Days 3-4 of the 2nd Voyage: In which we find ourselves on Hell’s superhighway desperately looking for an off ramp.

Port Angeles to Westport: The day started out great! DC Richard was behind the wheel to take us out of the slip so the Captain helped me with the lines, then (even though it’s my job) he stowed the fenders and lines on the starboard side while I buttoned down the port side. When we were finished, I went around to starboard and noticed something.

FM: Hey! You forgot to bring up and stow the step!

Captain: I did?
FM: Yes, you did. But I’ll let it slide this time—we’ll chalk it up to a rookie mistake. (Best. Feeling. Ever.)

The journey from Port Angeles to Neah Bay was smooth as silk—gliding through the water at 8-9 knots, sun warming our faces, a brief glimpse in the distance of a spray of water and the back of a large animal breaking the surface (I’m not counting it as an official whale sighting. Until I see a photo ID, I’m not discounting the fact that it could have been the mother of all sea lions…or Big Foot)—then we turned the corner. Literally. Right past Neah Bay is Cape Flattery. If you look at a map of Washington, Cape Flattery is that piece of crumpled landmass in the upper left-hand corner of the state. It is the western-most tip of the continental United States—once you pass it, you’re officially in the Pacific Ocean. It’s as rough as one would expect when a powerful body of water (the Strait of Juan de Fuca) meets another (the Pacific Ocean), and it’s a given that the boat would bounce around a bit in the resulting commotion. It was exhilarating…for about ten minutes. Then not so much. We were hoping that the farther we got offshore, the more likely that the sea would settle down. But the sea was not settling down. If anything, it seemed to get bigger—and we soon found ourselves pounding through ten-foot waves. The horizon would disappear and in its place, a wall of water. And we’d ride up and over the wave and fall into a trough where the wave would circle back around and hit us hard to port slamming us down 30-40 degrees and then bounce us right back and over to starboard. The violent jolts sent unsecured items flying through the boat as stowed items clashed and clanged within their compartments. It was an unsettling racket punctuated by cursing and cries of pain as we’d be thrown against the pitching walls down below. It was, as they call it in the boating community, “uncomfortable”. And it would be “uncomfortable” for close to 26 hours.

The Deck Boss was the first to succumb. Even though we had all applied seasickness patches that morning before we left, the rough stuff had come on too soon for them to take effect. The Deck Boss went below to her cabin and did not emerge for 12 hours. DC Richard checked on her often (as a man of the sea for over 40 years, these were gentle conditions for him.) At one point when I asked how she was doing he simply said, “She’s in bed with the covers pulled up over her ears. She’s either coping or she’s dead.”

As for myself, I was pleased at how well I seemed to be handling the rough conditions. I was unsettled, but not sick. The same could be said for the Captain. And then the engine decelerated, necessitating a check of the engine room. I went with the Captain to help move things out of the way when it hit me…a strong whiff of hot diesel fumes…and it was all over. I went back up on deck with my head in a fog, walked calmly to the side rail, and retched violently and repeatedly into the dark rolling sea. The retching only happened the one time, but the nausea and lethargy lasted over twelve hours. For twelve hours I couldn’t move except by sheer force of will. I would stand up and immediately fall back down, and it would take ten minutes before I had the energy to try again. The only thing that kept the nausea at bay was cold air so I spent several hours on deck, bundled up against the chill, hanging on as the boat rocked forcefully from side-to-side, and drifting in and out of troubled sleep. Obviously I was not able to do my four-hour watches. DC Richard recommended I go below and lie down on the settee with my head next to the companionway so I could still feel the air but be out of the cold. The Captain didn’t fare much better, but at least he was able to do a couple of short watches. My only contribution was to stay out of the way. In the middle of the night, the decision was made to change course and head into Westport for a respite—a mere six hours away with three of those being at a low idle so as to reach the bar at the right tide change. The low idle was worse in a way. For instead of violently swinging, now we were violently bobbing (it was like going from the rollercoaster directly into the bouncy house after having consumed two bowls of chili and a fried Twinkie with a milkshake chaser).

But at long last, Westport was in sight and a spot in the marina was waiting for us—a commercial marina, filled with boats that had just come in from fishing, offloading all their fishy-smelling fish, gutting and filleting their fishy-smelling fish right on the dock by our boat, and all the people smelling like bait and smoking like chimneys. It was too overwhelming. I crawled into my bed and slept for 10 hours.

 

Pictured: Waiting out the "uncomfortableness"

Not Pictured: Fishy-smelling dreams