The voyage isn't over

Valdesca sits under a tarp in the driveway, looking rather dejected with no spars, sails or rigging up. It was blustery here this morning, nice sailing weather, but the nearest body of water is about the size of an Olympic swimming pool and has a fence through the middle--our pond. The nearest ocean is the Sea of Cortez, about 3 hours south of Tucson, so an 11-hour drive from here. I have to content myself for now with planning our next big adventure--sailing in the Pacific northwest.

We had to come home from Mexico because I had to get back on my Chinese herbs and see my oncologists for a check-up. As you can imagine, I didn't want to go there. I wanted to stay in La-La Land forever, permanently forgetting about my precarious health. Coming home meant finding out where I stand. Could have been good or bad. The last time I had a recurrence of cancer, Tim and I had come back from a month-long trip to Peru where we trekked at elevations as high as 18,000 ft near the 21,000-ft peak Ausangate. I did fine on that trip, although my conditioning at the time prevented me from hiking up the high passes; I rode a horse instead, which has its own charms. When we got back, I scheduled an appointment with Dr. Carolyn Muller, my surgical oncologist. Normally I see her in Santa Fe, where she has office hours every other Friday, but to get in more quickly I opted to see her in Albuquerque. She asked me if this was a routine appointment, concerned that I came to see her in Albuquerque, suggesting urgency. I told her, no, just routine but I wanted to get in sooner rather than later. They did a blood draw for the Ca125 tumor marker that tracks my cancer quite well. Then several weeks went by and I didn't hear anything from them. One Sunday night I had a dream I was back in graduate school. Dreaming about school for me always signifies I have something to learn. I was there with my friend Debra, who was an undergrad at Brown with me. We had an apartment together. In the course of the dream, four friends of our undergrad days came in the door. I was surprised to see them all and asked what they were there to study. The first said, "Hematology." The second said, "Hematology." The third, "Hematology." And the fourth, "Hematology." I woke up from that dream in a panic and said, "I have to find out my Ca125 result!" I called the doctor's office, and they told me, "It's 22." Ca125 is considered in the normal range if it's 22 or below. But mine throughout the previous two years had been in the 5-8 range, and 22 signified it was on the rise. I knew then that I had a recurrence, which turned out to be the case. They never reported it to me because it was normal and my records were up in Santa Fe.

This past Monday I had the Ca125 draw and by Thursday was in a funk waiting for the result. I asked Tim, "I see Lopez (Dr. Tim Lopez, my medical oncologist) on Monday. Should I wait until then to find out or should I call?" Tim said, "Call." So I called, although I have always made myself wait to open up college admissions, grad school admissions, academic test scores, and grant decisions. Wait for what? Oh, I don't know, to draw out the hope a little longer in the event of bad news. In this case, it wasn't like I was going to have a good weekend waiting for my Ca125 result. I was just going to be in a funk. So I called. It was late in the day, though, and I didn't get a call back.

Next morning, I walked into the house (from the tower, where we sleep) and Tim said, "Ah, there's the lucky number 7!" A 7!! Fantastic. That's "normal."

Pressure drop,
oh pressure,
oh yeah pressure drop'll drop on you-u-u-u.
-Jimmy Cliff

Now I can move on. Planning is in full force. I can go on another trip.

We are going to the San Juan Islands, which I discovered last year on my first visit to the Pacific northwest. Our friends Peggy and Rolf have a cabin on Lopez Island. Tim and I flew to Seattle, which was in the middle of a heat wave with temperatures reaching over 100 degrees in the city. Even Anacortes, where the ferry leaves for Lopez Island, was hot. We had a fantastic week of crabbing and eating and sea kayaking and eating and biking and sailing and eating. I decided I could move up there, but Peggy said, "I think you should come up for a week during winter before you do anything drastic." I guess it's not always in the 80s and sunny in the San Juan Islands.

Many northwestern sailors in the Sea of Cortez told us our boat was perfect for beach cruising in the Puget Sound area and the Inside Passage along British Columbia up to Alaska, including a NOLS instructor, Coco Hess, who lives in BC but spends part of the winter teaching sailing in Baja. With our connection to Peggy and Rolf and a place to stay on Lopez Island, we decided to go there next.

The conditions will be quite different from Baja. Peter says we need full foulies and sea boots. Not having a cabin will be more inconvenient, given the higher probability of rain and cold temperatures. The water is a lot colder, more like the Colorado River at Lee's Ferry where the water comes off the bottom of Lake Powell, a breathtakingly chilly 46 degrees. Tim won't be so blase about daily swims to and from the boat at anchor. And down-stuffed gear is out of the question.

I have already ordered the charts and current tables and some cruising and kayak guides. Tim has a new North Face 3-season fiberfill sleeping bag. We ordered him a pair of waist-high breathable waders with neoprene booties attached that he can stuff into his deck shoes. I ordered myself some Bogs knee-high neoprene boots with flowers and vines on them so they're cute as well as practical. We figured out a circular anchoring system that will allow us to unload on shore and then pull the boat out by means of a loop of line on a carabiner 'pulley.' When we need to access the boat, we untie the line that leads to shore and reel in the boat like a clothesline. Unless the shore is subject to surge or surf, we should be able to stay reasonably dry.

Another necessity for the northwest is a tent that we can mount on the boat, obviating any need to go ashore at all. Campsites are somewhat limited in the San Juan Islands by the density of development and regulations regarding landing and camping. In Baja, it seemed we could land and camp just about anywhere. That won't be the case in the San Juans. There is another option for us--mooring to Washington State Park buoys, which are located in protected anchorages in state-owned Marine Parks. To moor out, though, we need to be able to camp aboard. We actually have a workable system for sleeping on board but we need to figure out a tent system. We have a beautiful, carefully thought-out tubular canvas tent that came with Valdesca. It fits over the entire cockpit with window and door openings at both ends and on the sides. It makes for luxurious accommodations. The problem we have is that it takes up too much room on the boat and weighs too much for the number of times we actually want to sleep on the boat. In Baja, it just wasn't necessary. We slept out under the stars whenever we were on the boat all night.

The system we are considering builds on threads I have read in the Drascombe Association web site forum. Other Drascombe sailors have mounted small camping tents on a platform of boards placed crosswise to the boat's length on top of the side benches. We made a set of boards for the Mexico trip but opted to leave them in the car because they were too heavy and took up too much room in the cockpit. My new idea is a webbed plastic cargo-net floor like used on catarafts for whitewater rafting. The cargo floor is slung between two aluminum sidebars and stretched tight as a trampoline with aluminum crossbars u-bolted to the sidebars. We'll size the floor to fit the tent, a North Face Big Fat Frog. The tent assembles in minutes and the floor should too. Yes, we're back to the little camping tent, the one we had to forsake for the Minibus because Tim gets claustrophobic in it. He told me he'll deal. The minibus is just way too big to fit on Valdesca. We'll carry it along for shore camping, however.

Another upgrade we've made is beefier oars. The oars that came with the boat are 8-1/2 ft long traditional varnished spruce oars. Accustomed to rowing rafts as we are, these oars feel like toothpicks, and perform about as well. We worried we were going to snap one in Mexico and have to resort more often to the motor, the 'Sea Horse,' as it says on the motor cover. And everything I've ever read about Drascombes advises never getting your boat into a situation in which you have to depend on the motor to get you out. We learned that the day we had to make a quick exit through pounding surf and ran out of gasoline on a lee shore. The oars and the sails got us out of there.

The new oars are carbon/fiberglass/epoxy composite shafts with detachable carbon/fiber blades. They are 9-1/2 ft long and fit along the side benches where we used to keep the old oars. The extra length does not seem to be a problem. These oars have bigger blades than our old ones and will take a lot more torque. We should be able to make a wake with these puppies! In order to keep the 'look' from getting too moderno I chose off-white shafts and black blades with subdued graphics.

We are in the process of replacing all of our running rigging and changing out some of the deck hardware. Much of the existing rigging is as old as the boat (vintage 1985) and once impregnated with saltwater gets stiff and hard to handle. I have ordered new halyards, new sheets, a new mainsail downhaul, new centerboard gear, and a new jib furling line. All are yacht braid and should have a nice hand. We have already traded out the cotton sail ties that came with the boat for nylon webbing that takes up less salt and remains more flexible.

Storage of the Danforth stern anchor was a problem in Mexico. We needed it handy on deck for quick deployment; we used it every day. I jury rigged a rubber dry bag to hold the anchor and rode, but I am upgrading to chrome hardware that allows the Danforth to be mounted to the aft deck and a true flake bag for the rode. This system will keep things better organized on deck and less likely to mildew.

There are a few more other upgrades still to come. We would like to order a 140% genoa jib to allow faster sailing in light airs. We'd also like to replace our worn cast aluminum tiller head with a bronze one. At the same time, we'll install a curved tiller handle, which allows the helmsman to steer without crushing the knuckles of the rower. Part of the package will be a tiller extension so we can get our weight forward, closer to the center of effort of the sails, without having to re-e-e-e-ach for the tiller.