Small Boat on the Inside Passage

[Bruce Bateau]

Recipe 2 yields puffy, pita-like breads and is tastiest when fresh cooked.


1/2 cup warm water
1/2 teaspoon yeast
about 1 cup flour, maybe a little more
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons powdered milk

Instructions:
1. Dissolve yeast and milk in water.
2. Add flour, let rise until about doubled in size (maybe 2 hours depending on temperature)
3. Cook on medium flame about 2 minutes per side.

[Bruce Bateau]

I'm less than a week out. Planning for being gone seems harder than being gone...

Here's what expedition HQ looks like:


Now I am asking myself, how exactly will all this fit in the boat?

[Bruce Bateau]

Update : Packed the dry bags that work fine for a week and found how quickly they fill up. Next mission is to
a. Get more dry bags
b. Get rid of more stuff

And I thought I was a bit of a minimalist. Apparently not.

[AJZimm]

Update : Packed the dry bags that work fine for a week and found how quickly they fill up. Next mission is to
a. Get more dry bags
b. Get rid of more stuff

And I thought I was a bit of a minimalist. Apparently not.

Or
c. Get a bigger boat

[Yeadon]

I took way too much stuff on our northbound trip. Lots of lessons learned. I carry much less these days.

[IanMilne]

Hi Bruce, You're right about the planning.
Have you read "Passage to Juneau" by Jonathan Raban? It would be a good book for you to take with you, if it fits in the boat.
All the best for the trip.
Ian

[Bruce Bateau]

Have you read "Passage to Juneau" by Jonathan Raban?
Ian

Interesting book Ian. I did read that one- I especially like his musings about art.

I believe Raban lived in the Seattle area at some point. Was he a presence on the boat scene up there?

[Bruce Bateau]

I took way too much stuff on our northbound trip.

With two days to go, I'd value you restating what you would have left behind.


I did a practice pack yesterday and found that the boat was pretty darn full.

Then I got rid of some more stuff- the land tent, some extra food, a few more articles of clothing...

But really, some portion of my problem is that I was disorganized. As I unloaded the tent, in its sausage-like stuff bag, I realized it was the perfect size to fit into my hatches.

[Bruce Bateau]

Then it was back to the sewing machine. I had a bunch of scrap waterproof, sorta rubbery fabric, and sewed a several "splash bags" using regular thread, no sealed seams.

The idea was that these long sausages (about 7" diameter and 36" long) with a draw cord at the top (and a label stating what's in the bag) would be fine inside my hatches where they might get some drips of water, but would be unlikely to get submerged. These store things in an organized fashion, like snacks in plastic bags, cooking equipment, rain gear, etc.

Now what was once a mess of things, is easy to access.

I will repack today and see what I really need to bring.

[cstevens]

Looking good Bruce! A couple of thoughts for what they are worth, and with the caveat that I have no actual experience with sail and oar cruising so I am just kibitzing here:

1. Your storage bags look like they will stow well but I can see it being hugely annoying to get to the last pair of dry socks buried three feet down at the bottom of one. Especially five days in when you have unpacked and repacked the d**ned things twenty times already, and the last time you repacked you just shoved everything in regardless of organization. So what if you sew a divider at the mid point and leave an opening at each end? Then you have two smaller compartments in each one, making it easier to reach things.

2. It looks like you have a five-gallon bucket, for purposes about which I will not speculate, but I wonder if a 3.5 gallon bucket would do as well? Easier to stow perhaps.

As always, following with interest.

[trefor]

I'm less than a week out. Planning for being gone seems harder than being gone...

It is a good bit of the fun, though. Your trip really lasts the length of the trip itself, plus the planning faze. Since it's likely all you've though about, since you pulled the trigger. That's how I'd be.

-Trevor

[Plyboy]

Large size ziplock freezer bags are pretty tough, at least for stuff that's not sharp, and reasonably waterproof. The dollar stores here (Dollarama) have fold up wash bowls and buckets in the camping section. However, when I pack lightish for "too many people in a small car" camping I pack the "kitchen" into the washbowl.

[James McMullen]

Good for you, Bruce. I did a 28-day trip singlehanded in Rowan three years ago, and enjoyed having done it. I think you’re going to have a blast, but here’s a few thoughts I might add if you care:

Make sure you pack along enough calories to stay warm, in case it rains. Emergency jars of peanut butter and bars of chocolate could save your life if you get hypothermic. I had a couple of patches of weather that absolutely sucked for days in a row. You should have plenty of food you can eat on board without cooking if it’s too stormy to want to beach your boat for hours and hours and hours on end. Fishing and crabbing and foraging is super fun when the weather permits, but I definitely had times when it wouldn’t have been any fun at all to plan on it for subsistence eating. I would think of it as merely a potential bonus.

Don’t even bother taking a land tent. You’ll not want to leave your boat to her own devices overnight. You need to be on board when the current changes or when weather comes in. And that’s bear country up there to boot.

Make sure your repair kit includes sail needles and thread and such. You’ll have more wear and chafe over a month of daily active use than you might expect.

Reef early, reef often. Cowardice is golden when you’re all by your lonesome.

Hope you have a wonderful time! Cheers to your upcoming adventure!

[IanMilne]

Hi Bruce, You might be away by now. Sorry to be so late raising the subject of Jonathan Raban. He still lives in Seattle, as far as I know. There's plenty of stuff on the web about him, but it can wait until you get home, if you want to look it up.
Bon voyage!
Ian

[FARMS100]

Has anybody heard from Bruce since he left, he may be back by now would like to hear about his trip.
have a nice day------------AL

[cstevens]

I'm sworn to secrecy but I have access to Bruce's tracker and it shows him in the San Juan Islands right now. From his track it seems like he must be having the small boat cruise of a lifetime! I expect he will tell us all about it when he gets home.

[dsimonson]

I participated in this years Barefoot Raid, Aug 18 to 26, and Bruce met up with us while were in the waters around Cortez Island. It was great to see him, and he looked like a guy having the small boat cruise of a lifetime!

(the raid was a blast, great sailing, great people, great food)

Cheers,
Dale

[BBSebens]

I'm sworn to secrecy but I have access to Bruce's tracker and it shows him in the San Juan Islands right now. From his track it seems like he must be having the small boat cruise of a lifetime! I expect he will tell us all about it when he gets home.

I participated in this years Barefoot Raid, Aug 18 to 26, and Bruce met up with us while were in the waters around Cortez Island. It was great to see him, and he looked like a guy having the small boat cruise of a lifetime!

(the raid was a blast, great sailing, great people, great food)

Cheers,
Dale

Looking forward to his report.

[callsign222]

I have received a clandestine report delivered through arcane methods of old that Bruce B. is having a great adventure and "all good."

Can't wait to get a glimpse of his journey! Hell yeah

[AJZimm]

Had coffee with Bruce last Thursday in Sidney. he was doing well so far and had some great stories, sketches and watercolours.

[Bruce Bateau]

Thanks for the inquiries and best wishes. Row Bird and I are in good health and in home port for some shore leave.

Thank you to all the people who helped launch the expedition with advice, driving me and Row Bird places, lending me gear, or just telling me I could do it.

While I am physically here, my mind is still out there someplace. I've never experienced anything as immersive, engaging, intense, profound, and deeply satisfying.

I'm lucky to have a few more weeks off of work for some other forms of slow travel. I'm going to continue my journey south by bicycle and train. During that time I'll do some writing, flesh out my art ambitions, and just enjoy the delicious nothingness of travel.

I'll post some things a bit later in the fall.

-Bruce

[cstevens]

Looking forward to it Bruce. That one photo is enough to keep me day dreaming for weeks.

[James McMullen]

Great to have you back, Bruce! Sounds like you had a profound and transformative adventure. Wonderful! I bet we're getting back an entirely different Bruce than the one who left weeks ago.

So I'm very curious, what would Today Bruce have said to that callow, headstrong youth if you'd had a chance to post on this thread yourself? What advice would you have given to Young Bruce, knowing what you know now?

Did you pack the right things? What would you have more of? What was a waste of space?

Did you have the right food? The right clothing? The right number of books, sketch pads, pencil sharpeners, ukuleles, chocolate bars, random bits of string?

What broke or wore out? Did you have the right fixit kit along?

Would you change your course or itinerary? Would you do it all over again, or pick something new next time?

Sometimes I muse about what I would have said to Young James if I'd had a Time Machine handy....though most of the time he seemed to be having fun trying to figure it out for himself. I'd definitely tell him to not waste so much time trying to make sharpies work out, and just invest the time in developing the skills to build a more sophisticated hull shape. I'd also have abandoned spritsails earlier, and switched to wool over polypro. I suspect he could have used some tips on how to cook with a dutch oven, though he did master the art of turning buttermilk biscuits into custom charcoal briquettes all on his own. It's probably better to leave that guy alone, though. He had a higher pain tolerance than I do, and often seemed willing to rely on making things up on the fly instead of carefully planning ahead. Kind of a loose cannon, really. Not sure I'd trust his judgment.

[Bruce Bateau]

You had Bruce the Gray before. Now you have Bruce the White.

Lots of good questions James. I'll start with an easy question. Did I have the right stuff? Yes.

Tim warned me not to bring too much stuff and I heeded his advice within bounds. I had everything I needed, never once did I say darn, I forgot that. And aside from buying a drink at the Shoal Bay pub, I didn't use money to buy anything for a few weeks!

I wanted to work on several art projects, so I took a lot of art supplies. Maybe a few more than I needed. Still, the art supplies didn't weigh much.

I also brought along several heavy field guides: birds, marine mammals, invertebrates...

In all cases, I wanted to have the freedom to pursue whatever interested me at the time and didn't want to think about coming back to land or civilization earlier than I was ready to, so I decided if it fit, I was bringing it. If nothing else, it served as ballast.

I realized that the weather could be nasty, so I had heavy, bulky, and effective rubber rain gear that I didn't wear much, but felt I couldn't do without. I brought a drysuit that I wore three times. It was worth it because it got scary out there on two of those three days.

I didn't bring the wetsuit and snorkeling gear I initially wanted to use. I never used the net, though a kid with his own net caught stuff for me one day. I never used the water filter either.

I'll respond to your other questions a bit later on. Stay tuned.

[SeanM26]

I'd say welcome home but I bet it is bittersweet for you. I anxiously look forward to your recount of the experience!

[auscruisertom]

Welcome back home Bruce.
After such a natural down to earth passage ,you would be feeling the intense pressure and hectic speed that our daily modern existence revolves around.

I can’t wait to hear the full story of your trip, in an area that is still very close to my heart.

[Bruce Bateau]

That sums it up beautifully Bruce. We lose so much by living in our safe and secure environments so well and thoroughly insulated from the real world. <br>
<br>
I'm looking forward to your photos and stories, if you choose to share them, especially any wildlife encounters and self sufficiency strategies. No pressure, I know it's hard to resettle. I've kept a great deal to myself, it somehow feels traitorous and somewhat diminishing to spread the experiences over the internet.

<br>

Gib you said a lot in a little space there! It has been hard to resettle. I spent a week after the trip having all sorts of boat nightmares- sinking oars, flipping the boat over to see it was made of felt, thinking I was dragging anchor (something that never happened on the trip), etc.&nbsp; Going away on a bike trip for two weeks after the boat trip was the perfect pace to reunite my body and brain. I'm still not back at work, though that day is approaching. I've spent a lot of time organizing my thoughts and how I want to live my life differently post- Inside Passage.

There are definitely parts of the adventure that I can't or won't share- like exact details of people or places, but where I see a universal story, a learning lesson, or something that I'm just excited about, you bet I'll spin a yarn. tuff that is a little more boat-nerd focused will appear here. Things that are more philosophical or personal likely on my blog, Terrapin Tales (which will get updated later in October).

I'm writing a story for Small Boats Magazine that will cover the big picture, but there's so much that won't fit in there, that this will serve an addendum. I hope you folks are all subscribers!

[QUOTE=Gib Etheridge;5983066]&nbsp; But, pray tell, do you sometimes feel like you could just go back to it
and never return? I do, all the time, I ache for it. The one and only thing holding me back is my unwillingness to leave my family. It will be a series of compromises for me. /QUOTE]

I could definitely go back, maybe earlier in the season, maybe for longer! I definitely want to go back with my friends. Going solo was awesome- well worth doing. I would have stayed longer if I had some company for moral support, camaraderie, and for judgement calls on some safety stuff. There were definitely times I had to think long and hard about the conditions and try to decide if I was being too timid or foolhardy.

I'm a lucky guy. My wife has expressed an interest in cruising next season, so I've already started a madcap search for a slightly larger boat, but that's a discussion for another post altogether!

&nbsp; Hey, what are those 2 cone shaped things with the weights on top? They
make me think of some sort of low tide accessible seafood trap, the kind
of thing I'd be using if I were there for a long time.

<br><br>Great question and good eye. Those appear to be footings from an old dock. There was a clearing behind me, but no structure...

[Bruce Bateau]

Did you pack the right things? What would you have more of? What was a waste of space?

What broke or wore out? Did you have the right fixit kit along?.

Thinking more about this question, I need to revise my answer a little bit. The boat was just packed with stuff. I still can't figure out what I could have left at home besides the books. (But I love my books, even if I didn't read them all). I would like to figure out how to be differently organized. I ended up with more food than I ate, but I think that's because people in big boats fed me- a lot.

I stopped in Sidney BC to see Alex and he claimed that his boat is almost entirely empty. Mine, well, you can see how things look. Busy. The only sacred space was the cockpit area between the thwart and the aft flotation tank. And when I had the sticks down, even that started to feel a little challenged.


However, when under oars, it was fully functional. Here I am, quite happy after running Dent, Gillard, and Yaculta Rapids (background) in one go!

[Bruce Bateau]

The other thing I was excited about was that nothing broke or needed repairs. I did have a repair kit with the following items:
* Tube of putty epoxy and associated items.
* Basic screwdrivers, screws, misc. hardware, pliers, Leatherman Wave which has lots of sharp things on it.
* Sewing kit with waxed thread, upholstery thread, regular thread, palm, variety of needles, and various kinds of fabric.
* Electrical tape, duct tape, and a big roll of Marlin-like seine twine, as well as a bag with all sorts of rope, webbing, and string.
* A first aid kit for me. Thankfully I didn't need repairs either.

-Bruce

[AJZimm]

I stopped in Sidney BC to see Alex and he claimed that his boat is almost entirely empty.

Did I actually say that?

What I meant was, that most of my gear gets stowed in the watertight compartments in the ends. Out in the open are anchor, chain and rode, bailing bucket (in which is stowed the clothesline mooring line, and the cockpit tent, tucked up under the starboard side bench. Aside from oars and sails of course.

I do think Fire-Drake is wider in the beam and fuller in the ends than your boat, which makes for more stowage volume in the compartments.

[Bruce Bateau]

Did I actually say that?

Well, that was my interpretation!

[BBSebens]

Very much looking forward to your report. I'm happily dreaming about going up there in the Navigator some day....

[Bruce Bateau]

Each day I kept a ship's log and I tried to draw in my sketch book. I found drawing to be a really amazing way to try to take in the landscape and to capture some of the things that I saw and the ideas i had on the trip. Being alone much of the time, it was good way to share out some of what I was seeing. Drawing makes me notice things I wouldn't capture with a camera.

When I got invited aboard boats, I'd sometimes share some sketches of places I'd been. This was a great conversation starter.

Besides the basics of survival, what rituals to you folks have on your travels?

[James McMullen]

I don’t know if it’s something you’d call a ritual, but I spend a LOT more time just sitting and observing. I seem to have a vastly greater attention span for minutiae when I’m sitting on a pebble beach in my Crazy Creek chair, just watching, listening. I bring books, and they just sit in my lap much of the time.

A minor ritual I’ve picked up since I moved overseas is to have laksa and kopi for most breakfasts. I bring back packets in my suitcase for summer. Lots of types of local, freshly harvested seafood goes very well dumped in the laksa at the end of the boil-as does any variety of vegetables on hand. And hot kopi in a camping mug has become an iconic coping strategy for those bitterly cold* mornings for me. (*not actually all that cold, really. My blood is thinner nowadays.)

I also now always bring something along to strum.

[Michael_Owen]

Wonderful sketchbook entry, Bruce! They are the best keepsakes from a journey.

Mike