HealHustler, that's a great photo! Thanks for the laugh.
Reflections on the Journey of a Lifetime…..
In the past when I’ve taken trips on the boat I’ve posted threads similar to this and after the trip is done I’ve come back and posted some of my thoughts and recollections of the trip. That’s what this post will be and I’m hoping it will provide some closure to a great trip for all of us.
Before I get started on this though, I’d like to thank Stuart for providing the opportunity for me to make this trip. From before I had even considered being a part of this I recognized that it would be the trip of a lifetime and it was. So Thanks Stuart. It was fun, I learned a lot, and had a great time.
I’d also like to thank Doug for being the kind of guy he is. I learned many things from him and appreciated his good nature, his ability to joke about things and to hang in there when the seas got a bit rough. As an example, while I was hanging over the galley sink depositing my breakfast, Doug was making a pulled pork sandwich. He was kind enough to ask me if making the sandwich was going to upset my stomach even more, saying he’d go up to the pilothouse to eat it if I wanted him to. It wouldn’t have bothered me, but just the fact that he thought to ask makes a huge comment about the kind of guy Doug is. I hope we get to do some boating together again in the future. I’ll let you show me around the San Juans and points north!
In one of the forums I’ve posted my ‘blog’ on someone mentioned a feeling of depression when the trip is over. He likened it to a post-partum depression. Well I can assure you right up front that none of us delivered a baby on this cruise but I am feeling a bit sad/depressed that the trip has ended.
All of the pre-trip excitement that comes with high expectations for a great cruise, the hours spent on planning to make sure you have everything you will need, the menu planning I did (more on that later) and just the excitement of the new adventure kept me on a high for several weeks. As the departure date grew nearer the smile on my ugly mug grew wider.
I went into this journey not as a new boater but as an experienced boater heading out on a new adventure. I know that at some point GW and I are going to take Beachcomber up the coast of WA and into Canada. This trip was to be, in many ways, a training mission for that. I’d never spent much time on the ocean and I’d get that experience on this trip. I’d never done any real long distance trip planning and route planning and I’d also get to do some of that on this trip.
I was going into the trip with high expectations and I was not disappointed. Yeah, we were disappointed by having to hole up in port a few days, but that’s part of boating. The rough weather we experienced on the way to Ilwaco was a bit more than I expected but with 20/20 hindsight I’m glad we encountered that rough water because now I have a better sense of what it means when they say “swells of 5’-8’ and a 1’-2’ wind chop on 10 seconds.” I know the next time I’ll stay in port if the heights of the swells + wind waves = the wave separation time. Ain’t no reason for this kid to be out there trying to prove to mama nature that I’m capable of handling anything she can throw at me.
I’d never met the other two (Stuart and Doug) I was to cruise with before we met at the boat. There’s always a bit of apprehension about being thrown into a boat with two guys you don’t know for 7-10 days. Experienced boaters have developed their own styles; their own ways of doing things. When those styles don’t fit perfectly with the styles of the other two there can be conflicts…..and there were. The good thing is the conflicts were all minor and we were able to resolve them on board. The cops didn’t think they were a big problem either. Just kidding…no cops were harmed in the making of this trip.
Following Seas performed nearly flawlessly. When you figure that Stuart just got this boat about 3 weeks before we departed and spent much of that time installing air conditioning and other equipment, it’s not surprising that he knew the boat pretty well. There were a few small glitches but nothing that couldn’t be easily rectified. For example, the porthole windows in my stateroom leaked. Not just a tiny bit, they leaked a decent size trickle. As fate would have it, there were no hangars on board so I had put my clothes on the shelf beneath the window. The one where the water ran down and soaked all my clothes. Stuart applied a couple of coats of silicone sealant around the perimeter and that fixed it. It took a couple of days for my bedding and clothes to thoroughly dry but that’s OK, I lived with it and we did OK.
We ate like kings on this trip. I had done the menu planning, bought all the food ahead of time, prepared some of it before I left home and fixed the rest of it on board as we traveled. I planned on meals for four people for 8 days. There were only 3 on board and we ate dinner out twice in Eureka so Stuart is not going to have to buy groceries for awhile for the boat because there will be lots of stuff left over. Dinner menus consisted of a beef roast, two pork roasts, a fresh halibut filet, salmon, and an assortment of fresh vegetables, corn on the cob and all sorts of snacks and cheeses. Lunches consisted of pulled pork sandwich meat made from the pork tenderloin roasts. Nobody was going to leave this boat lighter than when they first stepped aboard.
When I take off on a trip such as this I try to mentally prepare myself for any eventuality. I don’t like bad surprises when they pop up. I can gladly say that on this trip we had no bad surprises. Well except for maybe the day we were headed to Ilwaco and I gave back breakfast. That was the first time I’ve ever ralphed from motion sickness. When Doug and I hiked up to Costco in Eureka I got some killer pills to take care of that. I took them the day we left Eureka and, while the waves weren’t as large as we’d seen before, I felt no queasiness at all. Thanks Costco.
So all things considered I’d have to say that this trip was a great success. I learned a lot about long distance navigating, about rough water boat handling, food prep when the boat is rocking, and how AIS is such a benefit. I certainly won’t say that we couldn’t have made this trip without the AIS, but it was nice to have. Radar, on the other hand, was absolutely essential. I would never even try a trip like this without a good Radar and chart plotter. The importance of those two cannot be overstated. Having heat and a/c on the boat made it much more comfortable. We used both at varying times and it was nice to have them.
Following Seas is a very nicely equipped yacht. It’s about the same length (60’) as my boat but about 1.5’ wider. That additional space is very nice. It’s also a very comfortable boat. It’s hard to draw a comparison between Following Seas and Beachcomber. There are some things about this boat that I like better than mine, but also things about my boat I like better than this one. That’s natural. Would I trade? Nope. Stuart and I were talking one day and he asked me what I would change about my boat. I honestly couldn’t think of anything major that I would change because I’m very happy with Beachcomber.
Well I guess that’s about all I have to say at this time. If anyone has any specific questions about any of this or about the trip in general, fire away and I’ll respond to them.
GFC
) but absolutely perfect for the occasion. And Blue Skies Ed and his wife gets a big thank you for more ice cream he came with later in the evening.
