SOLO 1- My First Longer Distance Solo Sail

2/4/2014-  I had been planning on and looking forward to a single handed (solo) trip up to the Channel Islands.   A few weeks had passed and I was just looking for a weather window that would give me three or four days of good weather.   Finally, as I neared my birthday (Feb 7) I thought that I saw a Tuesday-Friday period of nice weather.   Now, I have to put things into perspective.   My daughter in Colorado Springs had showed me her iPhone where the temperature was -7 degrees and they were in a blizzard.   For us here in Southern California when it gets down in the 40's that is winter.

I have said before that everything I have
done to Spirit of Adventure has been to allow me to single hand my boat over longer distances.   The time had come to test both myself and the boat's readiness to do this.

Note- On the day before my departure, as Mary (my wife) and I sat and talked, I asked her if she worried about me leaving on this trip.   She said, "No, not worry, more just a concern.  I would like you to take someone else with you."   I told her that my chances of dying riding my motorcycle on the freeway was probably 100 times more than doing a solo sailing trip.   She agreed.

I want to say here that my 3-4 day trip actually lasted only about 50 hours.   All was well through the first night and I was anxious to get on with day two.   During the end of day one, I checked weather for San Nicholas Island where I would head after rounding Santa Barbara Island.   There were small craft warnings with gusts to 35 knots.   I thought, "Oh, that will be fun and I may have to take in another reef in my mainsail.  I can still do it."   Then just a few minutes later I discovered that one of the reef points on my mainsail had torn the mainsail straight down towards the boom (the thing the mainsail is attached to at the bottom) and had left about a foot long tear.   I thought, "Interesting!  That should not have happened but I can still just leave it reefed and continue to sail on my trip."   Then, I heard a NOTICE TO MARINERS on my radio where the west side of San Clemente Island was closed due to flare testing by the military.  OK!  I could still round the two islands and then round Catalina and head for home.  (All of these things were starting to bug me!)  The last straw (What next?) was my radar began giving me an "Error 7 & 8" message and would no longer work.  I tried re-booting it and the message just repeated again.

Although disappointed, I realized several things.   All of these things combined were telling me to use some common sense and live to fight another day.   I had already had a great adventure on this trip.   I had seen how I could get sleep as my boat sailed itself overnight.   The Monitor Wind Vane steering had worked flawlessly.  Until then, the radar had done it's job and had given me the warning that I needed to be safe.

During the trip back to Long Beach, I did not have the safety of the radar so I would sleep for 30 minutes, wake up, look around and then do that again.   I had my radar reflector up and I had seen when one ship had actually changed it's course to go behind me instead of in front of me.  I knew they could see me and figured that I had a 50/50 chance that they really didn't wish to run over me.   The wind died just before morning and I took over the tiller at around 5 AM.   I had only really had three hours of sleep so I was tired but knew that I could not just drift around in the shipping lanes.

I entered Queen's gate just as the sky brightened and daylight began.   I had sailed somewhere over a hundred miles and had not used one gallon of diesel fuel.   My good friend Fred had kept in touch with me on this trip and had even left his cell phone on all night in case I needed to talk.   Within about ten minutes of me pulling into my slip, he was there greeting me.   Thank you Fred for being a great sailing buddy and a better friend.   I called Mary and let her know I was safe in my slip and then I went to bed (on the boat) and slept for five hours.

I loved this trip!   Please check out the 14 minute video of my trip by clicking the link here-  http://youtu.be/t6e9raRwv14