Sea Change Read online

  When I was a college student at Harvard University, I walked to class each morning and passed by the Old Burying Ground by the Cambridge Commons and a stone sarcophagus in the shape of a Christian cross, bearing the name dana in heavy block letters across the base. I always wondered who this person was. Later I learned that it was the grave of a former Harvard student who had dropped out to join as a crewman on a packet schooner. He wrote one of the most popular travelogues in American history, Two Years Before the Mast. Dana Point on the California coast is named for him.

  Reading that book set off in my heart a fire to sail the California coast. I eventually moved to California, and every time I turned onto the Pacific Coast Highway to pick up my children from school, I looked out at the ocean and imagined what it would be like to sail all the way down to Panama. I would think of Richard Henry Dana Jr. aboard a wooden schooner, and about that cold stone back at Harvard. I determined to make that sail before I grew too old.

  My childhood summers, my love of the sea, my passion for sailing, the support of my wife and family, and my own curiosity and call for adventure led me to that moment on the pier in San Francisco, when I first saw the Valkyrien. And I knew in that moment that I would buy her.

  Everyone said it could not be done. Any boat you could buy for that price would never make it all the way to the Panama Canal (much less to Washington, DC). But we figured it was worth a try.

  This is the story of that journey.

  1. South

  As for me, I am tormented with an everlasting itch for things remote.

  I love to sail forbidden seas, and land on barbarous coasts.

  —Herman Melville, Moby-Dick

  I arrived at the cement wharf in Port Richmond, California, by taxi, carrying a bag of tools by my side and a gargantuan 80-pound battery in the trunk. The sun, showing itself for the first time in a week, glinted off broken glass along the edge of the roadway. I stood at the entrance to the wharf staring up at the 8-foot-high chain-link fence. A bronze padlock held the gate shut.

  I looked past the lock, down the walkway beyond a few decrepit boats tied up together, and across the narrow Santa Fe channel at an aging fuel storage facility—a dilapidated Superfund site, one of the most dangerously polluted parcels in America. Twenty-three million gallons of gasoline, diesel, and various other fuels waited to be conveyed to other storage tanks farther inland. In the distance, the green hills of San Francisco incongruously framed the shipping terminal and the aging industrial depots of Port Richmond.

  For many, seeing Port Richmond for the first time is a depressing experience. They might see evidence of poverty and crime and a village largely ignored by the thriving bankers and high-tech companies across the bay in San Francisco. But staring out there at the old lumberyard and fuel tanks, I thought of the men and women who built—and saved—America.

  William Kaiser constructed more than 700 Liberty ships during the Second World War on these wharfs. Nelson Rockefeller built the refinery just across the channel from the marina. Some people go to cities to see the tallest buildings, or the most beautiful art. I love to visit old industrial sites and collapsing docks. Richmond was perfect for me. I had come to see a man about a boat.

  I pushed my nose up against the chain-link fence and stared down to my right, toward the old gypsum loading dock. On the near side of the channel, tied up among steel barges and small rusted freighters, lay a group of old sailing vessels. I looked down the line of masts, wondering which was Valkyrien. My stomach ached a bit with the combination of excitement and anxiety I often feel in libraries—so many books I have not yet read. Here was a chance at great adventure, a glimpse of freedom, the possibility of honoring the Pearl—but it all depended on the condition of the boat.

  The dockmaster tied all of the wooden boats to the wharf like rafts, lashed side by side. Valkyrien had two boats secured to her port, and one on her starboard; each had tall wooden masts, clumped together so tight I could not at first discern one boat from another. The boats looked to me like a pack of homeless dogs left alone too long, lying entangled in a single desultory heap, hoping some passerby would drop them a scrap. I wanted to take them all home with me.

  I was afraid Valkyrien had deteriorated so much that I could not buy her. At the same time I feared that Valkyrien would be just good enough to buy—then I would have to make the trip, an idea which both thrilled and scared me. I was very much looking forward to being at sea for a good long while. I planned to stay safe—I would rarely be out of sight of land, traveling south from San Francisco down the West Coast of the United States, Mexico, and Central America, until I hit the Panama Canal. Still, it was a lengthy trip along some dangerous coasts, and many things could potentially go wrong.

  Despite these larger looming issues, my greatest immediate concern was rot.

  Dry rot is a fungus that eats the parts of wood on a boat that keep the hull stiff and strong. Its effects are gradual and cumulative. In this, it is much like human illness. If left untreated, dry rot will spread and destroy a wooden boat, and it is not always immediately visible to the eye. Sometimes a boat can look sound from a distance, but underneath the surface it’s turning to sawdust.

  More than anything, I wished to jump the fence and race down to see Valkyrien up close, but I could feel the taxi driver’s impatience. He did not want to hang around Port Richmond. I paid my fare and then, hefting the huge battery out of the trunk, I looked around for a rock, figuring that with a dozen boats on the wharf and no other way in or out save this padlocked gate, someone must have hidden a key. No luck.

  Then I noticed that one of the vertical slats that held the sections of the fence to their poles had been loosened. A single nut and bolt held it in place—the telltale flaw. When I removed this lone nut, the fence opened as easily as any doorway.

  I lifted the battery across the threshold, politely replacing the nut and bolt so as not to reveal to marina authorities the clever way around the lock that some forgetful sailor had left for himself (and now for me).

  I am an experienced sailor, and a U.S.C.G. licensed Captain; I cannot recall a time before I knew how to sail. I have found that virtually every marina in the world is locked, whether in some filthy slum outside of Mumbai or with the air-conditioned guardhouses of Palm Beach, but sailors do not do well with locks. I slipped through the gap to get a closer look at the Valkyrien. She was a giant schooner with two masts made of solid trunks. Only a sailboat built before World War II would use tree trunks for masts. Wooden masts nowadays are hollow, made by gluing long planks with epoxy. This makes the masts stronger and lighter. Valkyrien’s builders had simply stripped two trees of their branches and bark and stuck the masts into the centerline of the boat, the same method used on the Pearl. She amazed me.

  I loved Valkyrien from the moment I saw her on that bright and cool fall day in Port Richmond. She sat decaying, untended, in one of the most polluted channels in America, yet she exuded undeniable majesty. There is something about a schooner rig with the aftermost mast taller than the mast in front, which seems to me uniquely American. Before the schooner, sailors always piled additional sails on the bowsprit to add three or four or five more triangular sails out in front. Some audacious fisherman in New England—not racing for a yachting prize, but rather to be the first to market with his catch, determined to build up the sails on the back of the boat. In nearly every painting of any American harbor before 1917, a schooner sits quietly, await.

  This is how Valkyrien lay when I first saw her. She had not sailed in years. In fact, she had grown so accustomed to the channel that she appeared to be aground. Valkyrien did not move at all against the dock. It occurred to me as I approached her, walking down the gangway, that she looked like a boat buried to her waterline in a farmer’s field. When I stepped aboard she did not react in any way. She remained as steady in the water as though I had simply stepped onto another pier. She was the most solid boat
of her size that I have ever been aboard.

  I became almost giddy as I walked along her deck for the first time and saw the Turk’s head knots protecting blocks on the deck, the oak pin boards tied to the side stays, and the stained wooden balustrade encircling the cockpit where on a modern boat, mere safety lines would have been tied. I jumped down her companionway, barely glancing at the rotting cabin, and walked briskly through her entire insides, and out the teak and steel scuttle hatch at her bow. Then I climbed out to the end of the bowsprit and circled back to the foremast, climbing the ratlines fifteen feet up to the first spreaders.

  I loved everything about her. And the historic beauty of her hull and hardware blinded me to the rot that had settled in. Pieces of the cabin top came loose in my hand, the wood disintegrating into broken particles and a fine dust. I noted but dismissed her flaws. She seemed seaworthy enough to make the voyage, and most of the defects could be taken care of along the way.

  Much later during the trip, when the defects I so casually dismissed that first day challenged our survival, I recalled the look of real concern on the boat broker’s face when he saw me climb the mast. He thought it might fall down. I should have known then that he knew more about the boat than he let on.

  The original Pearl had been built to trade goods on the Eastern Seaboard—lamb’s wool, iron, lumber, corn. Valkyrien had been built in New Zealand to trade similar goods among the harbors and islands of that nation. The two schooners were about the same length and breadth. They were likely similar in other ways, too—the types and cut of the sails, the size of the masts, the layout of the interior, the fittings used to hold the stays and the masts in place. The Valkyrien appeared to be the answer to our dreams.

  Just then, I looked up and saw two black crows sitting on Valkyrien’s spreaders, cawing. Another warning sign. It’s an old sailor’s superstition that a crow on a boat in port is a bad sign. I thought to myself, turn around right now. Leave this boat.

  I was in a conundrum: My sailor’s instincts told me to walk away from this great deal. But my gut told me this was going to be the only boat we could ever afford—that I had an obligation to The Pearl Coalition, and I would be a coward to not give this a try.

  Instinct is discernibly different from gut. “Going with your gut” means responding to a test with emotion over instinct. For millennia humans have sensed that our emotions somehow reside in our guts. So different is instinct—a natural, intuitive power—some say it is our sixth sense, illuminated by a higher power. Instinct is an intuitive perception, based not on emotion at all— and not really on thought either— it is a talent that, when used often, becomes stronger. My instinct tells me when I meet someone, within just a few seconds, whether they are good or bad. It is nearly always correct.

  That evening I called Vicki to tell her about the boat and my conundrum. My wife is extraordinary when it comes to making decisions, and she has honed her instincts to the level of pure genius. With just about every choice we’ve made in our thirty years together, Vicki’s instincts have been right. But by then I was so excited about Valkyrien that I glossed over her many flaws and assured Vicki it would work out. We would deal with the details as I sailed south.

  I did promise myself (and Vicki) that I would not buy the boat before making a thorough inspection. If the engine did not work, I would not even consider the purchase. So the first test was to get the engine started. The massive starter motor weighed 60 pounds and required a huge amount of battery power to turn over; that is how I found myself at the edge of a toxic Superfund site, pushing an 80-pound battery under a fence.

  In the end, I went with my gut. I never mentioned the crows.

  2. Detroit Diesel

  A noble craft, but somehow a most melancholy!

  All noble things are touched with that.

  —Herman Melville, Moby-Dick

  Once I got the battery aboard I began looking more carefully at Valkyrien. Paint on the mast peeled everywhere—leaving much of it bare—my first indication that the schooner was not in perfect shape. Still, she was absolutely massive, and steady on the dock, with remarkably dry bilges. And the price was right, at around $25,000.

  A portable pump, permanently in the “on” position, sat in her bilge, attached to shore power by an extension cord that hung over her starboard rail. This was somewhat of a concern, as the broker had promised me the boat did not leak. The broker had also recommended a friend of his named Jerry, as a marine surveyor, so despite finding a huge pump plugged into a boat that “never leaks,” I took the broker at his word and hired Jerry to professionally survey the boat so I could make a fully informed decision before the purchase. Jerry is also a carpenter, and, for a reasonable fee, could make repairs to any areas of Valkyrien that needed attention.

  I don’t know why I take people at their word, but I do it all the time. Sometimes I think I do it even when I know they are lying. Maybe it’s because I don’t want to live in a world that is filled with liars, thieves, and crooks. I don’t really mind a thief in the night so much, nor someone who grabs the change out of my truck when I leave the doors unlocked. But liars I can’t stand. Even the law seems to not want to confront liars. When I served as an assistant district attorney we prosecuted tens of thousands of men and women for a great variety of crimes; in fact, I think we charged people with every single offense in the criminal code, except perjury. It is just too hard to prove someone a liar.

  Of course, that is no excuse for me being so often taken in by liars. But, the thought of confronting someone or calling them out frankly gives me a stomachache. It actually seems less unpleasant to let them get away with their lies. That doesn’t really explain why I took the broker’s recommendation of Jerry at face value. I probably should have been more skeptical. I feel better about the world when I give people the benefit of the doubt. Jerry told me that Valkyrien was one of the finest boats he had ever seen, and that she never took on any water. He assured me that the pump attached to the extension cord was there merely as a precautionary measure. She did not leak at all. Even in the heaviest San Francisco rains, no water penetrated the deck.

  I wanted to believe him and felt relief at his assurances. While Valkyrien appeared to be exactly what we were looking for, I really did not want to take on something that needed a huge amount of work. I was contemplating the long journey ahead and its many potential challenges. The last thing we needed was to begin with a leaking boat.

  The first time Jerry met me at Valkyrien, he helped me carry the battery to the engine compartment to tie it into the 12-volt system. Valkyrien had sat at that dock for years—at least four, maybe as long as six. The engine hadn’t run since then. We cranked the old Detroit Diesel for about 30 seconds and the engine caught, cranking on its own, and screaming, louder than any engine I had ever stood close to, seemingly in protest. I thought it might explode. But it ran on its own­—never smoothly.

  I should say a little bit about the engine—a Detroit Diesel 6V53, the same engine that powered the armored personnel carriers (APCs) used by the US Army in Vietnam. The 6V53 is known for its power and for leaking oil and running almost unbelievably loud. Vietcong fighters called the APC the “Green Dragon,” after the piercing screech of its engine as it crashed through enemy positions in heavily forested jungle. Mechanics called the 6V the “Green Screamer.” They say you can tell if it’s a 6V by looking for a pool of oil beneath the pan and earmuffs nearby. It is undoubtedly the loudest engine of its size ever built. I didn’t know when I purchased it, but I found out quickly that even when working properly, the 6V burns oil nearly as quickly as it burns through diesel.

  At the time I just wanted to make sure the engine would run and the transmission would shift before I put down a deposit. I pushed the lever into forward, and heard the dark clanging of gears soaked in heavy oil. The boat lurched ahead so hard I thought she might pull loose from the dock. I knew then she had a propeller bigger than
anything I was used to.

  Looking at Valkyrien, I thought about the young people living in the poorest neighborhoods of Washington, DC. Most schoolchildren there, indeed, most residents, are unaware that Washington was a port city. I imagined our Coalition members teaching history on board this boat to thousands of tourists in Washington each year. I also imagined teaching carpentry to DC schoolchildren as they helped to fashion their own spars for Valkyrien.

  I thought about sailing down the wild coast of California and Panama. Of taking schoolchildren from Washington, DC, through the Canal and stoking their curiosity about wooden boats and the sea. I thought, too, about my personal challenge. My responsibility would be to deliver Valkyrien and her crew safe and sound. I sent photographs of Valkyrien to the board members of The Pearl Coalition, and closed my report: “Enjoy these photos as you consider our dream of teaching young people across the District about our shared maritime heritage.” The Coalition members loved the photos, but, knew little about boats.

  I sent pictures to Vicki and my children, too. They know about boats . . . the pictures worried them.

  “Dad, she doesn’t look like anyone is taking care of her.”

  “Does she leak?”

  “Dad, are you sure she can float?”

  “Are you sure she won’t sink?”

  Vicki assured them I would be safe. She knew that even if the boat did not make it all the way to Panama, I would return. One of the things I have always loved about Vicki is her understanding that I cannot be separated from the sea. She has known this about me from the beginning.