The Adventures of the Vessel Condesa

Clark October 31st, 2008

In the image above if you look to the far left you will see Condesa towering over the other yachts at Pier 39 Marina. On the far right of the image you will see the new boat. All the finest yachts in San Francisco want to be at Pier 39 Marina, which goes without saying.

I’m always happy to help a newbie learn the ropes, but this guy with the new boat just won’t stop: How do I tie the fenders on? What does this thing do? Can you help me get my outboard started? How do I tie a bowline? What do I do when the wind gets strong? I guess we all have to start somewhere. Apparently Mr. Perkins has already decided that sailing isn’t for him, because the boat is for sale for 115 million Euros. Dilettante.

At nearly 300 feet Maltese Falcon isn’t even the largest sailing yacht in the world, just among them, but some say it is the fastest. We can charter it for a paltry 350,000 Euros per week, with crew of eighteen, including gourmet chef, but not including food and wine. Somebody must have beat us to it, because she’s already gone…

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Clark October 21st, 2008

I just got back from a trip to Mexico to attend the Morelia Film Festival, which is organized by some friends of mine. It’s now in its sixth year and has a fully-developed red carpet/movie star/paparazzi/lavish party culture.

Morelia’s Cathedral:

It’s always a guaranteed good time, but two weeks before the festival someone pitched a couple of hand grenades into the town square during the Independence Day celebrations. Ten people were killed and a hundred wounded. They say it was a message from one of the drug cartels to Felipe Caldron’s government.

Because of the attacks, most of the foreigners backed out of the festival, but we decided to stick with our plans. A good time was had by all, but the tragedy weighed heavily on everyone’s minds and there were many dedications and speeches honoring the victims.

The sea of votive candles at the massacre site:

To add to the dark side, we flew in and out of Tijuana. In the few days before we flew out, thirty-seven people were murdered in TJ, many of them handcuffed and beheaded. During the week we were in Morelia there were another seven found murdered in TJ, but bodies in various states of wholeness seem to be turning up every day.

As to the dangers in TJ, I figure that if you don’t happen to be a member of a drug cartel (I’m not) you’re not in too much danger. In Morelia they thought they’d caught the guys who were responsible for the grenades, and security was cranked way up. Obviously we made it back to California without incident.

I was wondering around during the last few hours before my flight out of Morelia, looking for a knick-knack to buy. As I walked down a back street there was a knot of people on the sidewalk ahead of me. I saw a girl in a Girl Scout uniform hug another girl, then I noticed there were eight or ten Girl Scouts and their Scout leader, a man in his fifties, all in uniform. When I reached them a cute blond Girl Scout came up to me and said, ‘Abrazo gratis!’…free hug. I hesitated for a second, perhaps my American hesitation about touching strange young girls, then hugged her, or rather, let her hug me. She really put some effort into it, then gave me a big smile.

I walked past the knot and watched this spontaneous outpouring of goodwill. Cute little Girl Scouts kept announcing ‘abrozo gratis,’ and were hugging old ladies, old men, kids, vendors…anyone who walked by. I watched one girl go up and hug a surly-looking cop and the guy pretty much melted. A few people broke into to tears after their hugs and looked visibly better and relieved. I certainly felt better about life in general, and considered walking around the block for a second go-around.

I kind of already knew the answer, but I asked one of the Girl Scouts (when she had a short break from hugging strangers) why they were giving free hugs: ‘With all the murders and violence, we asked ourselves at our meeting what we could do to help. We decided we could give free hugs. Everyone feels better after a hug.’

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Clark September 28th, 2008

I was riding the F Trolley down Market Street last night, quietly reading my book with half a dozen other riders, when the trolley filled with European vacationers. They were all in their fifties, nicely dressed, and some were wearing fleece jackets that said ‘Albatross Tours.’ They were loud and boisterous because of their sheer numbers - they’d made it standing room only - but they were generally mannerly and well-behaved. I started playing the language game and was quite pleased with myself that I had it narrowed down to Danish or Norwegian before I heard one of them say ‘Dansk’ or something like that, and I knew they were all Danish.

I heard what I can only describe as a very loud crackling behind me, there was a commotion, and I looked back to see that someone had fired a couple of gunshots into the two back windows of the trolley. Nobody had been hit, but once the word spread up the aisle it was pandemonium. The poor Dane sitting in the middle of the back seat was lucky not to be hit, but got broken glass all over his neck, and down his jacket and shirt. For the next minute most of the attention was on him, with people dusting his neck with handkerchiefs and helping him shake out his clothes. A few of the Danes stepped forward to take digital photos of the bullet holes, and I learned very quickly that the word for gunshot in Danish is very similar to our own.

It was so crowded and the trolley had moved so far that it was little use to try to get to the driver and get her to stop. Whoever did it was long gone. Looking at the holes, I’m not at all sure that the bullets even made it through the glass. It would have been thick tempered glass, and I’m guessing it was just a .22 caliber bullet, just powerful enough to crater the glass and send glass flying inside, but not enough to penetrate the glass or worse, wound one of us.

About this time many of them looked to me as the only local (I can now call myself a local since I’ve lived in San Francisco for the requisite ninety days) and I realized I had been staring at the bullet holes for over a minute with a look of complete horror on my face.

It isn’t often in life that you get set up this well. I smiled and said, “Welcome to America!” Big laugh and I was everyone’s best friend.

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Clark September 16th, 2008

It’s been a long time because I’ve been so busy…adjusting to shore-based life?

In the mean time San Francisco has world class sailing, and slowly but surely I’m exploring every nook and cranny of the Bay. One caveat though: It’s a windy place, or at least it’s usually very windy in ‘The Slot,’ where Condesa is moored, so it’s pretty much right into the firing line from the moment I leave the dock. The main has been double-reefed all summer long.

While I’ve been at the general task of getting my shore-based life back together and figuring out what to do with my life, I’ve still been flogging magazine articles (see the September SAIL for an article on Peru) and doing some boat repair work both on Condesa and on other boats…I’m just so good at it.

Begin Commercial–Your boat may not be circumnavigating, but I’ll treat it as if it were. Electrical, plumbing, mechanical, diesel repair, painting and varnishing, rigging and rope work. Attention to detail. No job too small. Bay Area only, unless you want to fly me someplace beautiful. Inquire within.–End Commercial

Condesa has made countless sorties directly across the bay to Angel Island and Tiburon, where the legendary Sam’s has public dock space right in front of the most expensive bar on the Bay. Let’s hope the coast guard doesn’t start enforcing the drunk boating laws.

She’s made two other more significant voyages into the heart of wine country, one up the Napa River to Napa, another up the Petaluma River to Petaluma. In Petaluma, unfortunately, our voyage ended at the D Street bridge, which is closed for repairs until November. On the Napa River, the voyage almost ended unfortunately when the Mare Island Drawbridge nearly closed on Condesa, which would have necessitated many repairs, which would have run long past November…

I was solo sailing up the narrow Mare Island Strait, riding a two-knot current. I sailed close enough to the bridge to write down the bridge keeper’s phone number, tacked against the current, and then a friend called on my mobile phone. While I was talking to him I heard ‘ding ding ding’ and the bridge started to open. I assumed the bridge keeper saw me waiting and opened the bridge for me. I said a quick goodbye to my friend, rolled the genoa all the way out, jibed, and resumed riding that two-knot current at a good clip right toward the gap in the bridge–I didn’t want to keep all those cars waiting too long. As I neared the bridge a power boat came through the other way and ‘ding ding ding’ the bridge began to close. I made the crash tack of all crash tacks, rolled up that genoa, got the engine started and floored it. Condesa was about thirty feet from the bridge and finally started creeping upstream just as the bridge got to about the height where it would have taken Condesa’s mast off at the spreaders. Or maybe it would have come down on TOP of Condesa’s mast, and God knows what that would have done.

When I called the bridge keeper he was obviously flustered, and I don’t think I needed to remind him that it was important to look BOTH WAYS before closing the bridge.

After that I ghosted up the Napa River, wing and wing, as topless maidens leaned over the banks to feed me pinot grapes and top my goblet with the vineyard’s finest. It is a little known fact that there is deep water up to within four blocks of the eateries and tasting rooms in downtown Napa. There I met up with Condesa record-holding crewmember and container ship accident veteran Ian Blake, his girlfriend Lauren, and her friend Carrie, who were all up there to run the Sonoma Half Marathon. I did not run the Sonoma Half Marathon. We all sailed back to San Francisco together a few days later, and this time gave the bridge keeper plenty of notice.

The jubilant and blistered half-marathoners:

The voyage up the Petaluma River was a bit shorter, the water a bit deeper (the Napa had some dicey spots), and the Petaluma was maybe a bit more scenic. This time it was with my mom and my Aunt Carole from Phoenix, who were mutinous and unruly:

Mom with Carole behind the wheel:

This weekend it’s up into the Delta, a galaxy of cruising that we’ll only be able to scratch on a long weekend.

Some typical Central California riverfront scenery:

So on shore-based life, everything is going swimmingly except for that pesky job/income/what to do with my life thing. I have no desire to sail around the world again any time soon, and all the things I’ve been missing out on all these years are pretty nice: community, companionship, volleyball every Wednesday, and a nice Thursday tradition too.

I carry a device in my pocket that can call anywhere in the world, show me maps of the world and where I am on it, take pictures and videos, send and receive emails, tell me tides and currents, and surf the web. I knew all these technologies existed independently, but to have them all in a device the size of a pack of cigarettes was a bit of a shock. The first time a friend showed me such a device I demanded he return to his planet with his magic box. How long have I been away, a hundred years?

To close, here is a picture of some cute little ducklings:

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Clark June 23rd, 2008

I’m small town famous: http://www.dailypilot.com/articles/2008/05/31/politics/dpt-aroundtheworld053108.txt

She plays me out to be quite the daredevil…and a small correction, that’s an 800-foot container ship, not an 80-foot container ship.

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Clark June 17th, 2008

For the first time in ten years Condesa has entered a port with no plans of leaving. She’s in her new berth in San Francisco, which looks up at Coit Tower, and straight across the Bay to Alcatraz.

One of my most frequently asked questions is, “Which was your favorite country?” Lately my answer has been, “California.” I’ve said before that I always thought of Californians as angry people stuck in traffic. Maybe I was the angry person stuck in traffic. I was also expecting unspecified run-ins with the authorities. I guess my only experiences with Homeland Security and the like in recent years have been in airports, where they are less than kind. I figured that after being away for so long I’d be coming back to some hassles, but nothing could be further from the truth.

I already mentioned how nice, easy, and cheap it was to put into San Diego, but this same treatment continued on up the coast, and the California coast competes with anywhere for natural beauty.

In Newport Beach, my home port, of course I got good treatment. With a free dock in front of the Beek house and wholesale fuel at the family fuel dock, what more could I ask for? But even if I didn’t have connections, Newport is a friendly port with free anchoring and free moorings.

Condesa set sail from Newport with Panama and Peru veteran Tony Burger. We made an overnight sail to Santa Barbara to visit my brother Jim (aka Rufus) and a host of friends. We’d planned to anchor out, but it was rough as guts when we got there. We radioed the Harbor Patrol, who were sweet as pie and had us tie up to their dock while they pulled all the stops to accommodate us. We ended up in a great berth for $23 per day.

Tony left and Beloved Cousin Rocky took the train down from Santa Cruz:

Rocky and I motored out of Santa Barbara and out to the Channel Islands for a little cruising. We visited the Painted Cave, on Santa Cruz Island, which was very deep and dark, and had some very angry sea lions hidden in the back. We traded standing off on Condesa while the other went into the cave in the dinghy, as it’s too deep to anchor. After the Painted Cave we cruised around Santa Rosa and San Miguel Islands, both of which have very scenic and snug bays. We never saw another recreational boat in the Channel Islands (it was a Monday), just a few fishing boats.

Condesa from inside the Painted Cave:

Then it was around dreaded Point Conception, the second windiest place to Point Reyes on the California coast, but we had an easy time of it. We charged through the night to the protected anchorage at San Simeon, where we looked up at Hearst Castle. Morro Bay and San Luis Obispo are two other snug harbors, but we passed them in the night. The next morning the sky was brown and the sun a blood red orb. It’s California’s wildfire season again, and we could see the Big Sur and Bonnie Doon fires burning from well offshore:

From San Simeon it’s a long haul along the cliffs to Carmel, Monterrey, or Santa Cruz. We chose Santa Cruz, as it’s where Rocky lives. We could see the headlights on the cars winding along Highway 1 all night long. Once again the Harbor Patrol in Santa Cruz was eager to please and we got a snug berth in the harbor, this time for $27 per night, where we saw this guy, a California Sea Otter, snoozing in the marina:

Case in point: One can cruise the California coast at a leisurely pace in total comfort. Where there aren’t beautiful natural anchorages there are bustling ports with reasonably-priced berths for transient yachts. All of these ports jack the price up if you stay more than a few days, which makes good sense to me. With the exception of the stretch between Monterrey and San Simeon, it’s all daysails. The next time I go cruising it might be a month’s sail from San Francisco down to Newport and back, combining haut cuisine in California’s ports with remote beauty on her offshore islands.

From Santa Cruz to San Francisco was an historic voyage with cousins Rocky, Joe, and Joe’s daughter Abigail. Rocky is half responsible for this whole cruising odyssey mess, and Joe is responsible for the other half. I went cruising the first time with them on Starwake when they were returning from a trans-Pacific voyage to New Zealand and back. In the ‘About Me’ entry on this website I talk about being green with seasickness while watching a hammock full of vegetables rot and drip in the tropical heat above my bunk, while figuring out how to get myself out of this horrible, horrible error in judgment. Going with them was the horrible error in judgment, and look what it ended up doing to me. How fitting that it would all begin and end on a sailboat with Rocky and Joe, but I guess I’m looking for landmarks and significance in every little thing at this uncertain juncture in my life.

Joe and Abigail:

We had rare south winds most of the day and sailed past the Pigeon Point lighthouse and Point Pilar, home of the famous big wave surf spot Mavericks. (It wasn’t going off.) As we neared San Francisco the wind veered to the west and strengthened, and a flood tide screamed under the Golden Gate at three knots. My friends Elias and Jim were going to take pictures of Condesa going under the Golden Gate, but couldn’t get there in time. “Can’t you stall a bit?” I looked at the GPS, marking our speed at nearly ten knots, with the current accounting for three of it. “Um, no.”

We sailed right up to Condesa’s new marina, with various Beeks scrambling around to drop sails, and made our entrance…into the wrong place. But the wrong place was much more photogenic than the right place, so it’s good that Elias and Jim were there to photograph it. Once we’d entered the right place, we tied her up, had a celebratory shot of tequila, and Rocky, Joe, and Abigail set out for Santa Cruz by land. Condesa hasn’t moved a muscle since.

• California , Sailing , San Francisco
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Clark June 3rd, 2008

The legal battles are over and the Library of Congress has finally reverted the publication rights to the author, me. For the first time on the web you can read the Condesa container ship accident story by clicking here.

If you’ve already read it in the magazine this version is pretty much the same.

Looking back at over two years since the accident and one year since the story was published, I’m still an idiot. How in the hell did I get run over by an 800-foot container ship? You’d think something that big would be easy to avoid.

I mentioned before that AIS (Automatic Identification System) could be the answer and could have prevented this disaster. AIS is the answer, and in the last year these units have come down in price and are starting to be standard equipment on cruising yachts. I’m sure that in another year or two they’ll be as common as radar. I’m not going to run out and buy one today because I’m planning on staying put for a while, but I will certainly have one aboard the next time I do any serious cruising.

AIS is getting a lot of talk these days. In the May issue of SAIL, Steve Dashew penned an article on the subject, in which he mentions me in the first line. (I’m famous! I’m famous! I’m the poster boy of marine accidents, even two years after the fact!) Ben Ellison has something new to say about AIS almost every month, either in print or on www.panbo.com.

So if you haven’t already read it, enjoy the accident story. If you happen to be on a boat, wait until you’re on land before reading. This is the story that cruisers tell their children to scare them into staying awake on watch.

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Clark May 28th, 2008

I’ve been stalling for a week. What the hell do I write when the trip is over?

My dad joined me in Cabo and we set sail early the next morning. By the next day it was cold and we were back to boots, hats, and gloves. People think Baja is all balmy desert, but that California current and its associated upwellings make it a cold place, even in summer. Once we were well into central Baja the landscape and climate were just like-dare I say it-Patagonia. My dad only had ten days, so our anchorages were short and sweet, just long enough to cook a hot meal or grab a few hours of sleep. We had some true westerlies and were able to sail about a fourth of the way. We made one nice long tack of about seventy miles from Cedros Island to the mainland. Usually this trip is all a motor-a-thon.

About halfway through the trip I got a 24-hour flu with a 102 degree fever, which is always fun on a cold, rocking boat. My dad surmised that since he’d had his free senior citizen’s flu shot, and I hadn’t, I got sick and he didn’t. Damned septuagenarians and their superior immune systems.

We pulled into Ensenada and my dad took a taxi to the border. I spent another night and filled up on fuel again. I’m no dummy: It’s half as much in Mexico-half as much!-as in the US these days. I filled every jug and bottle I had and topped the tanks.

I set sail at 4AM on May 14 and pulled into San Diego early that afternoon. The second I entered the harbor a coast guard boat turned on its sirens and-yeah!-boarded the power boat next to me. I was counting my good fortune when there was a second coast guard boat that boarded me moments later. Usually I hate the fascists, but the guys were so darned polite and friendly I couldn’t help but like them. Condesa passed all tests with flying colors and everything was ship shape by coast guard standards.

I tied up at the quarantine dock with the help of my new friends and there was nobody around. I called the number on the end of the dock, but it was out of service. I left some messages and sat tight. After a while my cell phone rang and the customs guy gushed apologies: “Sit tight, boss, we’re on our way!”

I was bracing for rude and threatening treatment from my countrymen at Homeland Security in the post 9/11 world, but they were sweet as pie too. The agent was training another guy, but they never went any further than the cockpit. After a few minutes the papers were filled out and he said I was all done.

“That’s it?”
“That’s it.”
“You’re not going to search the boat?”
“Nope. You’re all done. Welcome home.”
“I’ve been out of the country for nine years. I could have been subverted by terrorists and be carrying all kinds of dangerous contraband on this boat. No swabs? No dogs?”
“Nope. Welcome home.”

And then, at a bit of a loss as to where to keep the boat for the night, I found a public marina run by the City of San Diego right next to the customs dock that costs $10 per night! I’d heard rumors around the world that San Diego had become a less than friendly port for visiting sailors. Nothing could be further from the truth and I’d be proud for any of my foreign sailing friends to have the same experience I did.

I had a little party aboard with some of my San Diego friends, then Matt, the builder of this website, joined me the next morning for the final push to Newport. He made the maiden voyage with me back in 1997, just a few weeks after I bought Condesa (when her name was still Destiny).

We tied up at the Beek dock on Balboa Island that afternoon, nine years and four months after leaving. Thank God I’m off that hell ship.

Last Monday I started my commute up the 405 to my new job in Los Angeles in my white 2002 Nissan Sentra. Just kidding. I don’t have a job and I’m going to slow roll that one for a while. Better to settle in a bit and leech off my family before doing anything rash. It’s summer after all.

My plan is to sail up to San Francisco in about ten days and try life up there. So I’m still cruising! It’s not over! I’ll cruise to Santa Barbara, and the Channel Islands, and make a glorious landfall under the Golden Gate! The trip’s not over until I say it’s over, and it’s not over! I’ve been avoiding the real world for nine and a half years and I’m not about to give up now.

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Elias May 14th, 2008

What a difference nine years make. When Clark and I first crossed the Sea of Cortez in February, 1999, I was living in Mexico City, running one business and starting two others. My life couldn’t have been more hectic. The dot com boom was in full force and I was engrossed in my own Internet venture (I eventually sold it to a public company which, like so many other tech companies during that era, fizzled out during the subsequent dot com bust). It was a roller coaster. Anyway, I decided to take a break from the mayhem and flew to Cabo. Clark had only recently embarked on what he thought was going to be a 6 to 12 month sailing adventure down the coast of Mexico. Diesel was about $1 a gallon.

From left: Clark, Yours Truly, Carl and Steve during that first crossing of the Sea of Cortez in 1999. Carl still lives in Mexico City and just became the father of a beautiful baby girl. Steve lives in Hong Kong and is a VP at an investment bank.

Fast forward nine years later. Having “gone corporate,” I took three days of paid vacation and flew from San Francisco to Mazatlan, arriving on a sunbaked, Friday afternoon. Clark met me at the airport and after getting settled back on Condesa we ferried to a nearby island where we had fresh fish and beers on the beach. I couldn’t help but notice that both Clark and Condesa are in even better shape today than they were nine years ago. Clark had rebuilt the entire galley according to own exacting design.

This is the largest animal I’ve ever killed. I gaffed him (yes it was a male), pulled him onto the boat, and then Clark beat his head in with a winch handle. Good times.

I stood in awe as Clark filleted him in 6 minutes flat:

Clark made an amazing Peruvian Ceviche and Fish Tacos with fresh Pico de Gallo and Jalapeño Salsa. After lunch, Clark and I lowered the dinghy into the water and headed towards Los Arcos. We landed on a protected sandy cove, then ventured to the other side of the peninsula where five foot waves were crashing on the beach. I started body surfing and Clark followed suit. We drew a crowd as most folks don’t body surf that break.

Anchored off Cabo, we took the dinghy to Los Arcos:

I was in and out of the water a lot that weekend and the only sour note of the trip was that I got stung by a Jelly Fish during one of my dips. Maybe the ghost of that Mahi Mahi came back to get me!

Over the last nine years, Clark has treated me to sailing adventures in Mexico, Costa Rica, Thailand and Australia. Later this summer he will end his circumnavigation in San Francisco. I look forward to helping him acclimate to life in the Bay Area. I wonder what new adventures we’ll be reminiscing about nine years from today…

Elias Terman is a marketing executive at Acteva and lives in San Francisco.

• Elias , Friends , Sea of Cortez
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admin May 5th, 2008

Hello everyone. Clark just took off on a 10 day sail from Cabo with his father and will be incommunicado for a bit. He’ll answer any comments and questions when he returns.  Keep them coming!

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