Seahorses, Failed Steering and 60 Foot Climbs

"Attitude is the difference between ordeal and adventure."

-Letter to the Soul

Lat/Long Coordinates: 54°19.023 N, 130°24.662, 55°21.046 N 131°41.189

Ah, the high seas. It never ceases to surprise just how much can happen in one day on the ocean. Your steering can fail (it did). You might have to climb the sixty foot mast (totally happened). Your dock may resemble an aquarium (seahorses, nudibranchs, and thousands of fishies). And the Coast Guard may order you to get off their radio channel (yikes).

Add to this, it was our first day flying solo without Captain Mark (who taught us well!). So leaving Prince Rupert started out as a sort of adrenaline rush just being on our lonesome for the first time. It didn’t help that we were a bit ambitious. It was a 90+ mile day—eleven and a half hours—from Prince Rupert to Ketchikan, which started with navigating a narrow channel (shortcut) with many rocks and unpredictable depths. Further on we came across a line of seiner boats, with their huge nets extended. Now, our keel (a pointy part of the hull—it’s a sailboat thing) dips down six feet. Imagine the keel like a blunt hook snagging in yards and yards of net—then include the propeller chopping it up then choking to a grinding halt itself.

Yeah, fun. So Dad gets on the radio (which is set to distress channel), with Alyssa helping him hear, and starts trying to negotiate with the seiner captains. Which goes about like, “Your left, or my left?” In a mad zigzag and much helpful-ish communication with the seiners, Dad and Alyssa navigated between them, but not before the Coast Guard crackles onto the radio and politely orders us to get off the distress channel and onto a commercial channel. Not long after we got into another dreaded section of the cruise—Dixon Strait—which ended up being as anti-climactic as Cape Caution, though we had the largest swells yet there. Amazingly enough, it was a relief after ping-pong practice with the fishing boats.

So at last we pull into the bay in front of Ketchikan! Float planes flew low over the channel and pier every thirty seconds like Casablanca, and the town against the mountain trees was beautiful and innocent. Adventure over right?

Gassing up the boat!

Er, not so much. We’re chugging along, with catamarans and zippy little fishing boats all around, when suddenly, the Star swings sideways and starts spinning, careening in a helpless circle. “Hydraulic pump stall” was the message flashing across the screen, as we did donuts in front of Ketchikan proper. The steering wheel scarcely worked, spinning 15 times to see any movement, but with some hasty turns we got her under control.

Much nervous laughter followed that stunt, with the Captain vowing to fix it when we reached the dock. We settled for a spot without power so we could dock more easily with a tipsy steering wheel. Once we were stopped Dad did fix it, of course (with Sissy’s help), dripping hydraulic oil on the steering column (I think). I told you he’s amazing.

And you know what else was amazing? THE DOCK.

We saw sea anemones, feather dusters, lion mane jellyfish, salmon/trout fry—all very cool. But then the real beauties started to surface, when Mom saw the seahorse.

Seahorses! In Southeast Alaska? Thanks to Mom’s biology training, she noticed when a piece of kelp wasn’t acting like—well, a piece of kelp. No, gills were flaring, a long snout started moving, and the kelp started to swim against the current. And what kelp hides when you bend down to get a better look?

Then, the seahorse swims away, and we scatter trying to find it—and find something even more unbelievable instead.

Sea horse

Behold, the nudibranch! Or grand alien sea snail without a shell, which is what we called it when we first saw it. If the seahorse looked like kelp, this thing looked like an anemone on steroids—with antennae. We all goggled it, even calling the Captain away from fixing more stuff to come look, and tonight we looked our funky friend up. We have a book on the boat, see, “Alaska Seashore Creatures”. I quote, “Opalescent Nudibranchs are aggressive and can eat stinging invertebrates such as anemones”. Being two inches long, they look more like freaky, alien slugs—or maybe the coolest pencil toppers EVER—than aggressive predators but no matter what they are, they are beautiful and strange and fascinating—and very unexpected. (https://youtu.be/Bjzc-Bduno8)

Now, did you think I had forgotten Dad climbing up the sixty foot mast? No, not gonna forget that in a hurry. The mainsail had rolled up in wrong—it actually rolls into the mast, but has to go clockwise to work—so when we cranked it loose today, the sail wouldn’t go back. The problem ended up being at nearly the VERY top. Remember, that’s the height of at least a three story building and Dad went up that in a sling—with us cranking on a winch to keep the sling under him. (https://youtu.be/B1-2eip-v30)

Dad was cool as a cucumber, not scared for a second. We were white-knuckled and freaked. How would YOU like to be working the rope that’s holding him in the air? So Alyssa worked the sail ropes (there’s a technical name for them. I forgot, I beg forgiveness) from inside the cockpit and Mom and I helped keep Dad aloft.

Of course Dad fixed it, and it rolls up just fine now. We raced to the showers, and nearly got locked in. Leave it to us to make everything last minute, so last minute that I nearly put on my tennis shoes and left—without pants on. Say it with me: pants first, then shoes. Yeah, we giggled down the dock ramp over that one.

So now I sit in my bunk tonight, Alyssa downloading photos and both our hair wet because there’s no power to blow dry, and I can’t help but wonder what will happen tomorrow. But I have to take a moment to express my gratitude to God today. If our steering had failed in the Wrangell Narrows which we’ll soon tackle, we would have ended up on rocks. No joking. We feel blessed tonight that sometimes God helps things break to give us a chance to fix them. Which I guess is a metaphor for life too.

Crazily enough, there isn’t a memory from today that I don’t see as happy, mostly because they all ended happily. Some of them stressful, definitely. But boy, we love having each other to experience this with, and again, God is good giving us the opportunity. Still, I’m all right if tomorrow, nothing breaks or seizes up.

But I’m still hoping for some surprises. If they’re anything like today’s, tomorrow should be wonderful.

Skipper Krystal

P.S. Update: it is not a seahorse it is a kelp pipefish. Which is still pretty epic. :D

Photo cred: Alyssa