Catalina Gale - Part III Ignorance of the Sea.

After having sailed all night and arriving at Catalina in the morning, we docked and let the three teenagers, Braddock, Matt and Louie off to find a camping spot.

Brad continues:
"But they were denied with the explanation that only an adult could make the reservations. In the meantime Captain Albie and I were busy getting our boat “Canta Libre” settled in for the night on her hook (anchor). We made our way onto the beach using a system of lines to comically pull ourselves back and forth from the sailboat to the beach in a little toy inflatable that as it turns out would barely - and I do mean barely - float under our weight. We would have to refill it with lung fulls of air after each short embarkation since as it turns out; it also had a very significant leak. While we did not seem to have avoided getting soaked in the process, we were fairly successful in getting the sleeping bags and other camping essentials onto the shore in relatively dry condition. At last we had made landfall. Now our greatest concern was that the weather forecast had taken a turn dramatically for the worst. The following is the entry of the Captains log accordingly: "It was now predicted for gale force winds the following day with 20 foot seas."

We walked into town to talk with the Harbor Master, as well as some of the more knowledgeable locals to find out what they advised under these circumstances, being intimately familiar with the Isthmus. They informed us that because of the direction of the intended wind, Two Harbors would be converted into a lee shore, meaning that if we stayed where we were, we were likely to experience 10 foot breaking waves which they believed would undoubtedly throw the sailboat on to the rocks no matter how well we were anchored. If they were trying to scare us, it worked. They further informed us that the only safe option was to sail all the way around the West end of the island to Catalina (“Cat”) Harbor. We did the calculations, and deemed it about the same distance to just sailing home instead. The only problem is that we had just got there, and were too tired to just pack everything up and leave. When I spoke to my wife on the cell phone she wisely commented that if the storm was going to kick in, it was not a good idea to attempt a crossing at night, since it was far more dangerous if someone fell overboard in the dark. Besides it was such a beautiful evening, it was difficult to be worried about such things for the present. Since the young men were not allowed to pay for a reservation, we were all going to sleep on the boat, but I decided to at least try to speak with the people in charge of the campgrounds. They were kind enough to hint that even though their offices were closed, and therefore could not accept money for reserving a campground, that in lew of the approaching storm, we were welcome to go ahead and set up camp anyways for safety sake. How awesome is that! There are still some decent people on this earth when it comes right down to it. We spent the remainder of the evening hiking around and then set up camp on the side of a hill overlooking the harbor and Albie's little ship. We were in a wonderful mood, despite the uneasiness of what might follow in the wee hours of the morning. The one peculiar thing that I remember from that evening was a group in an adjacent campground trying to light their camp fire with gasoline. However, the fuel would consume itself, and the fire kept going out. This caused them to take action by pouring even more fuel onto the now simmering coals. To their amazement (but not to ours as we watched) there was suddenly a huge ball of flame - gasoline having a flashpoint of -40degrees Fahrenheit - and as everyone ran around trying to put out the miniature, but growing forest fire, the gas can itself began to engulf itself in flames. We couldn’t help but be entertained and bewildered at the same time as everyone in their group began to attempt to extinguish the fire with bottles of what appeared to be Evian drinking water - which was causing the gasoline to splatter, and to spread even further. I had just recently completed an advanced fire fighting training course at the Navy Base in San Diego for fires on board ships, and tried to advise the group that water was not always a good idea when extinguishing a type B fire. To our surprise, they not only rejected our advice, but were visibly upset that we weren’t minding our own business. We ended up making our own campfire, as well as some exquisite hot chocolate while we gazed off towards the horizon at the distant glow of greater Los Angeles where over 12 million souls were either asleep, or no doubt too busy to stare back. We were in a different world out here on our little rock, so peaceful and serene, without a single worry. That is what we thought anyway, but as we continued gazing up at the stars and the clear night sky, we noticed a particularly dark mass of clouds meandering across our view. It seemed just moments before the stars were devoured by this ominous presence, until everything was pitch black. Even the lights of L.A. were extinguished. This did not look good at all. No Sir! Albie and I began to discuss some of the options in case the storm hit us during the night, which looked likely. We decided to move the boat over to a mooring ball as close to the protected side of the isthmus that we could maneuver into. We explained to Braddock, Matt and Louie that it was paramount for them to monitor their cell phones in case we had to leave in a big hurry, rather than be trapped in the harbor by huge breaking seas. As I squirmed my way into the quarter birth (sleeping space), I found that I could barely fit. I had no room to turn on to my side, or to even take a deep breath for that matter. Definitely not for the Closter phobic.  Not to worry, as I heard the rain begin to pitter patter down on the cabin top of the boat, I was just extremely glad to be warm and dry. AAAAh! Good night everyone.

Captain Albie continues:

"Yes, it was a good sleep. Having little sleep from the night before, crossing over to the island, I was very tired and slept soundly. In rethinking it all though, I wonder why I let Brad sleep in the quarter-birth? The main birth would have been much better. I only had to drop the chart table and put out the cushion that goes across it and Brad would have been much more comfortable! But all this is in hindsight. Also I don't remember the weather report indicating 20 foot waves for late sunday night. I do remember hearing 40 knot winds. But after hearing these reports often and having been out in seas that were supposedly reported to have 40 knot winds, I didn't take it too seriously. I expected some five or so foot waves but could not imagine it could get much worse than that. But this was my ignorance of the sea! I may have sailed in areas where up to 40 knot winds were PREDICTED, but to actually sail where 40 knots winds WAS - is entirely different!

~Albie

Thanks for your comments!!!

Catalina Gale - Part II, Darkness, Increasing Winds & Then Dolphins! No Signs of A Big Gale Coming...

     We finally cleared the breakwater wall and got on our rhum line (straightest possible line of travel) towards the isthmus, bucking gently into the swells on a close reach. The further you get out, the darker it gets and you begin to wonder if you were sane to decide to go out to Catalina at night. The Shipping Lane was coming up too - as if I needed the extra worry about being hit by a big ship in the dark!

As we got further out toward Catalina that night, the wind came up and we bucked through bigger waves and stronger winds. It was a lonely watch at 3 am in the morning while everyone was asleep and you're out there by yourself watching the dark seas and white caps breaking on the waves. I had the luxury of taking a couple hour nap earlier in the evening. Still, early in the morning one feels very sleepy but the seas at this time of night - approaching Catalina - were worth watching. But everyone was sleeping down on the v-berth or cabin berths as I moved the tiller to starboard and then to port a bit as each wave tried to knock us slightly off course.

Captain Brad continues the story:
"Our heading was 170 degrees magnetic. It is important to distinguish between magnetic and true headings, since there is about 14 degrees of variation (difference between true and magnetic) in this part of the world. This phenomena being the result of unknown influences or disturbances on the earth's magnetic field. Deviation is another type of error that can have a devastating effect on a ships compass as well, but usually results from metallic objects on the boat itself, that throw the compass off. This could be something as simple as a set of binoculars or a tool set down in close proximity of the compass, to an even stranger situation with ships that are made of steel. While the vessel is being built in the ship yard, if it is sitting in a position from east to west, it will actually become magnetized accordingly, and will always remain that way no matter which way it is facing while on the ocean. These are some of the many things that a prudent mariner must familiarize himself with not to find himself drastically off coarse. One degree off on the compass can be the difference between arriving home safely, and ending up on a reef in the fog. But enough about the technical stuff.

 Needless to say it was the ultimate night for sailing, and it was a great chance for us to clear out thoughts of those things left behind, as the land became more and more distant, and the millions of stars, normally obliterated by the prevailing city lights all of a sudden began to portray themselves in all of their magnificence. Wow!

After some time elapsed, we began to take watches (turns). I can easily remember some of my most profound nights of rest being out on the ocean with the fresh air and the gentle lulling of the sea, rocking me into the most blissful R.E.M. imaginable, but this night it was a little different. With all the excitement of the adventure, it was hard to sleep too soundly for fear of missing anything. Soon this turned out to be the case at dawns early light, when the damp grey darkness began to reveal both earth and sky with prevailing hues of golden colors, which then in turn quickly transformed to shades of green and blue. Now I understand what must have inspired poet Robert Frost when he wrote one of his well known thoughts:

Natures first green is gold, her hardest hue to hold
Her early leafs a flower, but only so an hour.
As leaf subsides to leaf, so Eden sank to grief.
So dawn goes down to day, nothing gold can stay

 I can’t be sure, but I believe that Frost was trying to help us realize that there are certain moments in life that God grants us that are just incredible, but that they rarely last for long, and it is sooo important to appreciate them while there is still time.  That’s how I was feeling sailing upon the Pacific Ocean with my son, his friends Matt, Louie, and my good friend Albie, who I consider like a brother.

     Just when I thought things couldn’t get better with such a sunrise as that, we began to see and hear dolphins playing in the wake of the boat. As the day continued to materialize, we began to witness more and more of them, until it became literally impossible to count them anymore! They seemed to have great interest in us as they would take turns darting over to jump and splash all around us. We saw a particularly thick pod of them feeding in a team effort upon a giant ball of smelt (fish) which were literally boiling on the surface. The scene was complimented by squadrons of sea gulls and pelicans dive bombing on to the bait fish, pushed up so close to the surface and to their advantage by the attacking dolphins below. We called all hands on deck to see the spectacle. Braddock and Max took it upon themselves to jump into the freezing cold water to interact with the Dolphins first hand! They told us later that they could literally hear the high pitched communications from the dolphins as they darted back and forth in immediate proximity to both of them. From our vantage point in the cockpit of the boat, we could see they were literally surrounded by the porpoises the whole time with Catalina as the backdrop. The island was definitely beckoning us by now and after retrieving the lads from the icy water, we continued towards the green isle, past ship rock, and into the sheltered waters of Two Harbors. We briefly tied up to the pier, while the three amigos ran up past the harbor masters office to secure a camping spot, just before the place closed."

Next week, come back to check out Catalina Gale - Part III. Thanks also for your comments!

~Albie
Columbia 22, 1969

Catalina Gale - Part I, First Mistake.

"It was in fact, a week or two - perhaps even a month after the horrific storm - that this lesson dawned on me. But its REALLY important and not one of those lessons you ever forget!!" ~Albie

Captain Brad begins our tale: "It all started more or less when my cell phone rang the other day. Rrrrring! Kinda like that, except right in the middle of something important. Not good timing, but what is this....the caller I.D. displaying the words “Son”. Oh, cool! A call from Braddock no less. “Hey Son.....What’s that? Did I remember that I promised to take you and some friends to Catalina for spring break..... Uhhhhh, oh yeah. I mean....of course not!”          As soon as I got off the phone the thought occurred to me: “No problema”. Since I live on a sailboat, all I had to do is get everyone on board by Friday, undo the dock lines, and start heading the vessel west, by south west, right? Of coarse there’s the small consideration that the engine needs to be fixed. Oh yeah, and the other small non-sequitorial factor that the rudder (for steering the ship) is not working either. And then there’s the minor issue that my wife Brigitte completely vetoed the whole idea, since she didn’t want our home to be missing for a few days, as she legitimately had a bunch of commitments going on that she could not change at the last minute, and unlike me, actually remembered that she had them. Then there’s the.... okay, I suppose you get the idea. 
     That is where things got seemingly really complicated. I mean a man does not ever go back on his word, right!? After all, that’s part of what makes us real men is our integrity with others, not to mention before God Almighty. But then again, I did forget to look at my calendar, and I’m sure my Son will understand. I better call him back with the bad news......wait a minute.....what am I saying, I can’t possibly let those guys down! What was I thinking (actually I guess technically, now you know what I was thinking).      But what else could I do.  And that’s when the thought occurred to me to call “Captain Albie”. If only I could convince my friend to drop everything and allow us to use his sailboat for a voyage across the channel at such last notice. That was this weekend! A brief phone call latter, and suddenly I felt the warm fuzzies all over. Not only did Albie not blackmail me (which he could have easily done at this juncture) but instead said that he was himself wanting to go to Catalina, and only needed such an excuse to go, such as my phone call for example.“Yeah!”

      Well, there was certainly no time to waste. A lot of preparations needed to be done. More than the average Land lubber (lover) could ever imagine. We had to fix the outboard engine on the sailboat, make sure that it was running perfect for the expedition. Inspect and tune the rigging to minimise the chance of a de-masting (the mast falling off), scrub the bottom of the boat. Get the provisions, get extra fuel. Gather the correct paper charts. Do all the calculations for the navigation. Go over all the emergency gear like the flares and radios and extinguishers. Get extra type II life jackets for all personnel, and that was just the beginning of the list. And that’s about the time I decided to check the weather. Not tooooo bad, but it was forecast for a chance of rain late on Sunday. I called Captain Albie to notify him of this issue, and to see if he might want to postpone the trip for a sunnier weekend. Come to find out, he had made some really HUGE sacrifices to be able to take us at the last minute, and would definitely not be able to go the following weekend. I spoke to Braddock who in turn inquired with his friends Max and Louie. They all conveyed unanimously that a little rain was not reason at all to postpone an expedition.  Well, that was that!
       It was starting to get fairly late by the time we had all convened at Marina Del Rey Harbor. We stowed all of our individual gear as best we could on to the trusty Columbia 22 foot sail boat. ”Canta Libre” was her name (which means to “Sing Free” in Spanish). Then after some last minute arrangements we again checked the weather broadcast from a repeater tower on Mount Wilson (with no significant change from before).    

It was finally time to set the little ship free of her birth as we began to motor out towards the open ocean. In typical fashion, our schedule suddenly changed when the engine began to sputter, and then stopped all together. It started back up a couple of times, but was definitely being un-cooperative. Ironically, the little outboard had been nothing but both faithful and reliable up to this point, so it seemed inappropriate to be too upset about this small misfortune.
              We had to decide if we should break out the tools and begin to fix the auxiliary while drifting, or to turn back to the slip to make repairs, and then of course there was option number three….. We were on a sailboat after all!  With the catabatic winds beginning to subside, we knew some offshore breezes were waiting for us not too far away out on the open ocean. After all, didn’t folks sail to the far ends of the earth without an engine for thousands of years? And so would we by golly...well....at least the 30 or so nautical miles to Catalina anyway's, God willing! As we were tacking out of the last hundred yards or so of Del Rey (“The King” in Spanish), little did we know that the true King of Kings and Lord of Lords was about to gift us with some of the most spectacular dolphin interaction just a few short hours later, but then again, I shouldn’t get ahead of the story, now should I.
      We finally cleared the breakwater wall and got on our rhum line (straightest possible line of travel) towards the isthmus, bucking gently into the swells on a close reach..." ~Captain Brad


~Captain Albie: Did you notice a few things that we did right? Yes, we packed all the right things and we were careful to check the weather. Now comes the question...did you notice what we did wrong (and didn't mention)?

Well, in attempting to do the right thing we even checked the marine forecast before leaving. But what we didn't mention and what we did wrong was that we didn't check the marine outer water weather report! It was in this report that we may have got our first clue of a gale approaching Catalina on Sunday. It was in fact, a week or two - perhaps even a month after the horrific storm that this dawned on me. But its a REAL important lesson and one not ever to forget!!

So stayed tuned to see Catalina Gale part II next week!


Thanks for ALL your comments. They are most welcome! :-)

The Winds Ticket Home - Another Story of Sailing Without an Engine.

"If I was lucky, I would just have enough time to make it back to my slip before the wind died completely at 11pm. From experience I knew that the wind that was currently blowing was my ticket home."

This evening I went out with a good wind off the starboard bow. Of course, since I don't have an engine, I did a lot of tacking out of the basin. The wind was pretty constant and full of energy and its pretty hard to imagine such a good wind begin to fail. Which is why I had high hopes to get out to sea this evening. On one tack, I passed an interesting boat called 'The Star'. I suddenly realised that I really liked the word 'star' and that if I was going to name a boat, I would call it something with 'star' in it. Perhaps 'Northern Star' for instance! Anyway, soon the sun had set and the evening sky became dark. Usually after sunset the wind can become sporadic and die down. But tonight the wind increased instead! Which really made the sailing nice and it was very pleasant to fly along the waters edge at a good clip and watch the lights glow as they were mirrored off the wavy dark glass like surface of the water. For an hour I tacked up and down the channel toward the sea until I finally come close. And then I noticed the strength of the wind decreasing slightly. Its not like the wind makes it all that obvious either. Its just little subtle things like the sail luffing suddenly for no apparent reason, or it just feels like the boat is going slower. Tonight my clue was the surface of the water. I noticed that there were calm patches on its face instead of the constant wind blown effect it had all evening long. Yes, the wind still be could be seen on the water, but more like a 'river' as it blew down through one area on the northern side of the channel. So I thought: 'Oh, this will just pass, and the wind will come out again.' This is what I was really hoping! But then I realised it was after 9:30pm and this was the winds first time to calm. If I was lucky, I would just have enough time to make it back to my slip before the wind died completely at 11pm. From experience I knew that the wind that was currently blowing was my ticket home. So I forced myself to listen to reason and come about. After all, if I went out to sea and I was wrong, it would be hours before the little puffs of wind would bring me back in. Getting back in my slip at 2am was not exactly all that appealing of a risk. So with sails now flying out in front of the boat on a run, I cruised back through the marina. After about fifteen minutes, the wind came back out like it had been before and I was happy with the speed the boat and I were going. Having to make a little diversion so that I could make sure I got my four hours in for my captains licence, I then sailed down my basin to my slip. As I turned the corner to enter, the wind died for the night! I guess that was perfect timing. I had really cashed in my ticket for a ride home at just the right time this evening and it was all because of those little clues and the knowledge of the winds general behaviour at this season of the year.

~Albie
Any questions? Feel free to email me at prepaydlegalast@yahoo.com

Thanks for your comments!!