And in case you were wondering, our official departure date is...the end of October 2010.  And unless one of dies, that isTHE for-sure date!  And we are leaving with a bizarro bang:

http://www.baja-haha.com/

The first day on the boat, Cupid looked out the window of the aft cabin and said, "Why the F- are we in a giant bathtub!"  He has adjusted well, however!  He seems to like the boat now that he is used to it.  And he LOVES being with us, of course!

David and I have decided to change Deviant's name to Sea Monkey!  He has this private joke thing about monkeys, I'm obsessed with "Monk" and up until a few years ago I thought Sea Monkeys were real!  LOL!  So, we decided this was a better name.  A combination of all the silly things we are!  :) 

http://www.seamonkeyworship.com/indexfaq.html

My mom and her boyfriend came to visit last weekend.  They had not seen the boat yet.  We took them on it for a tour.  It was disgusting weather, so we didn't take them out or anything.  Lucky boat had visitors!!! 

 

We are happy to report that Deviant was able to knock one more item off Erin's "To-do-before-I-die" list. We went out with Erin this last weekend and the weather was perfect! It was awesome!



Captain DeLeon


Mrs. Captain DeLeon

"X&$#@(  *&^%)  stupid ^%#@)  &^#@!*( .....what the *^%*&^  &^%$#^* is this doing here. Who the *&^%$(*& *&&%$*( designed this *(&%$?> stupid "_&^$?!!..........etc, etc, etc........."

I have to say that the engine on Deviant was made in the early 70's and I have tried desperately to find filter numbers, impeller numbers, etc but no one, including the Westerbeke dealer in Portland was any help. Apparently they hung different things off identical engines depending on what the boat manufacturer wanted. Anyway, I have been unable to get reference numbers on any of the filters so I ended up going to the boat yard and having them order them so that I could get the part numbers. In the process they had to come out to the boat and look at the set up several times before they were confident that they could order parts. After they got the parts in I asked to have someone come out to the boat and install the fuel filters and raw water pump impeller so that I could watch and learn how it is done. Once you break the seal on the fuel lines, you have to bleed the air out of everything  to get the engine running again and although the manual describes the process it is very lengthy and complex. Anyway, I wanted to watch a pro do it first so he came out to the boat.

It should have clued me in when he came to the boat and, after explaining that I wanted to watch and have him explain exactly what and why he was doing what he was, the first thing he said was, "Well you will learn a few things and probably a new cuss word or two". I told him I thought I had heard all of those but I would be a good student and try to pick up on anything I had not heard before. Well, to say the least, I think I learned a few new cuss words, which fortunately he did not charge me for, but I also heard the same cuss words at least 300 times each in the course of only a couple of hours. It got so bad that I sat and laughed whenever he would break out in a string of expletives. He cussed at everything and every part of the boat. The longest string of actual words I heard come from his mouth was spoken when he couldn't get the fuel lines bled and the engine wouldn't start so he stood up and spent two minutes on one string of cussing before he stopped in a very calm and cool fashion and stated, "I give up, I am going to get Larry". I almost couldn't believe that he had that many normal words in his vocabulary. How funny. I have never met anyone who could cuss for two minutes straight which he was able to accomplish without much trouble many, many times over this few hours.
David

We went out again today with Carlene and Brandon. We actually ventured out into the ocean for the first time. Sailing around the harbor is good experience but being on the ocean is quite an adventure. We were out about three miles, engine shut down and sailing along on smooth seas. Unfortunately we were not getting much wind but it was beautiful and enough wind to move us along. Brandon would have liked a little livelier of a ride but I think it was a good first venture into the ocean with everyone. We seem to learn a lot of stuff each time we go out. How the boat handles, what works and what doesn't, how to get it to do what we want, systems, etc. This will be a great summer as we can get out there about every weekend from now on. Next weekend is the Winchester Bay Fun Fest. Lots of music, food, and attractions. We will try to sail that weekend as well. Brandon and Jennifer are born sailors. Jennifer drove the boat all the way back to the dock and parked it, through the pilings with room to spare. Very cool......except she will no longer need me...lol.

We are having some visitors this weekend and sailing is in the schedule so it was time to do some maintenance. The most important issue to get fixed at this time was refitting the main halyard at the mast head. Unfortunately when Feney and I were bringing the boat down from Seattle and got caught in the Gale, the main halyard came loose from the main sail and flew around everywhere and got off the track at the mast head making it impossible to hoist the main sail. So David got fitted into the bosun's chair and we threaded an extra halyard through a few turnbuckles and onto our biggest winch. Unfortunately Jen didn't have enough muscle power to get me hardly off the deck so we tried several other ideas before Jen figured out to use the anchor windlass. Since she was still unable to hoist me up, she volunteered and I cranked away for the next 30 minutes to get her to the top of the mast....pictures attached. It is a very odd feeling having your wife dangling 60 feet off the deck. Not a comfortable feeling but she was fearless and did a great job. Five minutes at the mast head and she had the halyard reconnected to the correct runner, oiled the wind vane and about two minutes to get her back on deck. What a relief. I should mention that I have a fear of heights and although I would have gone up the mast, my nervous system would have been shot for the rest of the day so I was relieved that she so freely volunteered. What a trooper. We are having tooooo much fun.

After I lowered Jen down the mast and she was on solid ground a lady came walking down the dock and stopped at our boat. She said she and her husband were sitting in their vehicle in the parking lot having lunch watching Jen at the top of the mast. She said she knew absolutely nothing about boats but she said they were making up stories about why someone would end up at the top of a sailboat mast. It must have been a fun conversation. Jen explained to her what she was doing and she seemed to be relieved that I wasn't inflicting some sort of ancient mariner punishment to the crew. How funny.........

So yesterday David and I took the boat to get it fueled and dump the holding tank.  And I got to "sail" it part of the way.  I didn't do take offs or landings, but the easy part.  It was fun.  And thank goodness the ginger ale and ginger snap cookies must be working because I didn't get seasick.  I can't take Dramamine because it puts be instantly to sleep.  That was SO exciting!  It was actually kind of boring too because we had to go slow and there weren't any big bad waves.  Heh heh heh.

Today we went to the boat again, and did yet more cleaning and organizing.  It looks really nice! 

Last night David and I spent the night on Deviant.  This morning we slept in, got up and ate lunch, and then pathetically came back and took a nap.  We didn't get up again until 5:00 p.m.!  Then we spent an hour cleaning.  We hauled stuff out to take  to Goodwill that the previous owners left behind.  I sprayed down the a bunch more of the drawers and cabinets with bleach water to kill off the mildew, and I also cleaned out the refrigerator.  Ick!  David fixed an obnoxious drawer.  We also planned out where we would store everything.  The storage space on this ship rocks!   We need to dump the holding tanks and get gas but the tide is all screwy.  We are in such a shallow part of the harbor that we have to wait for the tide to rise high enough to safely move.  Unfortunately high tide doesn't occur during business hours right now, so we have to wait until the tide will actually be high during business hours. 

It is not until you begin to downsize everything you own in preparation to live on a boat, that you realize how materialistic this culture is.  How it assigns meaning to things.  We sold our house early last year and we bought our boat with the money we made in that sale.  We gave up a beautiful 3 acre house and piece of land in the country for our boat.  When we moved we sold almost everything we owned.  We had a pickup truck, a canoe, a little boat -but that was just the big stuff.  We sold all our furniture.  One of the pieces was the first piece of furniture I had ever bought, a china cabinet, in which I displayed my most valued collections.  I had bought it in my early 20s and it traveled with me through many, many moves.  It was during this last major move that I actually sold most of my gargoyle collection, which I had been collecting for a good five plus years.   I also was a collector of random decorative objects.  I also sold them at that sale.  I had to psychologically convince myself that I could part with them.  Some held special meaning usually because someone special had given them to me and/or for a special occasion.  But after awhile, I realized I was assigning the special meaning to an "object" and that began to strike me as odd.  Since we have moved to Coos Bay, for the most part we have lived in a 2 bedroom apartment.  Since living here we have taken easily twenty large totes of stuff to Goodwill.  Where does it come from?  Some was stuff we still had, but some was stuff we kept buying.  We have been on a sort of buying moratorium now for about two years, meaning, every time we go to buy something we have to ask ourselves if it is for the boat, does it fit on the boat, and if not we don't buy it.  Including clothes.  Now as a woman I can safely say women have an inherent need to buy clothing, and that has been very interesting.  I have done well for being myself.  When I do buy clothes, I buy them on clearance, and make sure they don't have any metal on them (erodes in sea air) and try to buy stuff that I can also wear on the boat if I have to buy it.  For anyone who may wonder why we are driving one car with 250k miles on it and another car with 305k miles on it (neither of which have air conditioning I might add) that is because that was one of the biggest monetary sacrifices we chose to make for the boat.  It has proven to be a HUGE savings even with the occasional repairs.  For just liability, we only pay $50/month for both our cars.  I haven't made a car payment since 1997 and we bought David's straight out.  We probably average a total of $1000-1500 in repairs a year at this point, which isn't bad considering their ages.  Periodically I sort through all the stuff we have decided to keep, and strangely, each time I do, we find we are able to part with more and more.  Part of the reason is because if we haven't used it for the last six months we probably aren't, some of the other reasons are because I realize that if I really want to I can just buy the stuff again in the future, but the last and most important reason is -things are just becoming less important to us psychologically.  I have a collection of feather masks that I have had for several years.  If you asked me if I could part with those masks even a year ago I would have answered with a firm no.  Now I am giving them to a friend of mine without a second thought.  When you are about to spend you life in a space 41 feet long and 13 feet wide, you are forced to get rid of things you never thought you could.  But as you go through this process you become more and more aware of how much meaning you have chosen to assign to objects, and really, just how shallow that is.  I don't enjoy shopping much any more, not surprisingly.  When I go out I realize that this culture is built to consume, consume, consume, and not just things people need, but what they want, and not just what they want, but the biggest they can possibly get.  I look around and suddenly it is like I have landed on another planet.  I would of never noticed this if I were not about to live on a boat.

5-4-07 (Friday): Deviant had been sitting in Seattle Washington for a very long time. We were waiting for a weather window to move the boat to Coos Bay and as I watched the weather forecasts on the various weather sites, it became evident that the next 10 days would be little or no rain, a raising barometer and sunshine. So, I picked up Feney in Salem and Mark drove us up to Seattle. Even though Mark had to pick up his son in Washington, it was a long addition to go all the way to Seattle and drop us off. Thank you soooooo much Mark for your efforts above and beyond the call of duty. We arrived at the boat on the fourth (Friday) and expected to leave the next morning. The afternoon and evening were spent tying down or stowing everything we could, inflating the dinghy, securing the anchor against heavy weather and going over safety issues and equipment.

5-5-07 (Saturday): After topping off the diesel tank and filling four 5 gallon jugs for additional storage, we left the Shillshole marina at 7:30am. The first day was wonderful. Sunshine and warmth with flat calm water. Shillshole marine is located just north of the city of Seattle so it was going to be a full day of motoring (no wind and too much commercial traffic) to get through the Puget Sound and the Strait of Juan de Fuca. About 11:00pm we were exiting the Strait of Juan de Fuca into the Pacific and heading out to our turn south at about the 10 mile mark. Unfortunately our luck did not hold out and by 2:00am on Sunday, we were in the middle of a full gale. By 3:00am Feney was violently ill with motion sickness, and little more than a puddle on the cockpit floor. Fortunately it was dark and we could not see what we were up against. The darkness has the ability to hide many scary things. However it was evident that we were being tossed about like a rag doll in 15 to 20 foot swells with 3 to 4 foot breaking waves on top. The wind was also blowing at a pretty constant 40 mph with two to three gusts every minute hitting 60. In fact the gusts could have been more severe than that. Our wind speed meter pegs out at 60 and it was getting pegged on a pretty regular basis. So, we made the decision to turn around and head back to the security of the Strait of Juan de Fuca and find the first harbor we could to rest and wait out the storm. Fortunately Neah Bay is right inside the Strait and there is a small Indian fishing town located around Makah harbor. That town is so small and out of  the way that it didn't have a restaurant, only one store, and about 50 boats, most of which were owned and operated by the Makah tribe. No cell phone reception was available as well but fortunately they did have one pay phone. We tied up at the transient dock and crashed. What a night.

5-6-07 (Sunday): We woke up a little late, checked weather, bought some Dramamine for the Fene, topped off the diesel tank and were heading out of Makah harbor at about noon. Although the seas were tolerable once we hit the Pacific again, we were hit with a constant barrage of 4 to 6 foot swells hitting us on our beam. Most uncomfortable, but this was the best conditions we experienced on our trip south along the Washington and Oregon Coast. 4 to 6 foot swells were a daily constant and the minimum we experienced. We were in 6 to 8 foot swells about 50% of our trip. No matter where we were at we had the swell hitting us on the beam and no way to orient the boat so that this was not an issue. We cut down the distance offshore to 5 miles in case we had to seek refuge again and headed south. Most of the day was spent putting the cabin back together. Everything that was sitting somewhere off the floor was thrown onto the floor during the gale. Although the weather was warm, we were experiencing light fog all day. It made it a little unnerving since crab pot buoys, fishing boats, trawlers and tug boats were a constant threat. By night fall the fog had settled in thick and we could not see anything past the anchor windlass. Radar is the only cure for the anxiety that fog creates (a device we do not have) but we were following our gps course which we knew to be the best route with the fewest possible dangers. David drove and feney slept and by sun up the fog was burning off as we approached Astoria and the worst bar conditions in the US.

5-7-07 (Monday): Astoria is the home of the Columbia Bar. This is the bar that has cost the most in terms of lost lives and lost ships. The US Coast Guard uses Astoria as their heavy weather training base since the conditions there are so severe, even on the best day. It seems the the water coming out of the Columbia River and entering the Pacific Ocean slams head on into the huge swell from the Pacific and it causes an effect much like boiling water. The seas are very confused with no pattern to them. The under water currents are capable of taking our boat, which is a very heavy displacement boat, and spinning it around in any direction at will. It is also one of the most traveled as far as commercial traffic so you have to be constantly aware of the huge tankers in your vicinity. Under normal conditions it is nearly impossible to get out of the way of a tanker under way. In these conditions you are constantly fighting to stay pointed in one direction, some times making no head way for what feels like hours. It took us until early afternoon to transit the bar while listening to constant updates from the Coast Guard with reminders that everyone aboard was required to wear life jackets while transiting the bar. Immediately after getting to the other side of the bar, we experienced our only reprieve from the heavy swells. It lasted about an hour and gave us a small break, time to eat and try to catch a nap. One interesting note, while we were transiting the Columbia bar, we heard two broadcasts from the Coast Guard for boats in distress. One broadcast stated that a red flare had been spotted near certain coordinates and they asked for everyone to keep their eyes peeled for any ships in distress in that vacinity. The next was for a person in the water that was spotted by someone on a bridge. Again they asked every vessel to keep their eyes peeled. It was a shock to hear that the Coast Guard would not respond to a distress flare. I thought that was what they were for but apparently not. Anyway, we spent the night heading south with the thought that we would stop in Newport and refuel before making the last leg of the trip to Umpqua. David drove and feney slept and navigated.

5-8-07 (Tuesday): We made Newport just before sun up. The swells had changed slightly to a more southerly direction which helped to push us along. The max hull speed for the 41foot Morgan is 7.25 knots. However, as we would get picked up by a 10 to 15 foot swell we would surf along the top at 10 knots before settling back down to a more normal 7 knots. Our average speed during the night was close to 8 knots which put us into Newport earlier than expected. By this time I had not slept for two nights, not since I woke up on Sunday morning. we tried to find the entrance to Newport but I was fighting fatigue and disorientation. In addition, from our discussions with the Coast Guard it became evident that we were experiencing somewhat of a problem with our binnacle compass. We would get a reading which would directly conflict with the gps. It got so bad for awhile that we were uncertain which direction was North and which was South. By about 9:00am we had not made the entrance and we were getting frustrated and crabby so we turned South and decided we would fuel up in another port along the way. Unfortunately, at about that time, the Coast Guard called out a gale warning starting at 1:00pm and running through the night and they closed Newport bar to any traffic. Interestingly enough since we were having compass problems, the Coast Guard put us on a schedule to check in every half hour with speed, heading and gps coordinates. Since I was driving the boat which was a constant struggle to keep on course, Feney did all the talking to the CG. At one point I took the radio and they asked me to put the skipper of the boat back on the radio so that they could talk to her...........go figure. She has taken over already. It was another sleepless night for me and feney was on the radio with the CG and running navigation most of the time although she did get a cat nap here and there. By morning, I had passed my third night with no sleep. Although my body was doing well, my mind was playing havoc with me. I would see things that were not there and constantly have to cross check everything with Feney to determine what was real and what was not.

5-9-07 (Wednesday): We rode out the gale all night talking to the CG and singing "The sun will come out tomorrow". Well I should say I sang and Feney threatened me with my life and cursed the day she stepped foot on the boat. It was sleepless and nerve racking. Unfortunately the CG was closing all the bars along the Oregon coast due to the gale. We would get to one port and they would suggest that we try the next port. Finally we made it to Winchester inlet and Feney told the CG that we were not going on to Coos Bay as they suggested as our fuel was becoming critical and Coos Bay was closed anyway. We were sitting in 15 to 20 foot seas (sitting is not the appropriate word but it will do for now). Wind speed was worse than the first gale we were in. In fact at one point Feney was sitting on the chart table in the cabin talking to the CG when we got hit with a gust that pegged the wind meter and must have been over 70. We just happened to be at the top of a swell at that point, abeam the swell, and the force of the wind combined with the placement of the boat abeam the wind sent the boat over on its side. The port rails were under water and I watched as the mast hit the top of the swell. Feney who had been sitting on the chart table was instantly transported across to the other side of the boat and was sitting on the galley floor. Actually she went flying backward, hitting the back of the dining seats, bouncing off and hitting the galley sink and was then slammed against the stove. She said it scared the CG because she was right in the middle of a sentence when she screamed and was cut off. That was probably the scariest point in the journey. We were getting pounded and Feney was at her whits end. She told the CG that we had no alternatives except to get into Winchester Bay and that our fuel would not hold out for another port. They asked us if we had sails on board and Feney asked them if they wanted to come put them up in these conditions. I am sure they were sitting there in the comfort of their control room having a good laugh over that one. At just about the time Feney was ready to resort to crying, the CG agreed to send out a test boat to test the bar and see if it could be transited. We were told to circle the outer buoy and wait for their findings. About 2 hours later, after much discussions with captain Feney, the CG sent out one of their lifeboats. These are 65 foot monsters that appear to be unaffected by the conditions that hammer us nearly to the breaking point. The lifeboat came out to the outer buoy and we followed them in through the bar. Of course Feney's anxiety was all gone as soon as she saw their lifeboat with 8 cute CG guys aboard. It was all camera and pictures from then on. As soon as we cleared the bar the CG went back to their dock and we make it to "E" dock where our slip is located. Jennifer met us at the dock with a CG inspection team waiting for us to dock. They wanted to do an inspection and how can you refuse. We brought them on board and took one of them below. It was as if we had been through a hurricane. Everything was on the floor.......everything. It was a horrible mess and they just conducted their inspection around the clutter. We passed inspection and Feney and Jen did the normal things girls do when cute military men in uniform are around. What a relief to be home.

Miscellaneous weird stuff: I know I had not gotten any sleep for three nights but most of what happened below happened before sleep deprivation set in. First when we were out on the second day out of Cape Flattery, I was in the head and I distinctly heard a dog bark. It actually barked twice. The sound came from the deck right outside the port light and it startled me. At that particular time we were sailing through the night in heavy fog about 5 miles off the coast. No other vessels were in the vacinity. the second thing that happened was that I saw a dark form of a man move from the galley to the chart table. I was sitting behind the wheel, again at night, and while I was concentrating on steering, something caught my peripheral vision in the companionway. It was moving from the galley to the chart table. It startled me and I caught myself thinking that I must have been seeing something not really there. Maybe fabricated by my mind. However, I shook my head and cleared my eyes and stared into the companionway again. Again the figure moved along the same route as before. Although I couldnt make out any facial features, it had the build of a man and stood about 5'6'' tall with a slender build. Very strange. The third thing was voices. While I was still at home planning the boat delivery, I was startled one day by the sounds of voices coming from inside my apartment. There were two distinct voiced talking to each other although I could not understand what they were saying. I did manage to discern that one of the voices was male. I listened to them talk for about 5 minutes before they faded away. While on the boat I heard the same voices. Everything was almost identical in that I could not understand what they were saying, I was pretty certain one was male and the talking lasted about 5 minutes. This was unmistakable. No other sounds on that boat sound like talking. Lastly was something that even Feney heard. On the second day out I started hearing music. The music stayed with us for the entire trip. At first I tried to find the source since there was no mistaking it was music. Some of it was my favorites, some of it was stuff I would never listen to and some of it I didnt recognize. Most of it however was music that you would find on a top 10 hits radio station but without the commercials and DJ talking. It was music, unmistakable music. At one point I was listening to a Bach concert  and thought "Wow this is so cool. Brandon would love this". The first few days I would search for the source. We had a radio receiver and Feney brought her MP3 player. I even though that perhaps the VHF was receiving something but nothing I checked turned out to be the culprit. On the fourth day out I asked Feney if she could hear any music. She said "Oh my gosh, I didn't want to say anything because I thought you would think I was crazy but I have been hearing music ever since we left". Weird. Lastly was that many people had premonitions that we were not going to make it back alive. Of course no one said anything but I also had bad feelings about going. My uncle had died in a boating incident in California waters years earlier and I was apprehensive about continuing the DeLeon male legacy of accidental death. Years ago I started talking to my dead father. This was somewhat of a therapy thing at the time but has become more of a comfort thing in the recent past. So, I talked to him about the trip. As soon as I started talking to him about it, I felt a sense of relief and comfort. Who knows, perhaps he was helping us.

Last but not least for the sake of Feney:

The Sun Will Come OUt Tomorrow

From "ANNIE"

The sun'll come out
      Tomorrow
    Bet your bottom dollar
    That tomorrow
    There'll be sun!
     Just thinkin' about
        Tomorrow
    Clears away the cobwebs,
    And the sorrow
     'Til there's none!
    When I'm stuck a day
    That's gray,
    And lonely,
    I just stick out my chin
     And Grin,
     And Say,
      Oh
    The sun'll come out
       Tomorrow
    So ya gotta hang on
    'Til tomorrow
    Come what may
       Tomorrow!
        Tomorrow!
    I love ya
        Tomorrow!
     You're always
     A day
     A way!