It Was All a Blur…
This post will bring everyone up to our current situation and from this point forward we will do our best to keep the blog close to real time.
On St Patrick’s Day we got pulled out of the water to have Sacagawea waxed and her bottom done (hee! hee! hee!). Also to have the pulleys and cables to the rudder, throttle, and shifter replaced as the pulleys had frozen and cables frayed. It was an uneventful pull-out (aside from Kristin’s amazing St. Patrick’s Day outfit!) YAY! The yard got on the jobs immediately WOW! To good to be true? Yes. The two week job turned into six weeks but they did work hard over the last weekend to stay true to their promise of getting us back in the water on Monday morning, April 26. We felt jubilant as we thought, “No more haul outs for 3 years (which is when we should need new bottom paint)!”
Canada was still closed so we returned to some of our favorite anchorages in the San Juan Islands, and we found some new ones. We learned how to clam, had some friends visit us, made some new friends, saw wildlife, and began to prepare for our off shore passage to San Francisco in mid-August.
We were planning to sail to Alaska if Canada opened on time for us, no later than June 1. The weather was chilly but our enclosure with new additional clear windows in the top kept us toasty warm! We were sailing in t-shirts while we passed other sailors in full foul weather gear, called “foulies”. Each morning we would wake to about 55 degrees in the cabin and but a toasty 75 degree “solarium” in the cockpit where we had our breakfast. This is the life!
The weather turned steadily warmer and less rainy. June 1st came and went without Canada opening. I have a cousin in Anchorage….
“Hi Cuz (that I haven’t seen in about 15 years)! Can you help us plan a trip of a lifetime to Alaska?”
She eagerly sent information, links, phone numbers, and personal references on everything “not to be missed” in the state that she obviously loves and is anxious to share. We smoked the credit card with our plans and reservations starting July 12 and ending July 22. What is money for anyway, right!?! We got a reservation for Sacagawea in Bell Harbor, downtown Seattle for the time we would be away. It is a secure marina with 24/7 personnel coverage. Also, it is within walking distance of the light link train costing only $3 to get to the airport.
We continued sailing through June doing figure eights through the islands and enjoying it. July 4th we met up with some other sailors in Poulsbo who are also planning to go down the Pacific Coast to San Francisco as part of the Coho Hoho rally. Beautiful warm weather arrived along with hundreds of boats carrying people excited to get out and celebrate a close to normal 4th of July. What a great time! We decorated Sacagawea with lights and wore our best red white and blue!
On July 6th, on our way to Shilshole Marina for a quick layover, I heard a new noise, a vibration, it was coming from the drive shaft. “Bill! This doesn’t look right!”
I took the wheel while he went to look. “Nope, that doesn’t look right.”
We called the boat yard after we docked at the marina and they sent mechanic Mike right over. “That definitely doesn’t look right.” They could haul us out the next day.
This was way less than three years! We cancelled our Bell Harbor reservation. They took pity and gave us a full refund. We arranged a hotel as CSR Marine yard does not allow people to stay aboard. We had a friend help us with lines up through the locks into Lake Union.
We explained to CSR that we were supposed to be leaving for the Coho Hoho rally August 15th to sail down to San Francisco and we would appreciate anything they could do in that consideration. They got right to work with the diagnostics. Mike came back and looked for the easy to fix things that could cause such a wobble in the drive shaft: Motor mount bolts, thrust bearing, bushings…..then he went on to the not so easy to fix things. He put a meter on the shaft that could measure down to the 1000th of an inch if there was any bend in it. When he said, “Oh, this is a Maalox moment.” our hearts sank. The shaft was bent by 0.01 inches which is more than double the 0.004 inches acceptable. How?!? We haven’t been in an accident or had anything wrapped around it. I immediately thought “That’s it, she is done, there is no fixing it, the dream is over!!!!!!!”
“No, no, no we can fix it but it is the big job we were hoping against.”
OK, well, in my mind that’s not so bad then! Let’s fix it! They would begin the process of pulling and replacing the drive shaft. They told us it could be pressed straight again, but we figured with the cost of removal and replacement being a lot more than the cost of a new shaft, we would just replace it.
Alright! Forget about it for a while! We are going to see Alaska! Woohooo!! First, we flew in and caught up with my cousin and her husband. They moved from Hawaii to Alaska (right!?!) about 3 years ago. It felt like we had never lost touch. I love my cousin!!!! Second, we met our 2 young (12 months and 9 months) fur nephews.
Day One: Road trip to Seward and Miller’s Landing at the end of the line, fabulous scenery, lunch out, and bought fishing licenses. We fit in an all too short meet-up with some really nice folks that are signed up for the Baja Ha-Ha (the sailing rally from San Diego to Baja Mexico) and who live only 5 miles down the road from my cousin’s place.
Day Two: We flew in an eight-seater to Katmai then hopped a 4-seat float plane to Brooks and watched up close (really close!!) grizzlies fishing for salmon, lots of salmon! We were less than 10 feet from some of the bears!
Day Three: We took the train to Alyeska resort, hopped on a shiny red helicopter and flew up to Punch Bowl Glacier to help train some young sled dogs. We got to mush our own sled teams!!!! Then we hiked around the top of Alyeska for the afternoon until the train took us back to Anchorage.
Day Four and Five: My cousin’s husband hosted us on a two-day fishing trip in Prince William Sound on his beautiful 28ft fishing boat. We started in Whittier which required driving through a train tunnel. Wild! We lunched at the base of a glacier calving into the water, saw several sea otters, and the next day watched a pod of 9 or 10 Humpback whales bubble feeding on a school of fish- it was incredible!
Day Six: We flew in another tiny plane to the entrance of Denali National Park and stayed at Denali Cabins. Went for a hike to the river and saw fresh moose tracks.
Day Seven: Bussed seven hours all the way to the end of the line at Kantishna in Denali NP and stayed at the Back Country Lodge. Saw moose, caribou, Dall sheep, grizzlies, the mountain was on full, sunny display, and after dinner we wandered about the lodge grounds in the evening light chatting with acquaintances from the bus ride. Then we realized- the sun was setting and it was after 1am!
Day Eight: Hiked the tundra (spongy, tons of berries everywhere, very cool), mountain biked to Wonder Lake for a picnic lunch, toured Fannie Quigley’s house, panned for gold, then flew another small plane over the glaciers (one of which, the Muldrow, is surging right now- over 45 ft per day!!) and back to the Park entrance to stay in Denali Cabins again.
Day Nine: We took the train from Denali Park entrance back to Anchorage. That is the way to travel! Private car bar, private car dining room, dome windows, and platform off the back. This is the only train in the country that still makes flag stops! Eight hours and a few moose sightings later we made it back to Anchorage to see our fur nephews again (and Kristin’s cousin).
July 22; After a long flight and Uber we were back to reality and the boat project. We had gotten a phone call that the shaft wouldn’t make it out past the rudder skeg, and that the stern tube would need to be removed as well to give the shaft enough angle to get past the rudder and skeg. A follow up call relayed that the stern tube itself was corroded badly (which we had actually suspected), and there was also pitting on the shaft itself where the shaft seal had been, so the decision to replace it was a good one.
Friday, July 23 we went to check on the boat. There was one poor soul sweating bullets working on getting the stern tube out. “They said it would take me until 10:30 or so, just a couple of hours.“ It was 2:30 already. Bill took stock of the situation, got out one of our drills and pitched in to help. We had until 3:30 when the yard would shut down for the weekend and everything would go on hold again. It had already been two weeks since we were hauled out. That stern tube would be out TODAY! Another interested mechanic supported the effort and at 3:18, finally Sacagawea gave birth to a corroded stern tube and bent, corroded shaft. Now all we had to do is get the new parts! We also had to find a new hotel.
The Travel Lodge 3 miles up (literally up the hill) had rooms. Every place was sold out or ridiculously expensive for the week of 7/24 to 8/2. OMG, August!!!!!! Friday we took the bike trailer from the boat and brought it up to the Staybridge Suites where we were staying in Fremont. In the morning we loaded it with our duffel bags and Bill carted everything 3 miles uphill to our new home while I provided encouraging cheerleader remarks biking behind him.
Friends who know the area describe it as “Hookerville”. They were wrong! Hookerville starts 5 blocks further up in the nicer area of town where patrons can afford to pay. Anyway, the rooms were clean, Dominos delivered, and we had a mini fridge for breakfast stuff. What else do you need? Biking everyday down to the boat then up to the hotel was good for getting our butts in shape! We began working through the “shit to do later list.” That is good too, right? Trying to stay positive!
Days were going by and nobody was working on the boat, nothing was happening. About every other day we went to the office to inquire and mostly they just looked annoyed that they had nothing to tell us, “we need a guy to fabricate the stern tube and no one has time.”
“We know a really good guy in Anacortes! We can get the part done this week.”
Guffaw “No oh, well, I need to call some more guys, you know, go down the list….”
Every other day we checked in. We had our individual meltdowns, then recovered our positivity. We were able to attend several Coho Hoho meetings we wouldn’t have otherwise. Then the news they had a fabricator that could do the job! He ordered the materials, the guy should have it early in the week and they could start the reassembly Thursday or Friday. Thursday, Friday, nobody was working on the boat. Well, the material that got delivered (did it really?) was wrong, so they reordered it from Tacoma. Ugh! We extended our hotel another week. The Staybridge rates are back to reasonable so we packed the trailer and moved back down the hill. This hotel has free breakfast, a kitchenette, a pool & hot tub, and a roof top deck with grills for cooking out. Plus our daily bicycle commute is only about 6 miles round trip instead of 11, and about half the amount of hill… Living the high life! Also saving a lot of money over eating every meal out.
Friday the 13th and the stern tube material finally came in! The new shaft has already been here for a week. By late morning, Mike already took it to the lathe and it was ready for the fabricator to weld on the mounting plate!
Friday afternoon, the tube had gone out. Maybe Monday will begin the rebuild? Monday came, and nobody worked on the boat. Wednesday they finally got the stern tube back from the fabricator, but the cutlass bearing wouldn’t fit inside snugly as it is supposed to. Something about tolerances in the thousandths of an inch… So they ordered another one to attempt a customized fabrication. Wish us luck, we need it.
So, now you are all up to date. We were supposed to leave for Port Angeles on August 13. We are stuck here waiting, attending other sailors’ dock-line-cutting parties as they are setting off. I know we will be out there soon. We will keep everyone posted. Once the new cutlass bearing is fabricated the boat needs to be put back together (a 7 day job they say). As soon as we are back in the water we will need to top off fuel and water and we are going! Yahoo! We seriously cannot wait!!!!
Wow, what an adventure! Both the Alaska trip and the repairs! You are living life as it should be lived. On on!
What great adventures in Alaska!! Alyeska is where I learned to ski at age 5 or 6😊 Sending you happy thoughts that you guys will be headed South soon. Miss you!!💋
This post was wonderful ……..especially the part in Alaska…….loved it……All of the boat issues remind me why we sold the Cal 40……As much as we loved the boat and sailing, the issues caused us to quarrel……..Now we have a new toy, A Rolls Royce ……It is beautiful……It had 56oo miles on it and had been very well cared for but rarely driven……..So now we are having it gone over completely……..Our little boy toy is great fun, but I hate being on a first name basis with a service manager……..Also the $$$$$$$$$$………Keep having fun…..and be safe…..love you …….Stanley and Jerry
Thanks Stanley! We are getting to know a LOT more names of people at the shipyard than we like… We will be certain to keep posting as soon as we can get back on the water. Hope the RR is fun and brings no quarrels!! Lol
You Two CRAZIES! Your adventure skybythesea could be a Netflix documentary!!! Thank you for putting me in the front row with my feet up and a large buttered popcorn! Love love love it ALL!!! You are both an inspiration… living in the moment on your journey! Stay safe and get Sacagawea back out where she belongs! Your friend, Angie
Thanks Angie! 🙂 Wonderful to hear from you and we hope you are having adventures of your own! We will keep you posted, and hope we can host you for a vacation trip somewhere to catch up on what you’ve been up to. Pick a place or a time and let us know!
Holy smokes!!!! Loving this adventure you guys are on! It a love story with some heartache!
LOVE the Alaska photos! That looked/sounded amazing!
Looking forward to more! Also I’m glad we are caught up, I was reading the other posts and was very confused on dates but I’m also on my third night shift/I’m slow!
Miss and love you guys!!!!! Cheers!
Get some sleep!! Lol! We just had an epic sail we will be writing up in the next few days, stay tuned!