WEDNESDAY AUGUST 25TH
We turned in our keys at Elliot Bay Marina and walked one last time down the dock we called home for 5 months. It was a very windy and cloudy day. There were white caps in Elliot Bay. These conditions gave us some problems getting out of our slip. Seemed fitting to be leaving Seattle under such auspicious conditions. As soon as we got out into Elliot Bay we put up our new main sail. This was the first time we were able to sail with it. We got the genoa up also and we were cruising along nicely at about 7 knots. Not long after we got all the sails up and we were going along ok, the boom vang snapped off the boom releasing the tight fit we had on the sail, but we quickly adapted the boom vang to be used as a preventer. This lasted a couple of hours and we took down the genoa and put up the new spin drifter we had made. This was really the first time we had been sailing this sail also. Not long after we put up the spin drifter the wind switched 180 degrees, so all sails came down and it was back to motoring. We finally arrived in Port Townsand and went straight to the fuel dock. This was challenging because it was full and we had to tie up in a very precarious position, which proved interesting to get out of later with the strong winds. After refueling we went to Hudson Bay harbor so that the sail loft could check our main and hopefully we could meet with Gae about our spin drifter design she is going to inlay someday. Shawn came out to meet us and we put up the main sail and he checked it out. All looked good. We then went in to see Carol and Gae. Gae came out to the boat to talk about our sail design. David and I made one last hike to the marine store in hopes of finding parts for our broken boom vang but no such luck. On the way back to the boat we stopped by the bike shop to see my friend Lowell from Iowa. We met him and his wife Sam for dinner at the Silver Water Café for some good food and Antarctica and adventure stories. Then it was off to bed for a good night sleep before we enter out into the straights!
THURSDAY AND FRIDAY AUGUST 26th and 27th 1999
Up at 5 am! We headed out in darkness, pretty calm compared to yesterday. After about a half-hour David told me to go back to bed and get some more sleep. I guess the fact that I’m not a morning person was pretty apparent. About 9:00 I woke up to give David a break from the helm. Not enough wind to sail yet so still under motor power. It was a beautiful day. The sun was shinning; there was a little fog on shore but not enough for us to worry about with radar on. We did pass several large container ships. We were riding our way out of Washington on some very large swells. David’s below taking a bath in our little tub. I saw lots of kelp mats and a few seals and of course many birds of all kinds. I saw many fishing boats out and had to weave the boat in and out of the different powerboats that were in our path. Half way through the straights we realized we had calibrated our knot meter to kilometers per hour not nautical miles per hour! YIKES. No wonder the log meter and knot meter wasn’t making sense. After this correction the world seemed right again. David made us a great lunch, and then I went below to take a shower bath. When I came up David suggested that the weather and conditions were so good that we keep going past Neah Bay and head out to the ocean this afternoon. Cape Flattery is known for its bad weather, fog and strong currents and as far as we could see it was clear skies and relatively calm seas so we decided to go for it. So we prepared ourselves for the ocean. Put down the jackline from the front to the rear of the boat and got our tethers out to snap in to the boat. At least this way if we fell over board, we would just be dragged, not lost. David and I went over the man overboard procedure one last time before we enter the ocean and rounded Cape Flattery. It was beautiful as we past the most northern point of the United States (48?23.5’N/124?44.1’W). I was very nervous as we headed out to the Pacific Ocean, for I knew that this was the beginning of the all night watches and I wasn’t sure I was ready for that! David on the other hand, was so excited. I don’t think he could sleep if he wanted to. Once we were headed down the coast and a safe distance from shore we put the main sail up and went over the reefing procedure. (Not that we needed it, but did it anyway) David put out his fishing pole in hopes of catching a fish, but all he managed to catch was a kelp mat. Hee hee hee… At about 8:00pm I went down for a nap in preparation for my night watch. I tried out my new lee cloth that I made to hold me secure in the salon couch. David wants me to sleep here while he is on watch incase immediate help is needed I’ll be close by and visa versa when I’m on watch. It works out pretty good; it’s just like a cocoon. At about 9:00 PM I went up to the deck and David had the sails out and was singing away, having the time of his life. The full moon was rising over the shore and was a spectacular orange. Meanwhile the sun had set on the ocean and left behind a beautiful red-orange sky. What a sight, it’s hard to believe this is my life now as we head off on our big adventure down the coast. After a mashed potato and applesauce supper David told me to go back down and try to get some more sleep. He said one of us might as well be sleeping. So at midnight I went to strap myself into the salon with the lee cloth. At 3:00 am he came down and got me up so he could take a break and hopefully get some sleep.
I sat watch for 45 minutes before he came back up. After a half-hour I made him go back down to get some more sleep. I was fine and everything seemed to be going good. It was pretty cold and that was my main problem. At about 5:15 am I woke up David because there was a strange light that was very puzzling. It turned out to be a crab boat but it had a very large light. The sun was now rising and the wind was down to nothing. We went down to 2.5 knots with out the engine. So I pulled in the Genoa and we started powering again. By this point I was so frozen that I went down to get in bed to warm up. At about 8:00 David came down and got me up for we were entering Grey’s Harbor. We rode some pretty big swells into the harbor while trying to dodge crab pots. They were everywhere and hard to see because of the swells. We tried bringing down the main sail and I got hit in the head pretty hard and fell into the cockpit turning off the autopilot and hitting the gas and turning it down also. Once this mishap was diverted we got the sail down. We headed into the gas dock and refueled and then over to the marina for a slip. The slips here are a big whopping $15 per night. We walked into town in search of something to eat. Found a local dinner where I had hash browns, eggs and toast for 4 dollars. Then it was back to the boat for some much-needed rest. After a couple hour nap we got up to attend to the boat chores. Turns out that we are docked on the same dock that all the charter fishing boats are on. About 3:00 they all came back with their slaughtered fish laying out all over the dock. Was this ever stinky. What a smell. I saw a guy carrying a lot of carcasses down the dock; he dropped one right in front of our boat. When he came back to get them I asked him what he did with these fish heads. He said he worked for the fish and wild life and that he was a doing a study on the aging of this certain kind of fish. That he takes the eye balls out to count growth rings to determine the age of the fish. Turns out this guy had a degree in geology. Glad I didn’t end up doing that. David changed the oil and checked the transmission fluid. The rest of the day was for resting.
SATURDAY AUGUST 28th 1999
After a 10-hour marathon sleep we headed into town to use bathrooms and climb up the tower in West Port to look out at the ocean conditions. Well we couldn’t see the ocean because of the fog, so we decided to wait until this afternoon to see what it would be like. We bummed around town awhile and then went back to the boat to do some more boat maintenance. I cooked a big pot of spaghetti to store away in the fridge for when we are out at sea. This way all we would have to do is warm it up on the stove, alleviating trying to cook too much on the rolling ocean. David washed the whole topside with fresh water. I went up to the phones to call Brian and Christine and let them know we were ok. And then I tried calling my parents. We met an another couple on their way down the coast also. Turns out he was from Hoquiam and was the same age as David. The even weirder thing, they bought their boat from a guy named David Peck! We exchanged email and hope to see them somewhere along the way. As the day went on the fog only worsened so we decided not to leave today.
We watched the African Queen and then went to get some dinner. Another early night.
SUNDAY and MONDAY AUGUST 29th and 30th, 1999
Awoke to the roar of the charter boats going out fishing again. Looked out the window only to discover that is was yet another gray and cloudy day. We got up and walked up to the bathroom and then to the tower to see how the ocean looked. Well at least the fog is gone…. It’s just very windy and rainy so we shall see what today brings. Went back to the dinner for some breakfast, this time my breakfast cost $2.75. I can barely get a coffee in Seattle for that! We went back to the boat and installed some rings in the cockpit for us to snap our tethers into. I bought and read Seattle Times Sunday paper, which has to be the first time in two years that I’ve actually had time to read the Sunday paper. Wow! At about noon it looked good enough to take off. We battened down the hatches and prepared to shove off. As we left the harbor we saw many seals and pelicans. The ocean was pretty rough and we had a hard time getting the main sail up. As we coasted down the coast there still was not enough wind to turn off the motor. We started taking turns sleeping for we thought we would be pushing it all the way to Crescent City California. I was on watch at sunset and it was a glorious site. The coastline was a brilliant orange, and the water looked like pounded copper. There are so many sea birds flying around. I wish I had my bird book. I had fun watching the pelican’s dive into the huge waves. They make a pretty big splash. We passed by the Columbia River entrance but it was too cloudy for me to see any mountains in the background. We kept pushing down the coast at about 7 knots. Too bad the wind isn’t giving more of a push. At 10 PM David came up to relieve me on watch. Still motor sailing down the coast. This time I put my down comforter in the lee cloth and it really was like a warm cocoon. I took over watch at 2:00 am and let David try to get some sleep until 5:00 am. While I was on watch the sky was so cloudy that there was no moonlight, just total darkness, the rolling ocean, the glow of the radar and me. I kept our course going southwest about 4 miles off the coast. I let the autopilot do most of the steering for the swells were big and I wanted to keep my eye on the radar and charts. At about 4 am I started to notice lightening. I kept timing the amount of time between the bolts. After awhile I got David up to tell him of the impending storm. He took over and I tried to get some sleep, but after about an hour the boat was tossing in the swells so bad that I couldn’t sleep from all the things clinking around. Then I heard a big boom. I shot out of my salon cocoon I had made for myself to see what we hit. Turned out it was one of those floating dangerous beach logs. No harm except that it scared me to death. Well its now 7:00 am the skies are not looking good and the seas are very rough. So we decided that rather than fight this all day we would head to the nearest marina, which happened to be Newport, Oregon. At 9:30 we docked in the Newport Fuel Dock where a very large man with a very large rottwiler greeted us, who didn’t give a dam about any environmental regulations on his dock. I had to describe to him the cloth I wanted to sop up the dripping fuel nozzle. We then to proceeded to our slip, very weary from our rough night. After some much need showers we hit the sack for a 4 hour nap. Worked on some minor boat maintenance and watched a few movies. The Rogue River Brewery was right next to the marina and it sounded like they had a good pub with good food and David wanted to try it out so off we went. It turns out to be a pretty big dive with a very limited menu. We were sorely disappointed.
TUESDAY AUGUST 31, 1999
We awoke to a downpour, so we decided to sleep in. It quit raining and the sun came out so we finally got up at 9:00, took nice hot showers at the marina and then got ready for take off. I met some goofy lady in the marina who said Seattle had gotten 8 inches of hail that morning. Guess I’ll have to check that one at when I get home. This time we were setting out to stop in Crescent City California a good 24 hours away, so another all nighter. It turns out to be a beautiful day, but we are still motoring sailing down the coast. The ocean was very rough despite the fact that there was no wind. There were very large swells coming at us from the south and from the northwest which made for a very bumpy ride. Its hard to believe that a wall of water 9 feet tall can be coming at us and the next thing you know your sitting on top of it sliding down the back side. One or two times is fun but hours and hours is a little hard on the stomach. I was the closest I’ve ever come to throwing up from motion sickness. It doesn’t bother David at all. It doesn’t seem fair. I couldn’t go below deck at all. So I stayed up on watch. Once again I was entertained by the variety of seabirds. I now have some I call the torpedo birds. They have torpedo shaped bodies and fly so close to the water, up and down the swells and then dive right in the swell and out the backside. Another bird I’ve called the motorwing bird. This bird scoots across the water by his wings going around in circles. It’s one of the funniest things I’ve seen. While I was watching the sunset and being entertained by the birds I saw some very large birds off in the horizon. Then I saw several large spurts of water go up in the air. WHALES! The first time I’ve seen them in the Pacific Northwest. I watched them jump and play in the sunset for about 20 minutes. They must be California Grey whales. At ten David came up to relieve me and I went down to my little cocoon. That was the last I saw of this day.