Once upon a time, seafarers such as the poet John Masefield needed only "a tall ship and a star to steer her by." Ocean crossings these days usually involve advanced technology to ease the worries and reduce the hazards of long voyages.
When the Scarfe family started out on their ocean trek two years ago from Marina del Rey, Calif., Jonathan Scarfe, Suki Kaiser and their two young children had a GPS and a radio aboard their 44-foot sloop, the Pura Vida,but little else in the way of modern conveniences. In fact, they really didn’t even know much about sailing.
"Jon had never sailed before," said Kaiser, 46, an actress and writer who is the great-granddaughter of industrialist Henry J. Kaiser, founder of the Hawaii Kai residential development. "Everything on our boat we have to fix. Our engine, we fixed. There is no warranty for anything. It’s only us repairing it."
"Which is ridiculous!" said Scarfe, 38, an actor who has appeared on the television shows "Grimm" and "Perception."
"It was, like, me with manuals, fixing everything wrong several times before we finally get to move on to the next project."
So far, their willingness to embrace the unknown has paid off with an adventure that seems worthy of a Jack London novel. The couple and son Kai, 11, and daughter Hunter, 9, sailed the Sea of Cortez off Baja California for more than a year, then crossed the ocean to live and work with residents of the Marquesas and Tuamotu islands in the South Pacific. Now they’re tied up at the Ala Wai Boat Harbor, where they plan to stay for a few months while Kaiser works on a script.
Through it all a community of supporters has been following them online via their blog, The Wet Edge (thewetedgeadventure.blogspot.com). Kaiser said the blog includes posts by her children, who send out messages about ocean awareness.
The trip came about primarily because their children had been studying environmental topics in school, learning about deteriorating reefs, disappearing coastal rain forests and other issues. Kaiser and Scarfe, meanwhile, were free of any film or television projects and decided there would never be a better time to expose their kids to different cultures and a broader world perspective.
"Jon and I just started talking, ‘Let’s do something, let’s have our kids experience these things,’" said Kaiser, who had recurring roles on "Nash Bridges" and "Kingdom Hospital."
"And rather than just fly in or go visit it where you’re just sort of seeing it, we thought we’d make it a complete journey."
The couple decided an ocean voyage would provide an excellent education in sustainability and conservation. To finance the trip, the family sold off everything they owned: their home, their car, "all the art off the walls," Scarfe said. When funds ran low, they worked for families in the Tuamotus to gear up for the trip to Hawaii.
Wherever the family has gone, they’ve learned sustainable fishing and farming practices from local people. They’ve taught themselves to sew sails, refinish trim on the Pura Vida and fix anything that breaks or wears out, rather than head to the nearest marine shop to get a new one, Kaiser said.
The term "roughing it" doesn’t seem quite adequate to describe how the family has been living during the voyage. The cozy living and sleeping compartments aboard the 30-year-old Pura Vida are lined with pantry space full of items they’ve canned for future consumption. There’s a photovoltaic array on the boat, and they cook on deck using a solar oven. Although they have a laptop computer, books seem to be providing most of the entertainment other than the sea itself.
Aside from the GPS for navigation and a sideband radio for communication and weather data, the boat is only basically equipped, lacking even a water purification system. The family reduced freshwater consumption to three gallons a day and saved rainwater or collected water when they made port, which was part of the adventure.
What technology they do have has been invaluable. With the GPS they’re never lost, and radio weather reports have enabled them to avoid major storms, though at times they purposely sailed close to foul weather to capture rainwater.
Their longest stretch at sea was 24 days, from Cabo San Lucas in Mexico to the Marquesas. It took 21 days for them to reach Hawaii from the Tuamotus.
They’ve had some hairy moments along the way, at one point running into a series of lightning storms.
"We ran into some bad, bad stuff in the Tuamotus, where we lost our bowsprit (a spar projecting over the prow of a sailing vessel)," Kaiser said. "Jon had to repair our entire bowsprit from stuff he found on the beach."
Most recently they ran aground in, of all places, Lahaina, Maui, courtesy of a frayed line.
In Moorea their engine also conked out from a broken shaft in the transmission, in giant waves that rivaled Teahupoo off nearby Tahiti. "We didn’t know what we were doing, so we just watched it," Kaiser said.
They were eventually able to sail into port, but then faced the problem of replacing a major component of a 30-year-old motor that is no longer manufactured. Scarfe was able to find a transmission on eBay.
"I found it for $200, but it cost, like, $800 to actually get it in my hands," Scarfe said. "By the time it came, I’d learned enough about dissembling the entire transmission and pulling that piece out and figuring out how to rebuild it all."
Kai and Hunter have been home-schooled, or rather boat-schooled, during the trip, with the standard curriculum beefed up with lessons on the cultures they’ve visited.
"The whole thing’s been a big adventure," Kai said. "The best part was in the Tuamotus, when I spent two months living with a family, just living off the land."
Hunter can do a Marquesan boar-hunting chant, which at first blush seems similar to the haka.
"It says ‘Who’s the best? I’m the best!’" she said after giving a lively performance.
The Scarfes plan to sail to Alaska for the summer before returning to the mainland to go back to work and put the children back in school.
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On the Net:
» Read the Scarfe family’s The Wet Edge blog at thewetedgeadventure.blogspot.com.
