Alaska Endeavour Patsy Clark Urschel Portholes closed and tightened, dehumidifiers emptied and turned on their sides, skiff and kayak straps cinched. Dishes and dishrack, stowed. Engine room checklist, complete. There’s a storm barreling toward us on the stern of our single screw, steel-hulled ship, and we’re about to transit the 137 nm from Torch Bay to Yakutat in one fell swoop — 18 hours of churned up seas along the Lost Coast of Alaska. The name is apt as there are very few safe anchorages, little in the way of services, shallow coastal waters more prone to confused seas, and miles from help of any sort if one should need it. We might have broken our trip by laying over in Lituya Bay, but its history of tsunamis gives this mariner pause: four have been recorded in the last 150 years, the most famous in 1958 when an earthquake-triggered landslide unleashed a massive tsunami, displacing over 90 tons of rock and ice and creating a 1,700-foot run-up wave in the process (the trim line tells the story). I’m not
particularly superstitious, but I pay attention to history that repeats itself in the same place, be it a williwaw or an earthquake-induced tsunami. You might call it an overabundance of caution, but I call it sensible. In cases like this, we take turns working threehour shifts at the helm, our dog Bella tucked in next to us in the center of the pilot house berth — the most stable spot on the boat. She burrows under a blanket and keeps body contact with whoever is on watch. Like Bella, we all know what to do to take care of ourselves when the path from Point A to Point B is strewn with crashing waves rather than rose petals. But there’s no panic, or complaint; we just take care of business and prepare ourselves to live with discomfort for a day. On my sixth year of living and working aboard, I can’t imagine moving through life any other way — responding to the moment, hour by hour, minute by minute. My former life included a corner office, an actual SisterShip 6
