From Preparation To Execution
As we began our trip northward, Dick was still becoming
familiarized with the boat’s systems. He’d owned boats all his life,
but mastering the intricacies of Last Resort’s systems turned him
into a mad scientist poring over owner’s manuals, puzzling over
electrical systems, and learning the boat’s idiosyncrasies.
As for me, I was experiencing all sorts of mysterious aches
and pains from my new routine of grinding sheets and hauling on
mooring lines. Plus, it was tough to balance my work with many
consecutive days of travel. While I was learning to cope with typing
underway, making cell phone calls from the “head office” (the
forward head being the quietest place on board) and squeezing
in time to enjoy the trip, Dick was as excited as a schoolboy. He
had long, soulful cell-phone chats and swapped e-mails with his
buddies about things like satellite phones, solar panels, antennas,
and started a blog ( www.voyagesoflastresort.com) so friends and
family could follow our progress online. One of his key topics
of discussion was how we planned to deal with weather. “We’ll
watch for the approach of a low-pressure system,” he typed
encouragingly. “Each leg of the
trip, we’ll take advantage of the
favorable southerly winds that
precede the low and tuck into a
port before the front hits. It’s a
very simple strategy.”
Ah… simple, Little Grasshopper,
I thought. Still, Dick’s hide-and-go-seek with the lows worked
out particularly well when we
transited from Los Angeles to the
Channel Islands, narrowly beating
out a storm that brought 20-foot
seas behind it. Our self-confidence
increased with each new leg, as we
traveled to Santa Barbara, around
Point Conception and north to
San Francisco. Thankfully, we
stayed in the San Francisco Bay
area for six weeks, which proved
to be a vital adjustment period for
both of us. During our stay there, we received an especially warm
welcome. The Bay area’s sailing magazine, Latitude 38, ran a story
about Dick’s recovery from cancer and our cruise, which hit the
marinas, yacht clubs, and newsstands just as we arrived. To our
amazement, Dick’s web site was attracting nationwide attention.
His story of having the adventure of a lifetime after surviving
cancer and while dealing with a severe handicap was resonating
with others across the country. When one fellow sailor and cancer
patient, in particular, drove almost 50 miles to meet and talk with
him, Dick realized he had the ability to make a difference.
“Sharon, I really think my story can help encourage other
cancer patients and survivors,” he confided one day. “I think a lot
of them would gain hope and inspiration from getting out on the
water, even for a few hours.” By the time we left San Francisco,
he’d formulated a plan for a philanthropic organization, the Sail
Through Cancer Foundation ( www.SailThroughCancer.org),
whose mission it would be to form an Armada of Hope, boat
owners throughout the country who would volunteer to provide a
day sail for cancer patients. He had engaged a law firm to assist in
filing for nonprofit status and was working on the finer points of
the organization as we traveled north.
Heading out, we began a new routine aboard Last Resort. Dick
took the night watch while I slept and relieved him at sunrise. He
plotted each course so that we never sailed longer than 21 hours.
For the longer distances, we’d head out in the evening, traveling
between 10 and 40 miles offshore. Our strategy was like dancing
the two-step with a trained bear: As well-behaved and orderly as
he may look, you never want to let down your guard entirely. Our
luck continued as far as Newport, Oregon, when a run-in with
a crab pot caused us to miss our weather window. Welcome to
the Dark Side. By the next evening we were riding waves like we
were busting broncos. The trip became an endurance contest as
we struggled to make Grays Harbor, Washington, and rounded
Cape Flattery at last. We cleared Canadian customs in Victoria,
British Columbia, and continued northward alongside Vancouver
Island’s eastern coast. Wind and high seas became a thing of past,
as Canada’s Inside Passage is famous for being wind-free. During
a summer of sky-rocketing fuel costs, we went through diesel fuel
like Texans. We did have a great sail across the Georgia Strait,
before returning to placid waters that
continued through the bottlenecks
of Sansum and Dodd Narrows.
Rounding Cape Mudge,
we entered a series of channels
from Discovery Passage, through
Johnstone and Broughton Straits,
where the shorelines became ever
more rugged, cliff walls higher, the
population sparser and the forests
of cedars and firs thicker and taller.
Here the number of recreational
boats lessened while every container
vessel, fishing vessel, tugboat-and-barge ensemble, and cruise ship on
its way to Alaska began funneling
through these narrow passages,
along with the tidal waters of the
Strait of Georgia. Each evening,
Dick spent hours contemplating the
Canadian Tide and Current Tables,
studying the chartplotter, seeking
out local knowledge and double-checking his plans. Communications were tougher here, too,
without cell phone or Internet. Occasionally, the cliff walls were
too steep even for our satellite phone to find a signal.
Dick Drechsler celebrates his first crab catch.
A Notch On The Sailing Resumé
We left British Columbia’s final outpost, Prince Rupert, at
predawn, and made it to Ketchikan, Alaska, just in time to clear
customs before closing time. The next day, we visited Dolly’s
House Museum, the home of a famous 19th Century madam.
Dolly’s dining table was set with the same Desert Rose china that
Dick’s family had used when he was a child. His father had worked
for the manufacturer and Dick felt his dad would’ve laughed to see
his company’s china gracing the table of a brothel.
Exploring Southeast Alaska, by Don and Reanne Hemmingway
Douglass, describes the narrow, 21-mile stretch of twisting,
capricious Wrangell Narrows as a “piloting challenge.” In addition,
the Narrows is the preferred route for fishermen, cruise ships, and
commercial traffic, as well as cruisers, making it an extremely
tight and tricky passage. Despite its 60 lights and buoys marking
its shoals, variations and navigation hazards, locals warned that
even old salts can become confused.
