Ten Degrees of Reckoning (3 page)

Judy finished her navigation tasks. She zipped up her jacket, and just as she moved to go up to the cockpit, there was a sound so violent it flung her forward.

BOOm . . . BOOM . . . BOOM.

A fusillade of flying objects. Something struck Judy on the head. Pain. Water everywhere.

 
Two

Ten-Year Plan

MIKE AND JUDY BOTH HAD THE MOST GORGEOUS smiles. It was something people always noticed later, when they looked at the photographs of the voyage. Even after twelve years of marriage, two children, and the challenges encountered during their epic journey, the wattage of those smiles never diminished. Well, the photographs are a lasting testament to their bliss.

Judy was born in North Hollywood, where she attended school. Her father died of leukemia when she was three years old and her sister, Risa, was five. Her mother, Caryl, worked as a librarian for Los Angeles County. Caryl later remarried, but for a large part of Judy’s childhood it was the three of them, and Judy developed a resourceful nature early. She graduated from Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio, with a bachelor of arts degree in textile design. She was very artistic, but practical enough to become part-owner of a restaurant right after college, and she was emotionally well equipped to create a life of her own. After three years in the restaurant business, Judy decided she was ready for a new experience, and she hitched a ride with a friend to Washington state, where she met Mike.

Mike grew up in Tacoma, the third oldest in a family of six children. His father was an engineer and his mother a successful realtor and a homemaker. In his teen years, Mike loved any job that had to do with children or the outdoors. He and his dog, Flo, were known for their long wilderness hikes. Mike graduated from Western Washington University in Bellingham with a degree in parks management, and moved to Marysville, Washington, to oversee all the activities of a private campground resort.

When Judy arrived in Washington state in 1978, she applied for a job as the recreational director at this campground, and it was Mike who interviewed and hired her. From the job description, Judy expected she would be supervising families and children, and using her artistic skills to entertain them. Instead, she spent her first week doing little besides making stacks of pancakes for the ravenous campers, and she decided to look for other work. As soon as Judy quit the job, her former boss asked her for a date.

Mike invited Judy for dinner and made her a vegetarian meal; he had just completed a vegetarian cooking class. Judy told him that she was impressed, and Mike admitted he had taken the a course to meet women. When Judy asked him if he had in fact met any, Mike grinned and replied, “Now I have!”

Over dinner, Mike revealed his lifetime dream: he planned to sail from Seattle to Hawaii and then cruise through the Hawaiian Islands. On their next date, Mike took Judy out sailing on
Mika,
his Haida 26, the boat he was outfitting for his offshore adventure. He told her he hoped to be able to leave in several years.

The longer Judy knew Mike, the more she wanted to make that trip with him. She was disappointed when Mike told her he needed a crewperson with skills equal to or greater than his own, since he had never sailed offshore. He knew she was funny and adventurous and smart, but he didn’t realize just how determined she was.

Judy took a job at a yacht services company, installing marine electronics and varnishing brightwork. Although she became adept enough to earn the title Varnish Queen, she decided she really needed to impress Mike with some blue-water sailing knowledge. It was 1980, still at least a year before he would set sail. Somehow she was going to have to acquire more offshore experience than he had. Judy went around to yacht clubs, marinas, and sailors’ hangouts to check out “Skipper Needing Crew” lists. She found just what she needed. The Sloop Tavern in Seattle was initiating the Jack and Jill race from Port Angeles, Washington, to Honolulu, and each team was to comprise one man and one woman. The race organizer’s crew member had just quit, and he needed a female to partner with him immediately.

Mike was astounded at Judy’s decision to join this race. She had only sixteen days to prepare before departure, never mind the unrelenting, intensive training at sea. But once she convinced Mike that this was what she wanted to do, he helped her prepare. Judy and the captain did not win, but Mike bought a plane ticket, met her at the finish line, and told her that her résumé was perfect. In fact, he told her, he was going to expand his own offshore experience by helping the captain sail the boat home, from Hawaii to Seattle. This would be the tougher trip, against the prevailing winds. When he returned, they signed up for the next Jack and Jill race, to take place in 1982, and in the two-year interlude they outfitted their boat to meet the offshore race requirements and took every course available, from Celestial Navigation to Medicine at Sea.

Mike and Judy completed the Jack and Jill race together in 1982 on
Mika,
their twenty-six-foot sailboat, and then spent three months cruising among the Hawaiian Islands. In an especially romantic anchorage, they discussed a ten-year plan. They would get married, have two children, work hard, save their money, and buy a bigger boat. When the younger of the two children was five, they would sail around the world.

Judy’s college degree had prepared her for a career in an art museum restoring old textiles, but with their new plan in mind, she reentered college to study for a degree in civil engineering. Judy received her bachelor of science in civil engineering, and two weeks later, on June 19, 1983, she and Mike were married in Seattle.

Mike was a master of motivation. His modest style and low-key manner belied his tremendous capabilities. He had stayed in park management, but in the private sector. Mike’s career in recreational sites sales was rewarding and lucrative, and his boss was already worried that Mike would be leaving in ten years. He had a quiet sense of self-respect, and a respect for others. Mike created a great working environment, and his subordinates held him in the highest regard. He quickly rose to top positions where he managed large teams of salespeople, and his achievements became widely recognized.

Just before Mike and Judy were married, he was transferred from Washington to California. Several years after that, he was transferred again as a regional manager to Virginia, where Benjamin Timon Sleavin was born on November 3, 1986.

Before Mike and Judy had the opportunity to bring
Mika,
their sailboat, to Virginia and the Chesapeake Bay, a nationwide private campground system offered Mike the position of general manager at its largest facility in California, so they moved again. At six months of age, Ben, strapped and harnessed and tethered in
Mika
’s cockpit, would have his first sailing adventure in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of California.

Now that the Sleavins were settled in southern California with a home and a child, it was time for Judy to find work in civil engineering. She got a job with a firm engaged in the planning, engineering, and surveying of land development. Judy designed the plans for all the sewer and underground water systems, and the grading for the residential and commercial subdivisions for which her firm was responsible in Van Nuys. She became close to her supervisor, Maureen Lull, who was the project manager.

Initially, Maureen didn’t realize that Judy was always teasing her. When she asked Judy what she liked best about her new job, Judy replied, “The lunches.” It didn’t take long for Maureen to realize that she and Judy had the same mischievous sense of humor. The two of them discovered they also shared a love of sailing, and they joined a women’s sailing crew to race every Wednesday night in Santa Monica Bay. They signed up for Safety at Sea and Marine Weather classes at Orange Coast College, and on the long drives to class they discussed their other mutual interests in engineering and quilting and children.

Mike and Judy took Ben out sailing as often as possible in
Mika,
and sometimes after work they took him on their visits to boat brokers. At the Long Beach Boat Show just a week before Ben’s first birthday, with yacht brokers all around, Mike whispered to Judy, “Aren’t we supposed to have another baby before we buy a bigger boat? Wasn’t that part of the original ten-year plan?”

“Oh, yeah,” she said, with a sparkle in her eye. “We better go home and do that.”

Anna Rose Sleavin was born in Valencia, California, on October 2, 1988, and the Sleavins were thrilled. With two children and two working parents, life became quite hectic. They lived on one salary and saved the other to buy their future boat and to start a cruising fund.

Two years after Annie was born, they spotted an advertisement for a cutter-rigged Compass 47 sailboat that looked perfect. In May 1990, Judy flew to Fort Lauderdale to inspect the boat. She went out into the Atlantic for sea trials, and had a marine survey done. In between, Judy telephoned Mike at least twelve times, to describe the boat’s layout, equipment, and performance. Judy thought it was a very functional boat, and well laid out. It had a spacious open interior with three staterooms and two heads, and a very large salon and galley. The deck was nearly flush, with a low trunk cabin and a huge cockpit. It was South African built, and Judy learned that Dr. Christiaan Barnard, the world’s first human-heart-transplant surgeon, had bought a similar one. A boat broker in Florida had imported two of these Compass 47 sailboats to the USA. He was so impressed with their design that he named one after his daughter, Melinda Lee, before putting them on the market.

Mike and Judy made the decision to buy the
Melinda Lee
and had it trucked across the country to the Channel Islands Marina in Oxnard, California. Every time they attended a boat show or a cruising seminar, they outfitted the
Melinda Lee
with the recommended and required equipment. They joined the United States Coast Guard Auxiliary and had the
Melinda Lee
inspected by the auxiliary so they could join in any future search-and-rescue undertakings in the Oxnard/Ventura area. They went sailing together and separately to gain enough experience. When there were storm warnings, they notified the Coast Guard that they were going out anyway, to test the storm sails. They took the previous owners, Scott and Kim, out sailing to learn about all the systems. They took Ben and Annie out sailing in order to practice boat handling while keeping an eye on them. The four of them continued to thrive, even with the increased amount of time spent on preparations.

Everything was falling into place as they rang in 1993. They sold
Mika,
their twenty-six-foot boat. They rented out their home for the next five years, boxed and stored their possessions, resigned from their jobs, and organized a homeschooling system for the children with the Calvert School. The Sleavins asked Maureen Lull to be their emergency contact, postmistress, and surrogate banker, and she accepted.

On March 1, 1993, with all the preparation complete and the send-off parties over, Maureen went to the marina for one last goodbye. She slipped the dock lines, and as the
Melinda Lee
moved smoothly away, Maureen waved and waved until she could no longer see her friends’ faces or hear their cheering voices.

Three

Beyond Armchair Cruising

I MET MIKE SLEAVIN AND JUDY HERSHMAN IN THE WINTER of 1982, when they were in the midst of preparing for the Jack and Jill race to Hawaii on their Haida 26 sailboat.

I had never been on a sailboat until I tested the waters with my boyfriend, John, the year before. We had some spectacular times on
Shahar,
his sailboat, venturing farther and farther out in Pacific Northwest waters. I loved the feel of the tiller in my hand, the solitude of the sea, and the pleasures of exploring islands and coastal areas of Washington and British Columbia. John began to give me books by authors who had circumnavigated the world in tiny sailboats.

Shahar
was a Haida 26 sailboat, exactly the same size and design as Mike and Judy’s. Later we learned the two boats had been built in Sidney, British Columbia, one right after the other. We made a plan for a double date, to go to a slide show. I can’t remember anything about the topic or the speaker, but I do remember the feeling of an immediate connection with both Mike and Judy. The four of us laughed a lot. How could another twosome be so similar in character and sensibilities? I wondered. We would never have met them without our identical sailboats and comparable dreams, but we shared a friendship that did not require the ocean’s waves to carry it along.

Judy told me about their plans to participate in the Jack and Jill race to Honolulu. I asked her to tell me all about her previous offshore race. When I found out she had gone with little experience on a three-week voyage with someone she didn’t know, on an unfamiliar boat, I was astounded. When I learned the captain had insisted on twelve-hour watches and hand steering all the way, I knew I could learn something about fortitude from this woman.

Mike and John exchanged ideas about structural and safety modifications, and it was easy to see that John was caught up in the idea of getting our own boat ready for an ocean passage someday. When Mike and Judy returned to the Seattle area after the race, they came to my apartment for dinner and to celebrate their engagement. After toasts to their future, we settled down for a slide show of their race in
Mika
to Honolulu. It was a delightful narrative. By the end, it was impossible not to feel that we really knew them thoroughly. After leaving the cold Washington coast and stowing their foul-weather gear, they were naked under their safety harnesses in every picture.

John and I began to prepare our Haida 26 for a trip to Hawaii. We planned to leave in 1984, immediately after our wedding. Judy became my main cheerleader. She gave me explicit instructions on how to provision the small space for the four weeks at sea. She told me canned goods were worth the space and weight, far better than taking a big bag of rice, which would require cooking in precious rationed fresh water. She hid presents on the boat, gave us a pressure cooker, and lent us their life raft. I had never expected to take a life raft on my honeymoon.