False Pass: The Promised Land

I anchor in the lee of Unimak and sleep. Not long, but properly — the first uninterrupted sleep since Nome. False Pass is strictly daylight navigation - in fact the NOAA guide says “local knowledge required”. And it wants the rising tide, which adds to the safety - should you run aground on a shoal, the tide will lift you and help get unstuck. So I wait the night.

At 0730 the alarm goes, sunrise is at 0830. I have a coffee and get going. I motor to the entrance gate of about 30 navigation buoys that mark the passage. To my surprise the setting really is intimidating: breakers everywhere. The outrushing current makes the swell break on all shoals. And it looks like there are only shoals, no opening is obvious. Every instinct says don't go. But the buoy parcour marks the way, trust it. So I follow it: red to starboard, green to port, both engines ahead against the current of about 2.5 knots, the boat pointing one way and crabbing another. Not so easy to hit the next buoy in a straight line - remember the “dog curve”? Not a good idea here, the passage is narrow. The autopilot’s “No-drift mode” for the win: it controls the course over ground as opposed to heading and compensates for drift.

When the bar is behind me, the pass becomes something else entirely. Enjoyable. Remarkable, even — steep green sides reaching to high summits, warm wind, kind seas. The promised land! Everything is green and lush. Almost trees. After months of tundra, the intense colour comes as a small shock. My visual cortex is overloaded, I shoot 210 photos during the day. Later I see that most are predominately “green”.

When I come closer to the settlement and I drop the option of stopping over here. The piers look rough and some of them desolate. There is a huge fish plant with a large number of shipping containers waiting to be filled with the fruits of the sea. I decide to continue, the sailing weather is way too good to be forgone.

By afternoon I am out in the Pacific and have taken care of the most pressing things. I have showered, cooked, made water, done laundry. Regarding the restoration of the boat, I am still not ahead of the curve. I desalinated (rinsed) the crusty aft cockpit, emptied the bilges and cleaned up a bit, that’s it. Two more full work days to remove the traces of the storm, I think.

And she sails beautifully now that she is light. All that heavy diesel is gone, and it shows: 17 knots of wind, 9 knots over ground, just main and solent at TWA 130. Loaded, that would have required the much larger gennaker.

Victor brings my attention to Sand Point and I decide to sail through the night, which should bring me to a proper harbor with docks and water and electricity. I could use that. And the following day will lack wind anyhow. I arrive at dawn, tie up and go to sleep.Read more