It had been six long months of getting ready for this race. It started out as a hair-brain idea to begin with. Oh we had always dreamed of going to sea. We even had a few friends that have been on this race before. But for us on board M’Lady, well you would have thought we were setting out on an around the world voyage. The race is called the Oregon Offshore Race. It runs from just off the coast of Astoria Oregon to Victoria Canada. For us the adventure started in Washington’s south Puget Sound where M’Lady my Islander 30’ MKII sailboat spent most of her time.

We really did it right. We went all through M’Lady getting her ready for the run. Replacing sails, reglassing bulkheads, we even put a new diesel engine in her. It had been nonstop work from the day that we had decided to run this race. Now you have to understand this Oregon Offshore race is for the big boys. You know the type. The ones with new boats, new hi-tech sails and of course blue blazers. We were a bunch of green horns that had trouble finishing an around the buoys race. Why, one time we got a call over the radio from the race committee asking if we where still actively racing. Do you believe it? Actively racing! How embarrassing, like we had stopped to do a little barbequing along the way. I guess we were so fare behind they thought we had sunk. This Oregon Offshore wasn’t for boats and crews like ours. It was for the ACTIVELY RACING CREWS. You may have said that we were out of our league. So we were really out to show the world that we could sail all the way from the South Puget Sound to the west coast of Oregon, race all the way back to Canada, and still live to talk about it. We must have been nuts.

There was going to be a crew of four delivering M’Lady to Oregon and a crew of four on board for the race. At that time a couple of the crew mates had real jobs and couldn’t make the round trip. So they swapped off. One would take the delivery trip down to Oregon and the other would race back to Canada. After that who knew how we would get M’Lady back to the sough Puget Sound? We would figure that out if we were still alive. Now let me introduce you to this crew. First off there’s Mike Williams. He’s a big studdly type that spends most of his time playing with elementary kids. You see he’s a part-time school principal and full time sailing bum. Then we have Bill Schneider. He’s the bearded salty looking type. Bill had a little trouble getting all his fingers to wave. Seems like every time he waved to me he could only muster up one finger, the middle one. Next we had Ralph Heinze. Now Ralph is one of those over educated under paid types. We really had to keep an eye on Ralph, he tended to go postal (homicidal) when there was no wind. Then there was Jim Oud. What can I say about him. He was MR. Hi-Tech. He brought all kinds of gadgets along. The one thing that really worried us about Jim is he seemed to have this fetish about duct tape. I mean every time something was to be fixed Jim was there with a role of duct tape in hand and this big eyed grin on his face. Kind of scary really. And of course there was myself. The skipper of this expedition. Tall dark and handsome. I was the level headed one of the bunch. Always in control. OK, OK, I was the one that happen to go in hock for the boat, and never received any respect.

As I stood on the finger pier watching the crew coming down the dock I realized that after all these preperations the one thing that we failed to plan was what we were going to take along. Each of the crew mates had two dock carts stacked to the point that they could hardly see over the top. None of us had ever been on a journey of magnitude before. We didn’t realize that M’Lady was only so big. That if we put all this stuff on the boat the water line would be up to the boom. What do you mean I can’t take my TV along, and what about the lawn chairs that I bought special for this trip? You never know when one might need this clam digging shovel. My wife made this hammock and I’m not leaving without it OK, OK, that’s it. We finally came to an agreement. We each could take what ever we could load on the boat in one arm. OK maybe two arms, but that’s it. And nobody can help you on board either. What ever you could carry on board without any help from anybody. In one trip, and if you fall over the side trying that’s your problem. As we backed away from the pier in Tyee Marina that evening we had enough stuff to get to Oregon, and to hold a garage sale once we got there.

We decided that we would split the crew in half. Two of us would take the watch for four hours and then the next two would take over for another four hours. And so it went, four hours on and four hours off. Since we were leaving in the evening we all were too excited to sleep. As it was we were all up on deck telling sea stories most of the night. Being the good skipper that I was I figured that I should be up anyway. You know keeping an eye on the crew, look for water traffic, watching for pirates. Bottom line, I was just too excited to even think about closing my eyes. So we sailed through the night and into the next day.. To get to the Pacific Ocean from the Washington’s south Puget Sound is quite a trip. For M’Lady it would be a 24 hour run. Winding our way through the islands of the Puget Sound and through the Straits Of Jaun De Fuca. By the time we were even close to seeing open ocean it was late in the afternoon of the second day. And by this time we were running dangerously low on beer. The discussion was made to stop in a small town call Port Angeles to restock. This would be our last chance to pick up what ever we needed, as if we didn’t already have enough junk on board. So into port it was.

At the northwest corner of Washington state is a point of land called Cape Flatterly. It is where the Straits of Jaun De Fuca empty out into the Pacific Ocean. This cape is known for it’s extremely rough sea’s. Just before the cape is a small inlet called Neah Bay. We had all agreed that as we approached Neah Bay we would make a decision on weither to go or not go for the cape. This would be based on the weather and conditions as we passed this small inlet. If the weather was too bad for us to pass or if we had a change of heart we could duck into this bay. It made us all feel a little better knowing that we would have an out if we needed it. The Pacific coast of Washington is extremely rugged. Once around the cape we wouldn’t have the luxury of ducking into a port or bay for protection. There just isn’t anywhere to hide. So this last out before the cape made us feel a little safer. As we passed Neah Bay the weather was building . The crew kept saying "I think it’s starting to get rough now". It didn’t seem to be more that we could handle. Especially since we had been dreaming of this trip for some time now and weren’t about to bail out at this point. But as we approached the cape the waves really started coming at us. M’Lady started to rock and roll. As the water pounded on the bow and the waves were pouring over us the decision was made to turn her around and run for the cover of Neah Bay. Just as we all agreed on heading for Neah Bay we heard this foreign accent come across the radio. "Ship off my port bow, Ship off my port bow, come in please". The crew all looked at each other, he must be talking to us. I grabbed the microphone and answered back. "This is the sailing vessel M’Lady, over". At that moment the voice on the other end of the radio came back to us with, "This is the cruise ship Regal Princess, I want to pass port to port, I say port to port". The first thing that passed through my mind was, Oh Great. Here we are popping around like a cork trying to get this thing turned around so we can run for cover and he wants to pass port to port. I grabbed the microphone and radioed back. "Roger sir, understand port to port". Our escape to more comfortable waters would have to wait. At the time I didn’t realize just how far this ship was out there. It must have been the better part of an hour before we even saw his running lights. So by the time we had passed port to port we were way off the coast. The light house at the end of Cape Flattery was shinning behind us. So much for our go no-go decisions. It had been made for us by a foreigner on a cruise ship.

Now you have to understand that by this time I had been awake for a little over thirty six hours. I was like a little kid that just didn’t want to go to bed for fear I would miss something. As M’Lady toasted and turned in the waters off Cape Flattery I decided that I need to use the head. Going below in a small sailboat underway in the Pacific is not an easy task, let alone trying to place one self on the head. With legs and arms pressed against the bulkheads to hold myself down. I think now I can honestly say that I had done my business while riding on a roller coaster. If you’ve ever spent much time underway the first thing you learn is to stay in the fresh air and if your feeling the least bit woozy don’t go below. As I came back up on deck everything was going around in circles, my stomach was in my throat and I could hardly see. I guess you can say that I had just shut down. About that time Bill my watch mate saw the condition I was in and poured me into my rack. The night was over for me.

The next morning I awoke to the sound of the water rushing by the hull. The sun was out and I was the only one in the rack. The entire crew was up on deck enjoying the ride. I guess they had let me sleep all night. So much for the four hours on and four hours off. As I crawled out on deck rubbing my eyes and trying to see through the suns glare my eye caught a glimpse of the waves rolling behind us. As I looked over at Ralph I saw him hold two fingers out about four feet above the deck as he said. "Welcome to roller land you must be this tall". Roller land was right. Up, down, up, down. M’Lady was really rolling through the waves. I had never seen anything like this in the inland waters before. But we weren’t in the inland waters anymore we were in the open Pacific. Just like the big boys. We were really doing it now.

Through out the next day the wave continued to build. As we made our way towards Astoria Oregon and the Columbia River inlet every other word out of the crews mouth was "it’s starting to get rough now". So it went four hours on and four hours off. We settled in to a routine. As one watch section would come off the next would go on. We always made sure that the next oncoming watch had plenty of boiled water and good’s to eat. Of course having things to eat was no problem on board M’Lady. We had a big bag of trail mix right out side the head door. So coming and going from the throne you could grab a hand full. It’s really a good thing the health department doesn’t make house calls at sea. I know we would have been put in some kind of quarantine. The crew lived off cup-a-soup instant soup mix and the dry hard "Death Rolls" as the crew called them, that Bills wife had provided for us. I was never really sure if she was trying to collect on Bill's insurance policy or if she thought that we really needed those things on board.. Four hours on, four hours off. We made our way down the Washington coast line.

In order to sail into Astoria Oregon you have to sail up the Columbia River. Where the river empties into the Pacific Ocean is known as the Columbia River Bar. Another of the roughest waters on the west coast of the US. M’Lady would be passing not only Washington’s Cape Flattery but also the Columbia River Bar. As the sun started to set on the third day out I figured that our arrival time at the Columbia River Bar would be about four in the morning. No buddy on our crew had ever been across this bar before. Heck, only one of us had even been in open ocean. That was Ralph, and the rumor is that the last time Ralph was out at sea he went a little wacko and thought he’d talked to Elvis. I didn’t really treasure the idea of crossing this bar at night. I decided that I would make a call to the Coast Guard station at the opening to the Columbia River asking them for instructions on crossing the river bar. They told me to give them a call when we arrived and that they would come out and show us across. So a date was made to call them about four the next morning. As it was we arrived at the point of calling the Coast Guard about two hours early so being the wise and all knowing skipper that I was I decided to turn M’Lady around and sail back towards the north for one hour then spin her around again and sail back to the point we were, putting us at this same location at four in the morning. The time that we had arranged to call the Coast Guard. Well, there was one little thing wrong with this plan. The weather and waves had really built up by this time and they were coming out of the south. The one hour sail to the north turned out to be a four hour sail back against the weather to the south. By the time we arrived back at the point where we were to contact the Coast Guard it was going on seven in the morning. Now I thought I was a brave old salt. But you should have seen those waves that M’Lady was rolling down. There was two other boats within sight of us. One being an Evergreen freighter and one being a shrimp boat. As M’Lady would ride up and down these waves the other vessels would totally disappear from sight. As I called the Coast Guard to let them know that we had arrived they sounded excited. They had wondered what had become of us. I guess like the race committee that had ask us if we were actively racing. They too had thought we had sunk.

 Now this was Mothers Day morning and as we were following the Coast Guard across the Columbia River Bar I decided to see if my cell phone could get a signal. I thought I would call and wish my mother a happy Mothers Day. As we rolled down those enormous seas off the coast of Oregon my Mother kept asking me what that roaring noise was, and where did I say I was calling from? Never mind Mom, hope you have a nice day. I never did hear the end of that. The crew to this day still ask me why I chose the one moment when M’Lady was rolling down the largest waves she had ever seen to call my mother. As we tied M’Lady up to the dock in front of the Red Lyon Hotel in Astoria Oregon the entire crew was glad to be on land again. It seemed so unnatural to have M’Lady so still. Not to be rolling like she had been just moments before. You should have seen us. We walked about with our chests puffed out like the boys with the blue blazers. We were so proud of the fact that we had set out to deliver M'lady to Oregon for this Offshore Race and were still alive to talk about it. You would have thought that we had just crossed the Pacific. For us the feeling was the same.