OCC Sailors Prepare for Annual Rite of Passage : Students to Test Their Mettle on Grueling Voyage

Although she’s been on numerous short sailing trips, Alice Williamson, a 46-year-old mortgage banker from Irvine, has never been beyond the sight of land.

That’s about to change.

Williamson and eight other Orange Coast College students will soon set sail from Honolulu for a 2,500-mile trip to Alaska, during which nobody expects to see land for about 12 days.

The trek is one of six legs making up an 8,500-mile voyage that will carry mostly student crews to Hawaii, Alaska and Canada before returning home to Newport Beach. The ocean odyssey begins Thursday morning, when the first crew embarks from the college’s sailing center in Newport Beach.

Every two weeks during the three-month trip, a fresh crew of nine students, a cook and two supervisors from the college will replace the previous group aboard the 65-foot sloop Alaska Eagle.

“Sure, I’m nervous. What do you think?” said Williamson. “But I want to make a passage.”

Like many of the other intermediate sailing students, Williamson hopes that crossing the north Pacific Ocean will prepare her for longer ocean trips without supervision. Williamson and her husband, Roger, who sailed on a leg with the Alaska Eagle last year, plan to explore the waters of the South Pacific in their new 52-foot boat when their two children graduate from college.

She will get plenty of experience on the OCC trek, said sailing instructors, since she will be aboard for the toughest segment. Williamson and her shipmates can expect to battle rough seas and radical temperature changes in their voyage from Hanalei Bay, Kauai, to Glacier Bay, Alaska.

“I get cold easily, so I’m preparing with double foul-weather gear,” Williamson said. “The real challenge is going to be getting all that in one bag.”

During each of the legs, the students, whose ages range from 23 to 70, will take turns navigating the ship, standing watch, and setting and dousing sails. And the crews, which include doctors, lawyers and carpenters, will be expected to scrub the decks and keep the vessel in tiptop shape.

“There’s a lot of grunt work,” said Brad Avery, director of marine programs for OCC. “But you don’t look at your wallet, you don’t hear a telephone, you don’t get in a car for two weeks. Every crew member on this extraordinary adventure will gain an experience that many only dream of.”

While it may leave its crews with lasting memories, the trip can also produce immediate calm.

“It’s the best stress management I know of,” said Gene Ondrusek, a 43-year-old San Diego psychologist who is returning for another voyage on the Alaska Eagle. “There’s something very primordial about being back on the ocean. It’s probably a combination of being outside and the motion of the boat, the sounds of the water. . . . You get into the moment; you really get into the flow.”

Moments of tranquillity can be essential to a 12-member crew of strangers confined in a cramped space for two weeks, Avery said. He paid special attention to an individual’s ability to get along in a group when selecting the 50 students from more than 100 applicants. Students who make the journey pay about $110 for each day on board.

“You don’t know who these people are when you first get on the boat,” Avery said. “Ax murderers, Republicans or something--who knows?”

At a last get-together before the voyage Saturday morning, many of the students admitted to being apprehensive about how they would get along with their fellow sailors. But Avery said the college’s annual summer voyage, now in its 10th year, often leads to lasting friendships.

“I like the social aspect of the whole thing,” said 32-year-old Laguna Beach resident Joe Becker, who will be making his sixth trip on the Alaska Eagle this summer. “I’ve sailed out of this harbor a bunch of times and didn’t know anybody, but by the end of the trip, I’ve made a lot of good friends.”

And, Avery pointed out, the summer cruises have also led to three marriages.

“We had one couple meet on the boat one year and then insist on holding the marriage ceremony on board the next,” he said. “It was very nice.”