Labor Day Close One

Plans with me seldom come true, especially, when I fly stand-by. My brother works for the airlines and I always seem to pick the holiday weekends to put his buddy passes to the test. It's obviously a busy time for the airlines, but I figure shit man there has to be an empty seat on one of those birds. Over labor day weekend I decided it was about time the love of my life met my parents. Long story short the events at the airport didn't unfold the way we planned and the only thing making it back to the D was our luggage. We drove home discouraged at 1 AM after missing the last red eye flight, and decided to sail down to Seattle figuring by the time we got there our bags would be back at the airport. We both had scheduled the time off, so we might as well take advantage.

We departed the marina in Oak Harbor under gray skies early in the afternoon. As we made our way past Penn Cove the weather was quickly turning from alright to oh shit. Jordan and I dropped the genoa on the deck as the skies began to darken. I began to reach with just the main sail up at full hoist. The wind, rain, and waves continued to build. Jordan was below deck trying to stay dry when I realized we were in deep...way deep trouble. I was carrying just the main and we were getting speed readings of 6.8 knots. (fastest the Rock Lobster had gone in a race with full spinnaker was 5.3 at this point.) The mast was beginning to create this harmonic shudder throughout the boat the reverberated into my bowels. Yep, I was fully prepared to shit my pants. I asked Jordan to come on deck and help me try and reef the main. We were heading straight for Camano Island and quickly running out of time before the Rock Lobster was on the rocky shore. I had never reefed the main and wasn't really sure what to do. I quickly assumed we didn't have the option of going head to wind without capsizing the boat so decided to release the main halyard to bring the main sail down the mast. The problem being we don't have a boom kicker or topping lift, so the boom just dropped to the water. We were on a full run when it happened and as the boom dropped on the port side the bow quickly followed. I saw the main sail start to back-fill and quickly grabbed Jordan and pulled her into the bottom of the cockpit. Woosh...the boom gybes at lightning speed over top of us and the boat heels like I have never felt. Splash...back down we come. I scream, "release the main halyard." Jordan jumps into action with a wild look in her eye and breaks the sail loose. We gather it as best we can as it swamps and fills the cockpit. I quickly glance and see the massive rocks of Camano approaching at a speed that is more than alarming. Thank god the motor started, but the waves were so large we couldn't move. The motor was cavitating three seconds for everyone one second it spent in the water. We slowly made our way into deeper water, but the amount of cavitation prevented the motor from cooling and red light came on alarming us of the issue. Jordan, now more complacent due to fatigue and cold, calmly looks at me and says, "this reminds me of that movie A Perfect Storm." I look back at her blankly and say, "don't say that shit, they all died in that movie. You are going to jinx us." We continued to motor until we got back over to the Whidbey side of the Saratoga passage and found a cove to anchor. We through the anchor out in choppy seas and it slowed the boat down enough that we could catch our breath. I pumped Jordan full of cookies and got her into some dry clothes and a fresh pair of foulies. We couldn't stay where we were at, so I said lets make a run for Langley. I pulled the anchor and we fired the motor back up. The seas were beginning to calm slightly and we were heading with the waves and wind. On the way to Langley we saw the flashing lights of a search and rescue boat come up. Someone on the overlooking bluffs of the Saratoga apparently called when they had seen a red boat in distress. (the only boat on the water on Labor Day, that should tell you something about the weather and how naive we were) I told the guys we were alright and we appreciated them checking in on us. When we finally arrived in Langley the sheriff guided us in and was waiting with our slip information completely filled out. We were so exhausted that we could hardly appreciate the cordial gesture. Once we had time to catch our breath we quickly went into town on the hunt for some good food. We spent the evening doing what I always do after those too close to call moments...laughing our fool heads off.

The rest of the trip went much better. I was surprised Jordan didn't hop the first bus from Langley to home, but she proved how resilient and strong she really is. It took both of us some time to start flyin' the genoa and get our full confidence back, but we found our groove and the confidence went to an all time high. The appreciation for how small we are in this big world is something that will never be lost. We had a couple scary moments where the depth indicator would read 26 feet or something like that, and we would crash tack the boat. I later realized that when the depth of water is over 600 feet the transducer has a delay and the reading will flash and start over at 1 foot.

We managed to see the city of Seattle from an entirely new perspective, get our luggage back, enjoy the marina life in some of the finest in the world (Elliott Bay and Shilshole), and fly our spinnaker with porpoises playing in the same sunshine and water we had gained an appreciation of. I love racing the Rock Lobster, but this is what sailing is all about. If day one had not happened I would think that calm seas are the only thing the Puget Sound has to offer. It was a valuable lesson, and one I will never take for granted. It makes those good days taste even better!