Have you ever woken up and thought to yourself, “I have a bad feeling about [whatever you were going to do today]. Maybe I shouldn’t do it?”

If you live in Alaska, odds are that you have, especially after looking at either the weather outside or listening to the weather forecast. In such a harsh environment one learns quickly to trust your gut instinct. However, as seems to happen all too often, we didn’t and wished we had.

On our big sailing trip this last summer we had the idea to sail from Seward to Seldovia, making 2 overnight stops in between. The weather for the first couple days was great. We spent a night in Nuka Bay, and as we pulled into the cove something felt very ominous and foreboding. We smelled campfire, but no one was around. The sky was an odd color. Everything seemed weird. Regardless, we explored the shore, made dinner, read, and went to bed.

The next morning we woke up to a perfectly clear, crisp day. There was the slightest hint of a breeze on the water, and from the forecast (calling for 25 knots) and the general “feeling” we got we knew we were in for some wind (good sailing!) on the way to Seldovia. However, we’ve been in way worse than 25 knots so we decided to make a run for it. Bad idea.

We got out of the bay and slowly watched our wind gauge climb. We were stoked because we could get some great sailing in! We hoisted our sails and raced along in the 15 knots of wind. 15 knots became 25 knots. Approaching Gore Point, however, we decided to motor because the wind and piped up and was (of course) coming from exactly the direction we wanted to go, and we didn’t want to tack back and forth all day.

We dropped the sails and kicked on the motor. 25 knots became 35 knots. 35 knots became 40 knots. The waves built and we were heading into them. The water splashed into the cockpit like a firehose and the 34-foot boat lifted out of the water with each swell.

We had to keep going to Seldovia because we needed to check in with family for safety on the phone (they had orders to call the Coast Guard if we didn’t). 40 knots became 45, then became 50, and finally we hit 55 knots of wind (and our gauge is a little on the “slow” side). We realized there was NO way to reach Seldovia, which was also bad because now we didn’t have enough fuel to get back to Seward (150 miles away). We carefully timed the huge swells and swung in a circle to turn around. We raised the jib and raced downwind for 70 miles, sometimes hitting 10 knots surfing down the face of waves. We called in the blind on the VHF radio for someone to relay the message to family that we were OK and turning around, and thankfully the Coast Guard did this.

We sucked it up, donned more foul weather gear, and sailed as fast and as hard as we could. We knew the wind would die, and we didn’t have enough fuel to get back, so we needed to take advantage of each mile. As is usual, the wind died in the evening and we calculated (our fuel gauge doesn’t work) that we probably had enough fuel to at least get ALMOST back to Seward. We kicked the engine on and surfed the residual swell (with no wind now) into Resurrection Bay. Finally, inside the bay the wind returned and we hoisted the sails and had some great “dawn” sailing at 4 AM before we felt we had enough fuel (maybe?) to make it back.

We had a harrowing 3-hour motor back to the dock, expecting the fuel to run out at any moment (imagine docking a 34-foot sailboat into a slip without an engine). We saw the harbor right as we hit a 35-knot squall from the North. Tired of wind and getting pelted with water over the bow, we put our foul weather gear back on and raced into the harbor. Once we hit the dock we had a celebratory shot of whiskey, went to shore, and crashed for a couple hours. The next morning we got the boat in order and continued on for the other 2 weeks of our trip.

We had spent 25 hours from when we left Nuka Bay heading west to when we hit the dock in Seward, east of Nuka Bay. While this was undoubtedly the fastest sailing we have ever done, and the windiest, we were glad when it was calmer on the other leg of our trip.

The moral of the story? Always have backup plans, especially in Alaska where there is often nowhere easy to make a phone call, get fuel, etc. And respect the weather and the weather forecast.

As usual, we were too busy during the heavy conditions to be able to film. But here’s a video of before and after the ridiculous conditions.