Pacific NW

Expeditions

On one sweltering hot day almost every fisherman in the harbor was working on their nets and boats. I caught the enthusiasm and began servicing our engine. Justin headed off into town for a day of letter-writing. Soon I had every tool out and was covered in sweat and oil. And then, the inevitable happened. The rare and necessary engine part fell into the water and sank instantly. In this case it was a metal partition that held the shifter cables to the engine casing, without which the engine was useless. I borrowed magnets from the fishermen but couldn’t fish it off the bottom. Perhaps it was made of aluminum. Damn it! I biked all over town, to no avail. We were going to have to wait until next week for the part to be ordered and shipped up from the lower United States. Suddenly I became extremely determined and decided to hell with it, I would make the part myself. I looked at the engine for awhile and tried to figure out what the missing piece looked like (I hadn’t seen it until I saw it splash into the water). Then I found a piece of scrap metal. I spent the rest of the afternoon swearing, drilling, sweating and hacksawing the metal into an intricate shape with curves, notches, and holes. Finally I had something I thought would work. With two satisfying “clicks!” the piece fit in perfectly. The engine roared to life and I shouted “I don’t need any stupid piece air-mailed to me from Seattle!” To date, that moment was one of the high-points of the voyage. The fishermen clapped, and I fell into an exhausted state of relaxation as I cleaned up the boat. Justin came home after a successful day of letter writing, and I told him of the events that had transpired in my day. Later on that evening we went for a fantastic bikeride out to the hydro dam, 12 miles or so out of town. At the end of the gravel road an old iron beam crossed a raging rapids. I walked across the narrow beam, high above the rapids, giving myself a good scare. On our way back we found many salmon in the stream. They were spawning there. Their bodies were bright red and their heads were deep green. We also found one of the best restaurants in the world– an old wooden building called ” The Barn”. It was midnight. They were open and we were really hungry. Justin and I each had a double buffalo burger, and cleaned the restaurant out of the last of their organic buffalo meat. It was a perfect ending to a triumphant day. The following day we made several more grocery shopping trips and took care of the rest of the town errands. In the afternoon we had an adventure at the fuel pier. The pier is built for huge fishing boats, not sailboats. Justin fended off the pilings as large boat wakes and swell heaved the boat around. There was great danger of the mast and rigging colliding with the tall pilings. The dock attendent lowered a huge hose down to me and I began filling our jerry cans. What with the violent motion of the boat and the high volume of fuel that came from the hose, I took a nice gasoline bath in the cockpit. The hose was one that delivers a gallon per second or so. In the end, we got 58 gallons into the tanks, minus a few in the cockpit and one on my head as the hose was hoisted back up the pier. I scrambled up the ladder, paid, and jumped back into the boat and we got away from that dock ASAP. Justin did a heroic job fending the boat off. Bill and his wife from the other 27′ O’Day gave us some food for the crossing. Dennis and Pat of the Nellie Juan returned to the harbor and are headed out again, though we are taking different routes across the Gulf. We said our good-byes, and Danny stopped by to check out the boat and gave us a huge sockeye salmon to take with us. We have met so many amazing people in this town, and it feels like home. Everyone is helping us out in our preparations for the Gulf. We got to bed early on our last night in Cordova, in anticipation for the long days at sea that lie ahead.