Sailing life has its ups and downs.

Byline: BEEN THERE By Jim Boyd The Register-Guard

Traveler: Leonard Ablieter, 70, moved from Mexico to the Fall Creek area with his wife and child in August. He retired at age 55 as executive vice president for a company he believes was the largest tour wholesaler in the United States and took up a life of sailing aboard New Dawn, his cutter-rigged Valiant 40.

One of the highlights of his 12-year sailing career was a trip he made alone from Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, to Neah Bay, Wash., in 1993.

He didn't sail directly north along the coast, a route that would have subjected him to strong headwinds and opposing seas, but in an arc that took him out into the Pacific near the Hawaiian Islands and then back to the mainland. He wrote about that voyage both in Ocean Navigator and 48 Degrees North: The Sailing Magazine.

"My plan was to follow the route of the square riggers, sail west some 1,200 miles, then north until I reached the westerlies and then east to the Strait (of Juan de Fuca)," he wrote in 48 Degrees North. "I estimated the distance to be sailed at 3,600 miles, which I hoped to cover in 30 days. As it were, I sailed 3,350 miles in 26 days. At an average speed of 5.3 knots, this turned out to be a pretty fast trip."

A German immigrant to the United States, Ablieter traveled extensively as a member of the Air Force stationed in Japan and, later, on business in the travel industry.

Favorite destination: "I would say Japan. I lived there for four years, and I know it. But I could not afford to go back there today with what the prices are like there. So an easy and also other honest answer would be Hawaii," Ablieter said.

Ablieter said he has visited Hawaii in the military or on business since the days when there were only a few hotels on Waikiki Beach.

"You get off the airplane in Hawaii, and you smell the air, it's different," he said. "You're, 'Ah, I'm back.' It's flowers. It's the ocean. It's everything. And that aloha spirit, which is being commercialized, actually exists. It's real.

"So if you were going to give me some money and say, 'Hey, Leonard, want to take a quickie trip somewhere?' I think I'd go to Hawaii. I'd go to Oahu because things are happening there. And if you want to get away, get in a car and go to the north shore. It's remote."

Most memorable experience: "Being on top of Mount Fuji for sunrise in August. Still snowfields around the crater. Miserably cold. I hadn't expected it to be below freezing. ... You are at 14,000 feet. So you are inhaling (frigid air), and your throat hurts because it's so cold. I remember wrapping a towel around my neck to keep my throat from hurting.

"And you're sitting there shivering, waiting for that sun. And, finally, there comes the sun. It's a big thing for all the Japanese. You know, they wait a lifetime to do that. And it's beautiful. I mean, it's exhilarating."

Travel nightmare: "I was going from Cabo to La Paz (Mexico) - alone," Ablieter said. "It was February and not the time to do this, because you have these very strong northerly winds that blow straight down from Canada all the way down through the plains there - Utah and down - and they funnel into the Sea of Cortez, and they just keep going.

"I said, 'Well, this is a good boat, and I've got to get up there.' And so I decided to make one big tack out into the middle of the sea and another tack in, and then that should get me up into the entrance of that little strait that goes into La Paz."

Ablieter said he should have realized he was in for trouble.

However, he said, "I was still in the lee of the land, you know, in the shadow of the land. And I was getting enough wind to really sail at almost hull speed, top speed, 7 or 8 knots. Just beautiful. No waves because you're in the lee of the land. So I should have thought of that: If it blows like this across the land, what's it going to be like when I get out to sea?"

Soon, he found himself at sea in a blow that created skinny, 8-foot-high waves that lifted the sailboat and left it hanging in midair, so it crashed back into the water with each wave. "I don't think there's anything worse," he said. "You just drop like a rock."

Compounding the problem, he had the wrong sail mounted and had to go up on the pitching foredeck to take the big headsail down, but he decided he couldn't rig a smaller sail.

"This is a cutter rig, which has three sails," he explained. "It has a jib. And then it has a staysail. They are both in front of the mast. And then you've got a mainmast. A cutter rig is designed so it can sail on just the staysail and the main. So I decided to go on with just the staysail and the main."

He slept fitfully for a few hours on a sail bag next to the mast where the boat's motion was least, and then about midnight decided to make for an anchorage at Los Frailes.

Tacking failed to put him in a position to make Los Frailes, so he finally decided to heave-to, and then decided to go to sleep.

"Heaving-to is you take two sails, either one of the headsails and the main, and you set them against each other so the boat can't go anywhere," he said. "She keeps her bow into the wind, which is critical, and, of course, as long as you're into the wind you're into the waves, which is even more critical. ... She hove-to real nice."

He woke up about 6 a.m. and checked the boat's position.

"When you are hove-to, the boat does move very, very, very slowly towards the wind because it goes first on one sail and then on the other. That's known as forereaching. She was forereaching about just below 1 knot," he said. "So during that time I was asleep, we went dead into the wind to make Los Frailes."

At first he couldn't believe his good fortune.

"I got the parallel rules out, the compass. Here we are! Hey, yeah, we can make Frailes with room to spare! We're above! We're above! So it's going to be a beam reach in."

The sail to the anchorage at Los Frailes wasn't exactly uneventful, however.

When he undid the heaving-to rig, the winds were so fierce that one line caught around the fiberglass canister holding his life raft and threatened to pull it loose. He had to rig up a Spanish hitch with a winch to get the fouled line free.

That trip, he said, was his worst experience sailing.

Advice: "If you go to a 'civilized' area, go alone or with your friends. Don't buy a tour. Go on your own and explore," he said. "The exception being a place like Hawaii, where the best thing you can do is buy a package, because all you want is a hotel and an airplane. And you can do a lot better buying a package from a place like Hawaiian Holidays than you could ever do buying your own airplane seat - unless you're going to stay for six months. But, other than that, go explore on your own.

"If you're going to a place like India or a Third World country for the first time, maybe you ought to take a tour," he said.

"City tours never appealed to me," he said. "When I did take a tour, I'd go to the back country of someplace. I even took a tour in the United States. I took a canoeing trip down in the Everglades with an outfit from Minnesota somewhere, because I'd been in a canoe but I didn't have that much experience. So I thought, going to the Everglades, I only have this much time - do I want to buy or rent a canoe and figure it all out? I'll go with him. I had a great trip. But other than that, I'd go on my own," he said.

If you or someone you know has intriguing travel tales to tell, write Been There, P.O. Box 10188, Eugene, OR 97440; phone Jim Boyd at 338-2363; or e-mail [e-mail]. Include the nominee's name and phone number, your name and phone number, and why you think he or she would be interesting to feature.

CAPTION(S):

Leonard Ablieter navigates the New Dawn.