At 6:35pm on Wednesday, October 2, we pulled out of slip 563 at Clipper Yacht Harbor in Sausalito, California for the last time. Thisldu, our Rafiki 35’ sailboat, had been berthed at that marina since she first touched water in 1979. She’s been a Sausalito girl, through and through, for her entire life. Now, we’re taking her to see the world.
It was an emotional departure.
Tears welled in my eyes as I laid them on the San Francisco skyline. The sun had just dropped below the horizon and the city lights were shroud in pink and gold. My God, it was a beautiful way to say goodbye to a city that we called home for five years.
Pelicans swooped down around our bow in a V formation as we approached the Golden Gate. As is our tradition, Garrett took a pull of scotch when we crossed under the bridge and screamed one last WHOOP up into its rafters. Our journey had begun.
We motored, mainsail up, into the channel, tailing behind a container ship on an ebb tide. Our goal was to reach buoy number two, which bobs its head in the waters eight miles out past the Gate. Buoy number two was our turning point; from there, we would head south. Until then, we had to beat upwind. The swell got bigger, the periods got shorter. The night was black, slightly illuminated by the glow of the city behind us and the waxing crescent moon above. Twelve-foot waves were rolling underneath, sometimes crashing on our bow. The wind was gusting 30-knots on our nose. “There’s a big one coming,” Phil, our friend and crew member, would warn. Garrett mastered the swell skillfully. It was freezing, but he was in shorts and a t-shirt. “Do you want your foul weather gear?” I asked, “are you cold?” He wasn’t. He didn’t want layers, not yet. He couldn’t take his focus off of the sea.
I was tucked into the cockpit, under the dodger, facing back toward our stern. I exhaled as the waves washed away. Counted my breaths, in and out, up to ten, and then over again, like I’ve learned to do while meditating. I sang. I did anything that would help me breathe. My teeth were chattering and my thighs were shaking. I pounded my fists down on my legs to warm them up. I picked a peak south of San Francisco to focus on and tried not to freak out when I lost sight of it behind a wave.
We were miserable. Phil counted down the distance to the buoy. Three nautical miles. Two point four nautical miles. One point five. Point nine. We made it. Garrett steered Thisldu’s nose down and to the left. We were heading south.
The wind abated, went down to fourteen knots. The swell was still large and choppy. There wasn’t a collective sigh of release like I’d hoped. Conditions were still not good. They got better. The wind died, almost completely. Phil took the helm and Garrett dropped the mainsail with difficulty. Something on the stackpack had come loose. I’m not a praying woman, but I prayed then for Garrett to stay on board. He was tethered in; we all were. But we were getting knocked around, and the deck was slick with sea water.
I hobbled down to the cabin around 9:15pm. Garrett joined me to layer on his foul weather gear. I asked if I could go to bed. The fear exhausted me. “If you’re tired, you should definitely sleep,” he said.
I didn’t sleep. Couldn’t. My stomach was empty and uncomfortable from the Advil I’d been popping; I sprained my ankle earlier that afternoon. My stomach was empty, but I had no appetite. I was rolling around too much to eat. I rocked back and forth in the v-berth, tucked in under pillows and blankets and a big wool sweater, listening to the engine hum in the waves. I kept thinking to myself, I can’t do this for the next eight months. Worst-case scenarios kept popping into my head. Thoughts of the engine dying was the most popular mental foe. Stop doing that, I admonished myself. It isn’t helping anything.
After hiding away in bed for hours, awake but warm, I ventured out into the cabin at 2am. I layered on my foul weather overalls and jacket, my harness and tether, my lifejacket, and went up top. The seas had calmed; they’d been much better since 11pm. The boys were alternating at the helm. Phil had grabbed an hour of sleep. Garrett had tried but couldn’t. The moon had dropped; I didn’t know it did that. How does the moon disappear in the middle of the night? The Milky Way stretched out above our heads with a dusty path of stars. I saw a falling star so big, so green, so close to the water, that I thought it had to be a flare. The cold made me tired. I went back down to try and sleep around 4am.
I slept, thank goodness, and woke two hours later with the sunrise. It was a peaceful, if not cold, morning. The sea rolled out below us like a soft blue carpet. A big cluster of seagulls were sitting on the waves. The sun warmed our faces as it crested out of the horizon.
We were making good time; we were going to get to Santa Cruz before 9am. We had expected to be out for four more hours. It’s part of why we left at night; with an expected eighteen-hour sail, we didn’t want to arrive in the dark. At 8:50am, we tied up at the Santa Cruz Harbor fuel dock and sent Garrett to check in with the Harbor Master. They had a guest slip for us—something they warned they might not because of construction when we called the day before. Garrett could have cried, he was so relieved.
After moving to the guest slip, we all tried to sleep. Garrett and Phil crashed immediately. I couldn’t; I needed to write down what we had just experienced. I gave in and grabbed my phone to tap away, telling myself I’d sleep later.
The three of us felt like zombies that day. If I’m being honest, I can’t really remember what we did. I know that I slept from 3pm to 5pm. I read. I called my sister Annie. I watched an episode of Suits. The boys showered, I think. I stayed on the boat. My ankle was swollen and black and blue and I couldn’t get around easily.
We all slept well that night and woke up feeling human the next morning. It’s amazing, what a good night’s sleep can do for you. I did my morning routine: coffee, meditation, Spanish practice, breakfast smoothie. Garrett replaced the oil filter. Phil did a few work calls. It was a nice morning. But by the afternoon, the cabin fever had set in, and I got overwhelmed. I hadn’t been off of the boat for forty-eight hours. I couldn’t really walk. I needed a shower. I was blocked into the boat; Garrett had pulled the stairs over to work on the engine. “I need to go shower,” I told him, once he replaced the filter. “In a minute, let me work on this,” he said. I went into the bedroom, shut the door, and silently sobbed. The frustration over my sprained ankle and the feeling of being trapped had caught up to me. I was breaking. I wiped away my tears, grabbed my shower bag, and waited for Garrett to give me a piggyback ride to the bathroom.
I’m extremely grateful for his compassion and kindness about the whole ankle situation. He knows that my favorite thing to do is to walk around and explore. That’s why I’m doing this whole thing in the first place: I want to explore. And I can’t right now. I know it’s temporary, and I will get better, but I am angry. This is not how I envisioned starting our adventure.
But like I said, it’s temporary. I will heal. We had Phil with us, so Garrett had good, able crew for our sails to Santa Cruz and Monterey. We were okay.
After two days in Santa Cruz, we left on Saturday, October 5 around 11am. Our friends Marcus and Caroline, who live in Capitola, joined us for the sail. This time, conditions were extremely better. For one, the sun was shining and we could see our destination at the end of the Monterey Bay. For two, the windspeed averaged around 15 knots. We had 1-2 meter swells but they were rolling in at 20-second periods. It was a much more comfortable sail. “This is what it’s going to be like,” Garrett assured me. “Mmmmhm,” I replied, doubtful. I’m still not convinced.
We pulled into Monterey just before 4pm that afternoon, greeted by barking sea lions and a couple of sea otters twirling in the water. I like this place already, I thought to myself. Our group celebrated a successful journey with White Claws and margaritas. We turned the Michigan State game on the iPad and played the sound over our speaker. Michigan State lost. We turned off the game, and headed out for food and beer at the nearby Dustbowl Brewery.
Phil left us on Sunday, and it’s been just me and Garrett ever since. We spent nearly a week in Monterey waiting out a weather window. Garrett fixed an engine leak, I rested my ankle, and, as the week went on, we slowly explored our surroundings. Alvarado Street. Fisherman’s Wharf. Cannery Row. To the grocery store and back. To our favorite spots in Carmel By the Sea. We forewent the aquarium—I’d been before and at $50/person for a ticket, we figured that this adventure we’re doing exposes us to the things you see in the aquarium anyway. I wouldn’t mind not being exposed to sharks, though. Just throwing that out there.
It’s been a really nice week. Sure, frustrating at times, with cabin fever hitting, but the Monterey Harbor has been a good place to rest. I sit outside in the cockpit and meditate every morning, listening to barking seals and squawking seagulls and puffing sea lions as they swim by our boat. It’s been sunny and warm, with cool nights that allude to the changing of seasons. We’re saying a slow goodbye to Monterey, to the middle coast of California. This whole procession down the coast feels like that: a slow, gentle goodbye to California, our home for the last six years.
Tomorrow, we sail to Morro Bay. It’s about a 24-hour leg, and it will be just the two of us. We’re ready to go, to get back on our sea legs. It’s a bit surreal; we’ve only been at this for a week but it feels much longer. San Francisco seems so far away. Like a whole other life.