.

The Charging Station

Isolation... of the Electrical Kind

Our Isolation Transformer

As owners of a steel boat we have corrosion and with corrosion comes maintenance. There are two basic types of corrosion on a steel boat, the oxidizing kind and the electrical kind; the first comes in the form of rust (Iron Oxide) above the water line, the latter as electrolysis below the water line. Rust is unsightly, a never ending regiment of grinding, Ospho and paint being its only cure. Electrolysis can also be ugly but not seen until something goes very wrong! It is caused by the differential of DC potential and corresponding DC current flowing between two objects. DC electricity (which stands for Direct Current) like all electricity needs a path, the shore power cord supplies the path from our boat to the neighbouring boat. It is necessary to break this connection between our boats but we really enjoy shore power. So what is the solution? Isolation. Take away the connection to eliminate the primary cause of electrolysis and everyone is happy. To have the AC shore power and stop the destructive electrolysis it needs to go through something called an inductive coupling, which is exactly what a transformer does for us. We installed a nifty little ISO-G2 isolation transform made by Charles Industries and our boat no longer has a path for DC current to flow.

Divers Dream Zincs

After installing the ISO-G2 it was time to replace the zincs on our boat. These zincs act as sacrificial anodes to protect the steel and other more noble metals from the destructive forces of electrolysis. I knew that ours were getting a good work out and needed to be changed. Donning my scuba gear I went for a nice little swim in the cool water to discover I was right. Our boat uses "Divers Dream" zinc anodes and they are very convenient to replace while diving, in fact I didn't drop a single nut or washer while replacing five of these plates. Our old zincs were at about thirty percent of their original weight which is a bit low, the general rule is only to allow them to get to fifty percent before replacement. They had evidence of a lot electrolysis with a bright finish, lots of holes and their loss of mass.

Before the installation of the isolation transformer we didn't realize how much stray electrical current we had on our boat. I had put in a GFIC outlet in our pilot house a month ago, for the weeks following it would trip every five to thirty minutes. I was about to replace it with a normal outlet out of frustration. The same outlet has not tripped once since installing the isolation transformer.
For anyone who owns a boat in a "hot" harbour I would highly recommend the Charles ISO-G2 isolation transformer, it is small, quiet and runs quite cool. It is your best protection against the effects of electrolysis and for us cost about the same as buying new zincs, so it will pay for itself quickly.

This & That

Gabe on the rocky beach of Blank Island.

Today I was given an "me" morning. Peter is making pancakes for the kids on the diesel stove while they are crowded around the table making turkeys from construction paper. They were given the project from a neighbouring boat that needs six for a meeting this coming Monday. My days have been so filled with school, meals, cleaning, washing, running errands & working (see my days aren't any different than anyone else’s, I just do them a little differently) that I haven't had enough time to sit in front of the computer & type. Of course once I do get here, there is the problem of figuring out what to write. Since today I don't have just one thing to share, it will be a variety. Ahh... here comes my coffee!

Peter & the halibut

We had borrowed a dinghy for the summer from one of Peter's co-workers, a cute yellow 12' aluminium. We're still deciding what to do for a dinghy, there's limited space to put one on deck & certainly not one that would fit all of us at once! When Peter had time & the weather cooperated, he took a few kids & when out of the marina, into the narrows fishing. It wasn't long after dropping the hook that they were reeling them in, kelp greenlings and copper rock fish. On one trip they were surrounded by sharks! Katie pulled in a 2 1/2 foot dog shark, with the rest of school following to the surface. She put it back as we didn't know if you could eat it, let alone how to prepare it. The highlight though of those fishing expeditions was the day Peter brought home a 25# halibut. It finally felt like we'd become Alaskan! at least more so than just having our registration from here. That fish not only served a celebration party with friends, but fed our family for a week! I was introduced to halibut enchiladas that I will never again scoff. For the most part Peter & I are only able to sneak a small piece of fish because the kids devour it & will still ask for more.

Gabe on his new bunk with Lucky Jack.

A year ago, on Elaine's birthday, I brought home a tiny kitten with my groceries. It wasn't the cutest little thing, but it was small enough to get used to living on a boat. The kids named him Lucky Jack, which has probably helped the fact that he's a black cat on a boat. Going through pictures I found we tend to take a lot of him & since he's made it through eagle season I figured I could introduce him.

Lucky Jack Ahoy!

As from the very beginning of his life aboard, he's liked the kids, even the little boys. I find this extraordinary in a cat. He'd rather hang out with Michael & Gabe than have a stranger near him, let alone hold him. He'll race around on the deck, jumping onto the sail covers to run the length of them as high as he can go. Our vessel being steel, he sounds like an elephant charging from one end to the other. He'll bat your head as you climb into the boat, then dodge back to hide behind the sail. He's endearing when he curls up next to you & irritating when he wakes you up whining at 2 a.m. wanting to go out. He did get seasick for the first two days coming up like the rest of us. He looked miserable sitting on deck trying to be as small as possible. We'd toyed with the idea of getting a puppy, but after having Lucky who is by far the best cat I've ever met, I don't think we'll ever get another animal on board when he leaves.

Peter had to work on his birthday, the up side being we were all able to spend it with him. The tour was small so we were given the okay to come along. It was being done on the landing craft Saint Innocent, as we were going to be left on an island for a bit of "Wilderness Survival" training. Before dropping us off though a crab pot (belonging to the tour & a scientific study) was pulled to identify & log the different underwater creatures in it, a rock fish, flounder & 3 sunflower stars. It was a beautiful day for the tour after the previous week of rain.

In practising survival skills the first thing you had to do was realize you were in trouble and you needed to do something about it. After that shelter & looking for food was on the agenda. Shelter should be made on the opposite side of were the wind hits the most (go figure) so look at the disfigured trees as a guide. Anna, Katie & Elaine worked together and built one inside an old tree stump. We were given 15 minutes to scavenge the beach to see if we could find anything edible. Bi-valves were out as the red tide here makes them toxic to eat, but limpets and seaweeds were available. 

The tour had set up a camp site and gave everyone the opportunity to try starting a fire with a flint. Although some of us threw a bunch of sparks, no one was able to ignite the moss. We were able to try devils club tea, dried kelp, dried fruit & smoked salmon along with couscous. The kids found that by mixing it all together it made a tasty meal. Being able to get out and explore beyond, something we didn't have time to do this summer, really wet the kids appetite to be more like gypsies, wandering from place to place. 

Working the Summer

A summer filled with various activities for the kids & summer jobs for both Peter & I have left our blog sadly lacking. Well, the laptop dying from grindings of the past winter's projects didn't help either. So starting where we left off...

Upon arriving in April, Peter started work early for the tour company he was hired as a deckhand for. Knowing that a serving job in a restaurant would go far in helping the systems fund for the boat I looked downtown for employment. It turned out that before I could apply permanent moorage opened up at Bar Harbor, 2 miles north of the downtown area where we were tied up. Now laundry & groceries would be within walking distance, while the library & Peter's work would require a bus pass if we didn't want to walk it. An added benefit would no longer put us right next to the cruise ships with their thousands of passengers nor the four busiest bars in town.

My first choice for the restaurant I wanted to work for was now within a stone's throw & rated the best here in town. I was thrilled when they hired me, to try a job I hadn't experienced yet. The owner assured me that I was doing great my first weeks and would get the hang of it. Before arriving at their doorstep I knew there was red & white wine, beyond that I was clueless. I soon was able to say the various names without stumbling: Cabernet Savingon, Merlot, Pinot Grigio & Chardonnay. I don't have much of a preference for any of them, so am terrible with recommendations... except Moscoto. Now that's just yummy!

All in all it's been a great summer. The kids will be blogging about different happenings from this summer on their blog (it's a great school assignment!).

Michael's 4th Birthday

Happy Birthday!

Michael's birthday landed on the day after arriving in Alaska. We did prepare ahead of time for a birthday with presents aboard in the event that we might still be out on the water. With life on a boat, plans & directions can change at a moments notice. I had tried out a sourdough chocolate cake on the way north that was the first from scratch cake I'd made that turned out moist (other than crazy cake, but that one's hard to fail). We ate it for breakfast as I'd made it during a night watch hours before. I planned on making it again for his birthday but adding some chocolate chips to the dough & covering it with frosting.

We have started the tradition of spreading out presents throughout the day, instead of all at once. Our friends shared this idea with us & it really has worked well. It not only gives them time to enjoy & appreciate one before tearing open the next one, but it makes them feel like their birthday lasts longer. Upon waking up they quickly make their way to our bed where I have one or two stashed by our pillow. This generally gives Peter & I the opportunity to be the first to wish them "Happy Birthday" without having to get out of bed!

For a little guy of 4, now off the farm, he knows what money is. He'd been claiming any coins he'd found around the boat as his, didn't matter that his sister just dropped it or left it on the counter. After a couple days of this he held up a quarter & said, "Bob the Builder!" The plaza here has one child's ride toy, a bright yellow Bob the Builder bulldozer that sings the theme song. The boys shared two rides the day we arrived & know it's location now without fail no matter what door you enter the plaza from.

Michael received two $5 bills from his Nana & Papa (Peter's parents) in the mail. He was really excited too, waving them around with a big smile saying, "Me got money, yep, see?" Peter & I were sure that he'd want to spend them on race cars from his favorite movie Cars. Not so. He wanted candy. Peter walked him around the whole toy section of Walmart & he still shook his head, "Me want candy." So he came back with most of his money & one box of Bottle Caps. Took him awhile before he wanted to share one with everyone, then halfway through he divided the rest with Gabe, his best friend. It was cute seeing them perched up in the pilot house discussing the merits or disadvantages of each flavor.

Gabe trying to push & rock it started again.

Meeting the girls, Samantha, Zoe & Kayce, from a neighboring sailboat we learned about rollerskating up at the recreation center. Being new in town, it was great having guides let us know of the coming events & where they were located. Everyone had a blast skating, the little boys even put on training skates and with help made their way around the gym a few times. It was a great way to end a little guy's birthday!

Best Friends

Alaska - Going Up the "Outside" Passage

In our preparation to go to Alaska, we really were hoping for a weather window that would allow us to go around the outside of Vancouver Island, into Queen Charlotte Sound & through Hecate Strait. After much searching on-line we could not find anyone who had made a similar voyage and published their experience doing it. We had talked to several people about it with the usual responses from the extreme “your going to die” to the more reasonable “it can get pretty nasty on the outside”. Peter was amazed when a week out from our intended departure PassageWeather was showing the seas at 3-6ft & the winds from the SW at 10-15 knots. We could possibly sail all the way up!

Clear enough to see the Olympic Mountains from the Columbia.

We left the Columbia River around noon on a clear Saturday & raised sails while dodging a field of crab pots. Two hours of trade wind like sailing had us all out on the deck soaking in the sun & enjoying the movement from the sea. Then like most of our time out at sea, the wind became irregular & light. Deciding to try motor sailing again, having little success with it previously, we left up the main & mizzen which gave us an extra knot this time!

Molly & Gabe cozy while Peter's on watch.

The first night watches were set for me to stay up as long as I could, then Peter taking over. I had a good book, so when he came up at 3 a.m. I debated telling him, "I'm fine go back to bed." Instead I curled up where I was & went to sleep, the warmest place on the boat while motoring, over the exhaust (located under a bench seat in the pilot house). Since I'm very much a heat seeking person & get cranky when cold, I rarely left it, even to sleep. Sunday found us realizing we hadn't put on enough diesel in our hope to sail a majority of the way. We were going to have to pull into Neah Bay that night & take on more. Besides, Peter wanted to fix the packing gland, it was really leaking & causing the bilge pump to kick on. (Note on this, we had tried the new packing material with the Teflon impregnated Gore fibers. That material never worked well for us, we switched to the old fashioned flax and that has performed wonderfully for us.) Motor sailing was more fun that day, there were times we went charging through the waves at 9 knots, touching 10!

We had a couple of shore birds land on the boat while we were 30 miles offshore. The first was a black hooded junco that would actually fly up & perch in the black netting on the lifelines. I was able to snap a picture of the northern flicker that came back a few times throughout the afternoon. It was sad too as I knew, tired & hungry as they were, short of staying on our "little island" they'd never make it to shore. I wondered how they came to be so far out there. Did they really come out on another vessel before they realized they were so far from home?

The girls keeping busy.

There was a little talk as to whether we should just go up the inside since we came in or continuing up the outside as we'd be motoring either way.  After much deliberation and scrutinizing the weather we chose the outside as the weather was to continue getting milder. The following afternoon after taking on additional fuel in Neah Bay we heading back out the Strait of Juan de Fuca looking forward to weather that was to turn calm enough to make you think you were on a lake. No wind, so no motor sailing, which worked for us as our main sail had 2 foot stress tear on the leech. A batten shackle had busted & the shackle below it couldn't take the pressure, tearing it. Michael upon hearing that we were going to go back out didn't like the idea. We'd had uncomfortable seas the afternoon before making it difficult for him to traverse the boat, so he informed us before leaving "Me go back to my dock." (Ilwaco)

We didn't have any seasickness this time around & I was able to cook meals in the galley, running the diesel cookstove. We made sourdough bread & pancakes, a thick lentil soup, turkey rice casserole & a teriyaki pork roast. It was a first to be able to cook, normally it was every man for himself. Myself being either too sick or too tired to manage it. 

Out in Hecate Strait with no land in sight.

Our four days of motoring were relaxing, we felt like the only ones out there. I couldn't believe no one else was taking advantage of the weather! We saw a couple of freighters on the radar at night, but no other little boats. Arriving at Queen Charlotte Sound we came across flows of debris, ranging from large logs to twigs. We dodged as much as we could, but when night came we slowed down & just drove blind. Both of us couldn't believe that we never hit anything substantial. Come day break we began our zigzag track through them again. Peter did let one small branch go directly in our path to see what it would do. It was pulled under the boat, knocked around the lower part of the hull, then came up after the mid point. Having transducers & a water speed sensor around that area of the boat certainly didn't make us feel comfortable running into them after that. For this reason alone we wouldn't go up the outside again, at least when the spring run off is going.  

Friday morning as the fog began it's slow disorderly retreat before the rising sun. We saw our first glimpses of the Alaskan mountains appearing above the fog followed shortly by our destination below. The journey we had started almost a year before had come to its end.

ALASKA!