Blog & Articles

It is now 0500 on Monday, January 4. Westward is about 9 miles NW of Palos Verde and is 99 miles from the San Diego Harbor entrance buoy. We sailed from Port Townsend, Washington last Monday night at 2200, and since then have traversed all but 99 miles of the west coast. With the exception…

We left the dock in Port Townsend at 2200 Monday night (Dec. 23rd), and just passed Dungeness Spit off of Squim. Everything is running fine and we hope to be in San Diego on January 3rd. We will spend 2 days there before continuing on to La Paz, Baja California Sur, where we will begin…

We launch Monday, December 20th and then begin final preparation for our repositioning run from Port Townsend to La Paz, Baja Sur. We have been longer than planned here in the boatyard, and spent more than budgeted, but things are coming together and Westward is in better shape than she has been in 75 years…

We encountered amazing bear viewing at Pack Creek yesterday and stayed past our planned departure time. Today’s schedule didn’t allow any room for flexibility, so we traveled through dinner last night and arrived at our anchorage in the late evening. The only illumination as we anchored was a waxing moon, so we couldn’t see if…

  We hauled Westward for regular maintenance in late June. My work list included replacing the rotten foremast, building aluminum outrigger poles from which to set our at-anchor stabilizers and giving her hull its annual paint job. Things took a major twist within a few days when we discovered that much of the wood used in Westward’s…

Dear Friends: Summer 2015, Alaska Newsletter As I write this we are southbound in Stephen’s Passage, on our way to Twin Meadows in Endicott Arm. We are making 8.3 knots with the wind and current at our backs, and the sky is fair overhead.

By Lauren Buchholz There are hundreds of ways to fall in love with Baja California. Maybe it’s the waving fluke of a blue whale as she pilots her sandbar-size body through waters less than fifty yards from your ship. Perhaps it’s kindled while you search for geodes on a beach lined with sea caves and hermit crabs….

Dawn greetings from Puerto Ballena, a beautiful cove on the west side of Isla Espiritu Santo. Allow me to lead with breaking news: WE HAVE OUR PERMITS!   For the many of you who have been waiting for that confirmation before you book a trip and buy airplane tickets, I suggest you refer to the…

Cruising The Inside Passage – A week aboard the Pacific Catalyst II -by Serine Halverson, Alaska Magazine Click here to read the pdf

We are very excited to announce that Pacific Catalyst was selected by the US Forest Service to have high-season access to Pack Creek Zoological Area on Admiralty Island during high season. Pack Creek is home to one of the largest gatherings of Brown Bears in the world, and has the smallest allowed number of daily…

The rising sun melts the fog, revealing the surrounding mountains, thousands of feet high and veiled with snow so thick and smooth that it resembles mounded whipped cream. As the warmth of the day grows, the fog retreats down the mountain’s flanks, until it slides free of the forest’s embrace and finally evaporates all together….

Story and Photos by Neil Rabinowitz: MOTOR BOATING AND SAILING/AUG. 1997 Adventure is guaranteed on a cruise of Alaska’s glacier-studded southeast coast on board Catalyst, a classic explorer. Two grizzlies before breakfast were more than we had bargained for. We dared not twitch as we sat I our kayaks just 50 feet away, eyes fixed on…