Getting ready to go to Alaska has consumed the major portion of the last 10 months. After retiring and moving onto Cosmo Place in June, 2010, we worked diligently to learn all about cruising in the Northwest. I doubt we ever be really proficient but at least our comfort level has improved. Docking the boat, for instance, is no longer a cold-sweat experience. However, I certainly would not say that we know it all! In fact, we’re still learning amazing new things every day. Fortunately, we think our problem-solving skills and our knowledge base are robust enough to take us safely to Alaska and back.
Because we are so new to cruising, it’s been hard to anticipate what problems we’ll encounter and what routine maintenance the boat will need. How many extra parts and which ones should we take with us? Limited space and limited boat dollars curtails the list somewhat, but Jerry has had lots of conversations with lots of experienced cruisers trying to sort this one out.
How many household supplies should we take? Somewhere along the line I’ve developed the idea that there is absolutely nothing for sale above the 49th parallel! So we’ve thoroughly stocked the boat with cans of soup, toilet paper, and all sorts of other household stuff.
Neither of us is much of a fisherman, but we’d certainly like to try our hand at catching a halibut or two. Where to start? We’ve had lots of advice and heard some amazing fish stories (there’s no bigger fish than the halibut that got away!), but we have yet to try our hand. Several generous folks have given us fishing poles, etc. so we hope that once we get to Alaska we can get licensed and provisioned to catch our own amazing fish.
The week before we left for Alaska was crazy. The weather improved enough in LaConner to allow us to wash the boat and clean the inside thoroughly. It’s always been our practice to start a journey with a clean vehicle, and this trip is no exception. We topped off the fuel tanks, tuned up the dinghy, and Jan did some docking practice with a trainer. Two humbling events occurred during that week. We discovered that the boat’s navigation system did not have charts north of Vancouver Island. We discovered this accidently, since we’d both assumed the electronic charts were in place. The boat had already been to Alaska, after all! The fix was relatively easy – just a phone call and our credit card. The maps were shipped to us a couple of days later. The other event was the loss of our Maretron weather station…a simple equipment failure. Of course it was out of warranty and of course a new one was expensive. Tie the least little piece of equipment to a boat and the cost doubles.
We were off to the Seattle-Tacoma airport on Wednesday, May 18 to pick up our friend Chuck Schleich who will cruise with us to Ketchikan. It was Chuck who got us started on this whole boating journey. In the early 90’s we had sailed with him on his boat in San Francisco Bay and started to seriously think about life on the water. Having another pair of hands for the start of the journey will be wonderful!
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