Sailor’s Quest

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Captain’s Log, sea date 080399, 0912 hours

          The sea is glassy, it is 68 degrees, and there are low broken clouds with no wind. If you’ve seen the movie, Dead Calm, then you have a good picture of the situation. We are motoring out to sea, fifty nautical miles off the coast of Washington State at 8 knots on a course of 185 degrees magnetic. The only mechanical failure is the DC to AC inverter overheating occasionally due to high temperatures in the engine room. Every ten minutes I scan the horizon, but see nothing.

           Our departure from Anacortes, Washington was delayed again and again by bizarre circumstances. Sherrine got hit by a truck while riding her bicycle, leaving a scar on her chin. Our fourth crew member arrived aboard DONDI and we took him out to dinner. Just as we were finishing, he asked Sherrine to check his pulse by putting her hand on his heart. I thought he was flirting with her, but when red stripes started traveling up his neck and covering his face, we rushed him to hospital emergency. It was a tachycardia attack with his heart racing at 180 beats per minute. We thought he was going to die. He survived, but needless to say, he is not with us. The last time I spoke to him on the phone, he was trying to find a "man over-board beacon" that would allow us to recover a crew member in the water using a radio direction finder. He wants to give it to us as a going away present. Thanks Dave.

            With only three of us aboard, Sherrine, Gary Mula and myself, the workload on each of us is immense. We are all beat. Last night, Sherrine and I were installing night lighting for the nav station. She looked so bummed and depressed, I was torn as to whether or not we should even continue. Yet without lighting, we can’t use charts or see the controls in the nav station at night.

            Both Sherrine and Gary have been great, working day and night to get DONDI ready to go. I have many thanks to the others who have helped us prepare as well. I also have an apology for broken promises to Andy Cloward and my father.

           Andy, thank you, thank you for the “God like” cabinetwork aboard DONDI. We weren’t able to take you sailing before we left because we were so far behind schedule. I hope you will forgive me and sail with us somewhere on the Quest.

           Dad, we couldn’t delay our departure to take you salmon fishing like I promised. I thought of you last night as DONDI sliced through the water causing hundreds of salmon to scurry out of her way with trails of phosphorescence behind them. Please come fishing with me somewhere on the journey and we’ll catch fish that neither one of us have ever seen before.

Captain’s Log, sea date 080598, 0411 hours

           We are motor sailing in an effort to make up lost time due to no wind at a speed of 7 knots on a course of 101 degrees magnetic. The wind is out of the Northwest and just under 10 knots. There are low swells out of the Southwest and three-foot wind waves out of the North. The crossing of these causes DONDI to heave and roll crazily. Every ten minutes I engage the Radar to make sure we don’t run into anything because it is pitch black with heavy cloud cover. The whole effect is incredibly disorienting. Sherrine is a bit ill and in her bunk trying to sleep.

           Yesterday morning, I was trying to sleep in the cockpit during Sherrine’s watch to help her feel more secure. She was doing collision avoidance as there were lots of fishing vessels about. I had finally fallen asleep when suddenly she hollered, “Chris! Chris! There is a fishing boat intercepting us!”

           I opened my eyes to see Sherrine in a bikini with a sarong wrapped around her hips. She was pointing at a fishing vessel charging towards us. It was about 150 feet away, attempting to come along side. I quickly told Sherrine to slow the DONDI down. As soon as the two men on board saw me sitting in the cockpit, they throttled back, causing their vessel’s bow to drop in the waves. With both of our vessels slowing to a stop, the two men came out on deck and looked at us. After a moment, with no attempt at communication, they spun their vessel 180 degrees and sped away.

          This kind of thing makes me nervous. After the incident, I sat up for awhile watching Sherrine work and thinking of her beauty. Of all the perils we face, in the end, human predators may be the most dangerous.

Captain’s Log, sea date 080799, 0013 hours

           We are enclosed in a heavy fog. Below, clusters of phosphorescence pass us by like stars in the night. Above, DONDI’s tricolor masthead light illuminates the fog as if an angel’s halo were hovering over us.

            Although we are motoring at a speed of 8 knots on a course of 140 degrees magnetic, we have ceased going anywhere. Instead, the water and plankton move past us as we remain in one place gently rocking. There is no wind and nothing appears on the radar. At times I wonder if it is even working.

            Last night, during my watch, a blip appeared on the radar and closed within two and a half miles of our starboard beam. It was just over a mile long, quite narrow and looked kind of like a small rain cloud or sea clutter. I would have ignored it except for one thing. After I made a fifteen-degree course change, it did the same. It tracked alongside of us for over an hour. I saved it into the radar’s display memory to show Gary when he came on watch. Finally it seemed to split into two pieces. The forward half slowly accelerated and pulled away from us. The back half slowed down and disintegrated.

            When Gary came on watch to relieve me I showed him the saved image and he was quite astonished. He had never seen anything like it. In the morning he informed me that the blip had returned. In fact, this time it closed to within one mile of our starboard beam, tracking us again. He saved the image into radar memory and it looked almost identical to the blip I had seen. Neither he or I could get a visual on it. So . . . was it a submarine with waves breaking over its back following us? Was it some unknown object over head? Or was it just bizarre rain clouds that coincidentally tracked our course?

            We have chosen our next landfall. It is Berkeley, California where we hope to get a better understanding of the definition of Truth.

            When I first envisioned Sailor's Quest, I thought the definition of Truth wouldn’t be much of an issue. In my mind, Truth was simply that which is real or has existence. Upon talking to people during the preparation for this Quest, I discovered there is no consensus as to the definition of Truth. Some say Truth is whatever a person believes. Others say there is only one Truth, and that Truth is their spiritual path. Even among those who believe Truth is that which is real, there is no agreement as to what is real! For example, Sherrine believes that whatever she personally perceives is real, even if her perception occurs in a dream. If all goes well, we shall soon see what the great minds of Berkeley have to say.

           We are 150 miles from San Francisco, California and the temperature has dropped. It is now 55 degrees.

Captain’s Log, land date 080899, 0030 hours    

           After passing under the Golden Gate Bridge, we have arrived safely in Berkeley, California.

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