September 13, 2007

We spent from August 27^th to September 19^th – what a waste, but we had many visitors that we totally enjoyed. First weekend Lynne, Greg, Ash and Austin came to visit. We went to lunch and she helped me buy groceries to stock up again as she had a car! Groceries are heavy!  Greg rowed the other kids and Papa around the marina in our dinghy. Ashley helped me clean the electrical cord, which is a painstaking job! We had a short but wonderful visit.

Wendy B. came for a visit with one of David’s relatives that were visiting, it was short as they were going shopping in Port Townsend, but it is always great to see a familiar face.  Right after they left Julie, Birk, Jayla and Darren came to visit. Another short visit but it was good to hug my kids again! And they needed a break from the Austin Chase Café. They left and Karin and Alan showed up for the night! Alan went diving to check out the boat bottom since we had hit a rock a few weeks ago. He found that a chunk of the keel the size of his fist was missing, can’t believe it, but we did hit hard even a slow speed! He replaced our zincs again – where do those things go?  We took pictures of each other that we needed to forward to the Baja Ha Ha race folks so they could print their bios of the racers. We had a great time!

Wendy and David came to rescue us from our boredom of waiting for the manifold and took us to see the movie “Deep Water” – about single handed, around the world sailors – a race! Now I am sure I never need to see Cape Horn from the water!  We enjoyed pizza together and then they dropped us off at the boat, only to return in the morning. David wanted to take us to the airport to watch planes take off over breakfast! We enjoyed seeing Marrowstone, David’ place on the water, terrific view! They took us back to the boat after a wonderful day, an escape from boat problems!

Mark and Yvonne came for a visit on Saturday afternoon until Sunday. Mark had pneumonia and still came. He said he felt fine! Hum? They brought us new deck chairs, they didn’t even know that last week one of our beach chairs, the fabric split right down the middle! I am sure it was rotten fabric as opposed to me gaining weight J They also brought us some fresh garden vegetables.  While they were visiting we saw a baby seal that appeared to be sick on the dock. He was so cute! Earlier in the week we heard a splash and looked up and saw 3 sea otters. At first I thought they looked so cute, but when I really saw them out of the water, they look just like big rats! 

Mark took Mike to the auto parts store and he was able to get the antifreeze and oil we needed. And they enjoyed shopping together.  Later we cooked up some of the ‘emergency’ food that Mark thought we should buy.  We thought they should know what it was like. We cooked corn chowder and if you added salt and pepper it wasn’t too bad.

September 18, 2007

We received the manifold today and Mike gets it installed.  The company failed to send the gaskets we needed, but we were fortunate there was a gasket kit on the boat! The week before Mike discovered the heat exchanger was leaking too and had to buy one of those parts too!. Money, Money, Money! I did laundry and bought groceries, so we would be ready to go! And I cooked up some red curry sauce, yum! And a ham hock and beans. It makes it so much easier once under sail on the high seas to just have to heat food. 

We walked to Safeway, since they just put in wi fi to send an email to friends and family saying we were leaving.

September 19, 2007

Okay, it is 6:30 AM wearing our rain gear and we are on our way to the high seas! I didn’t know how high! And we forgot to put on our rain suits, I guess after 3 weeks ashore you just forget things like that. Our plan was to go to Neah Bay, 80 nm, since we had been there before we felt we could arrive at dark and throw out an anchor, which is exactly what we did.

September 20, 2007

We can’t leave without fuel and the fuel dock doesn’t open until 8:30, thus our plan to leave. The dock was managed by a mini mart quite a ways from the pump, over a very rickety dock. There was an elderly gentleman that was slowly making his way to turn on the pumps for us and since I had to go ashore to pay I know why he was so slow, the rickety dock! We didn’t get underway until 9:30 and once again going out to the ocean was not really a big deal.  What became somewhat obnoxious were the sea swells, they rolled the boat 25 degrees back and forth! You had to prop yourself in place in order to not fall off your seat all day long.  We decided to try our first all night sail.  Mike and I were going to take turns sleeping a couple of hours at a time but it was impossible to stay on the bench in the rollers. At 10 PM and alarm went off on the engine, Mike ran below and found the engine was low on water and over heated. We turned off the engine and there was a nice breeze, so we sailed at around 6 knots until 2:30 AM. Then we had to start the engine again. We added about 1 cup of water every 15 minutes until we arrived in Astoria. What a long night! 

September 21, 2007

We arrived at the Columbia River Bar at the perfect time to go to Astoria, high slack.  That was God’s favor as the currents around the area were so strong that we couldn’t just drift to wait it out! We arrived at Astoria Marina and got fuel and a slip, took showers and went to bed at 5:30 PM, we were so tired!

September 22,2007

Today Mike has to fix the water pump.  Alan told Mike that if he ran fresh water with no antifreeze the pump would leak and he was right.  Mike looks for parts on the boat and amazing enough we had everything he needs to fix this problem.  Good thing too, I called sister Kathy and she said she couldn’t come to help us! Oh well, we didn’t expect her too just called to see if she would if we needed her J. 

We were so excited when we turned on our computer, Mike was looking at our document :Boat inventory” to see if we had parts and discovered we had a wireless connection to the Red Lion Inn, so I sat in my bathrobe all day and did email! Later I did a load of laundry and made dinner.  And before bed, planned our sail to Newport another 20 plus hour sail.

September 23, 2007

It was a beautiful sunny morning. We can’t leave until 9:30 as we need to arrive at the bar at high tide.  We both took some motion pills, as things seem to have gotten rougher.  We saw quite a few whales while we were on our way to New Port. We worked on the test questions for our ham radio license – boring! We tired to take turns and sleep and again it seemed impossible! Tonight the depth sounder started reading all weird, it read -0- or .9 or 2.5 in depths that were 50+ fathoms. It may need cleaned. At 2:30 in the morning the coast guard circles above our boat in a helicopter and shines his flood lights in our boat, they did this 2 times, pretty scary. We turned on the VHF to see if they were trying to communicate with us and nothing. Then they flew away and kept searching the waters. Later we heard the coast guard on the radio saying for all mariners to contact them if we saw a boat shoot off flares, which had been reported earlier!  We were going to arrive early to our next destination so we decided to leave on our anchor light, shut off the engine and go inside to warm up and sleep for about 3 hours. I wasn’t sure we should do that but was so tired decided to go with it.

September 24, 2007

Mike woke up at 7AM and said we should have coffee and get going. It was beautiful and sunny, so we decided to go for Coos Bay instead – we will see how it goes!  Well the day started off with the engine not accelerating when you turned up the gas – now what? So out comes the manual again – decided maybe could be the fuel injectors that could be clogged. Mike had some fuel cleaner he put in the diesel, so we will see.  The wind came up a bit so Mike put up the main sail with a preventer and he is considering raising the head sail.  We studied a little more on the ham radio stuff, ugh! After lunch Mike decided to put up the head sail, doing so he lost his favorite hat. L. Now the stairs to the cabin came loose – now what! 

We sailed for 18 hours straight on a beam reach and down wind. We only changed the sail once, we jibed the main on purpose, to help us sail closer to shore. We maintained speeds of 6 -9 knots – wow!  We tired to sleep but couldn’t. Down below it sounded like the boat was ripping apart – it wasn’t though, thank you Jesus!  Once we reached Coos Bay, it was early morning, beautiful and sunny and great wind,,, So we decided to keep going.

September 25, 2007

We are headed to Cresent City, but just before sun up we decided we needed to start the engine, we needed to charge the batteries and run the fridge etc.  Mike turn the key in the ignition and nothing. So he went below and switched to battery bank 2, still nothing. When the batteries were switched it shut off power for just a minute, the computer kept running but “auto pilot” shut off and quite steering, we didn’t realize it. This allowed the boat to sail off course and we had an accidental jibe. The boom did not go all the way across as we had a preventer but the connection point from the mast to the boom vang broke. That is 8 bolts sheered off – unbelievable! It sounded like the whole boom broke off and it seemed like something flew off the boat, but we never discovered anything missing. This is all happening while it is pitch black out, the winds are gusting to 25 knots and we are very tired!  I turned the boat into the wind and Mike tired dropping  the sails, they wouldn’t completely drop and he had to climb up on the winch and pull them down with one hand, while holding himself up with the other hand, all the while attached to the jack lines. Then he pulled in the boom. Now he is exhausted but he has to get the engine started. He goes below and starts hunting for jumper cables, destroying the inside of the boat, throwing everything thing out of each cubby hole. Finally he can’t think of any more places they could be, so he lets Cindy try. She found them in the first place she looked – thank you Jesus!  Now Mike jumps the two battery banks together, and use those to start the generator and use those to start the engine, now we have engine power! WE decide not to sail we are too tired! Auto was back to steering, Cindy made breakfast and Mike took a breath.

We reached St. Georges reef, Mike thought we should see a buoy that marked the entrance to Cresent City Marina at this point. We hunted for the buoy  for quite a while and then realized Mike put in the wrong coordinate for Longitude on the chart.  We reached the latitude mark and had to go 12 miles to longitude where we had 8 to 10 foot trailing seas.  Auto was steering while Mike went below to the head and while he was below the boat was hit from a beam and rolled 30+ degrees, I was sure it was 40 degrees, but whatever it was not my idea of fun!  Mike was up in a flash to take over the helm.  Mike learned from auto how to correct for large swells by not over steering, so he stayed perfectly on course!  Cindy called the Coast Guard and asked about the conditions at the Cresent City entrance to the marina. They seemed to think we had calm seas since it was calm at the entrance, wrong! The Coast Guard said call them back if we need them and I told them to pray for our safe arrival.  The winds and seas calmed a lot by the time we arrived and now our only issue was to make it to the dock without going aground, this is a very shallow bay. There was an open end tie and we took it. So happy to be tied to a stable dock.  We decided to walk to a restaurant for dinner before heading to bed. The weather was nice and warm, the marina was more of a fishing port, the best thing was it was safe!

September 26, 2007

This morning there was a note from the security guard saying we had taken “illegal moorage”. We had tried to contact the harbormaster all day yesterday with no response. I just called them and gave them my credit card number and they were fine! While I cleaned up Mike walked to the marine store to buy parts to fix the boom vang, but came back with a fishing pole and some of that fabric you can set things on and they normally won’t slide across the table when you heel over (of course that depends on how far you heel)! Now we need to get going, it is quite late, however it feels so good to sit in the sun!  We left at 3 PM and started out sailing but the wind died quickly. So we motored.  Almost to Shelter Cove we decided we needed to check our fuel supply and realized we had to go to shore as we did not have enough fuel to make it to the next port. Charlies Charts said Shelter Cove had fuel and it was quite a hike, what does that mean? We have no choice, we have to go, there is not enough fuel or wind to go farther.  Heading to the cove the fog rolls in, we can’t see anything, still we have to go! We find the buoys on the chart and when we arrive the fog lifts just enough to see a boat in front of us and buoys. We tied to a buoy and were just taking a deep breath and a fisherman drives by and says that buoy won’t hold your boat, you have to move! Oh Great!  So we let the buoy go and there is another one near us, but it looks weird and I am not sure how to snag it, finally I get it hooked and I need Mike’s help, he runs forward but forgets to put the engine in neutral, it is in reverse and I can’t hold the buoy and I even dropped the ‘buoy hook’ which I love, it makes getting buoys so easy. Mike runs back puts the engine in neutral runs up to the bow and is able to rescue the buoy and the hook! It was like a 3 ring circus and I am sure everyone was watching. Now we have to put the dinghy in the water and row ashore, the shore is rough with surf but Mike manages just fun, I told him I can’t get my only tennis shoes wet so I couldn’t be much help!  We walk up a steep long ramp only to discover there is no fuel there, the closest would be 3 miles away. Let me see, carry 60 pounds of diesel 3 miles, no way!  I go into a deli and ask the waitress if she knows anyone to drive us. She calls her mom and begs her saying these people are totally stranded, which we were! She drives us to the market that sells diesel and when we are there my debit card won’t work and they don’t take credit cards. I had thought to bring a check, just in case, but since we are out of state I wasn’t sure if they would take or not.  She said we looked honest and took our check – thank you Jesus!  The gal drives us back to the deli and on the way starts talking about her 18 year old daughter, so we had a great chat and she was so appreciative. There wasn’t anyone with that experience she could talk to, so we felt it was meant to be!  We carry 60 pounds of diesel down the long ramp, put it in the dinghy and let the surf carry us off the shore, and Mike rows back to the boat. Lifting the diesel up to the deck of the boat was difficult too! But we did it and poured it in the tank.

We planned our next port, Fort Bragg and we had to arrive when they opened, it would takee 6 -7 hours so we got up at 2:30 AM and motored to Fort Bragg.

September 28, 2007

We ate breakfast and headed out in the dark, following our electronic track, it wasn’t too cold once we were under way. The weather changed so much today, started out dark but clear, then foggy then sunny.  WE arrived at Fort Bragg and filled up the diesel tanks and jerry cans. We are not going to run out again! Now it is raining! We are heading to Bodega Bay, should get there by midnight.  Mike decided to take a nap and went below saying he was  going to build me a warm fire. The winds pick up after an hour or so and Mike comes back up and we decide to sail. We started out with the head sail reefed. Later Mike wanted put up the main, but the weather reports say there could be 30 knot winds, all I could think about is having to go up front to drop the sails in the strong winds. I told Mike we should just leave the head sail, then we could reef it or take it down easier and start the engine it the weather warranted that tact.  The winds did pick up to the point of uncomfortable, they may have actually really forecast the correct weather this time.  Mike said if I would have let him put up the main we could ‘hove to’ but now we can’t. The winds reached 35 knots and who knows how high the seas were, we really rolled a lot but it was so dark we couldn’t see a thing. We reach speeds of 12.2 knots even on a ‘postage’ size sail as Mike puts it. Although I would rather not do it again!  I was counting down the miles to go, we need sleep and to be safe.  We can’t seem to find the correct buoy numbers but we find 2 buoys that must be right. We go for it and find the depth dropping from 3 fathoms to 1 fathom, Mike knows something is terribly wrong and turns around quickly just in time to miss grounding on the sandy beach. God’s favor again!  So we don’t know where to go, but we can’t go there! We are so tired! Mike looks at the chart and finds Drakes Bay, I remember that was on Charlies charts too, but now I am so afraid to go anywhere in the dark.  But we head for it on rolling seas that send chills up me, pray without ceasing!  WE make it to the bay and try to throw out an anchor, but from all the rolling the chain is tangled below. Mike gets it fixed and throws it out again, it doesn’t hook, we decide on a different spot, it hooks and we go to bed at 6AM. 

September 29, 2007

It is 10AM, we woke up after only 4 hours sleep. Mike has to fix the engine again. Yesterday and last night all it did was cut out, we were not sure in the storm if it would last but thank you Jesus it did! It would be impossible to anchor without it!  Mike bleeds that fuel line after researching possible problems. It seems to do the trick. But now it is too late to hit the tide to continue to SF. We feel so bad as Janis and John are expecting us!

‘September 30, 2007

We woke up at 6AM prepared to leave at 7 AM for San Francisco/ Golden Gate Bridge here we come! It was sunny and windy so we raised the head sail.  It wasn’t too long and the wind died, so we motored under the bridge, that was probably easier since the bay was so busy.  We found empty dock space at Schoonmaker Marina in Sausalito at $50. which we thought was expensive. The Harbor Master told us to prepare for sticker shock in LA if we thought that was bad. As it turned out he was wrong! The marina was beautiful with a little sandy beach, shopping nearby.  We called Janis and she was on her way down. She was hoping to see us go under the Golden Gate Bridge but we made better time than expected. We waved as we went under just in case she was there. When she did arrive she had a big surprise, she had arranged a little family reunion. Al and Hermoyne had flown in and they all met us at the dock! What a great surprise! Unfortunately brother Lael could not join us too!

Janis treated me like a princess! I got to take a bubble bath and soak! It wasn’t timed or anything. And we had the most comfortable bed! It was all wonderful!

We all went out to Mexican dinner and really enjoyed ourselves!

October 1 2007

We spent the day visiting and just enjoying each others company. Janis let us use her car and we went back to the marina as we had to move our boat to another spot. Had a glass of wine sitting in the sun, it was so warm and beautiful! We took our laundry back to the house and got that all done.

We had a birthday dinner and celebrated Janis and Hermoyne’s birthdays as they were in September and Al and John’s birthdays were coming up in October. Janis and John created and excellent dinner and we had cake too! Later we went outside with our blankets to Jan’s ‘outside living room’ with a wonderful fire place, lots of candles and we all talked until midnight!

October 2, 2007

The next day was beautiful as well, so we went on a walk around the neighborhood, then went out to a Mexican lunch. We like Mexican, can you tell? We toured the town, had ice cream and then had to take the Helton’s to the airport! Sad to see them leave! We met Cam at sailing club, unfortunately we didn’t see him sail but we did see the boat he is the skipper on and that was fun! He drove us home as he is learning to drive a car too! We had another fun evening.

October 3, 2007

We barrowed Janis’ car again and this time we went to Costco to stock up again. And then we invited the Chittick’s to dinner.  It gave them a little taste of life on a sailboat.  Cam climbed the mast to the spreader bar, we were going to have races but it got too dark. We enjoyed doing a crossword puzzle with John before bed!

October 4, 2007

Now it is time to get going, moving on closer to San Diego! We decided to anchor out since it was so expensive. However this was poor timing. The wind was blowing so hard. It was blowing the boat away from the dock and I could not untie the boat and get on quick enough, so Mike got on and had to come back for me. Then we had to get fuel, as we got close to the fuel dock the depth of water was getting so shallow we were really concerned. But we made it to the dock and as we did the Blue Angels flew over. Thank goodness the attendant at the dock was strong because of the winds. We got diesel and went off in search of deeper water to anchor for the night. We couldn’t find much deeper water and were really uncomfortable but there wasn’t much we could do. The winds were blowing 26 knots over night! We wished we were at the dock now!

October 5 2007

 We left SF at high slack early morning following the channel buoys out of the bay. As we were half way out two ships were coming, but there was plenty of room, so no worry. That was before the stern wave of one ship hit us and rolled our boat more than 40 degrees. My basil plant broke, pottery and soil everywhere, what a bummer! Other than that we were fine.  After we recovered from the wave our engine decided to quit. So there was wind and we decided to sail most of the way to Half Moon Bay before we would try to start it again. We figured out that everytime the boat rolls 40 or so degrees, air gets in the fuel line and the engine cuts out or dies. We arrived at Half Moon Bay early and had to throw the anchor out 5 times before it hooked. High winds were expected tonight so we wanted to be sure everything was secure before we bunked for the night.

October 6, 2007

We left the bay at 7AM, as we needed to go 70 miles before dark to Monterey, CA.We had approximately 8 foot swells leaving the bay.  We ended up following the boat that had anchored next to us, Pacific Wind. Mike called them on the radio and found that they were going to the Baja Ha Ha too and were headed for Monterey for the night as well.   On the way to Monterey we saw more seals than you can believe all in groups of ten or more and they were acting like dolphins. We saw some whales too.  When we arrived there were lots of boats sailing in the bay. The weather was sunny, windy and warm. There was a breakwater that had seals piled on it all barking very loud, and stink you wouldn’t believe it!  We got a slip and went out to dinner with Steve and Lori from Pacific Wind, there boat is a 43’ Scepter, they are the ones we were following. We had a great time and they filled us in on Baja stuff as they went the year before too.

October 7, 2007

The docks at Monterey all had little fences around them, a big tripping hazard while docking, but the seals and otters are such a problem the fence like structures help keep them at bay. We barrowed Lori’s Charlie’s Charts and wrote down phone numbers for marina’s and other misc. notes as she had a more current version. I also copied all the info on the Channel Islands, as we had no info on those. While I was doing the updates Mike made breakfast and did the dishes, what a good guy!

We left Monterey and were heading to San Luis Obispo, which meant we would be sailing all night. We planned to arrive in the morning, however we arrived just before sunup and had to drift in some rather large rollers until we could see to enter the harbor.  We dropped the anchor in the bay, it was so warm! However the seals were on the breakwater at this harbor too and smelled just as bad. We watched a seal try to jump on to a fishing boat and after awhile, he actually did!  We found out that when one gets on all the others come and at times have sunk the boat. Yikes!

October 8, 2007

We decided to leave at 3AM but the weather report was not good, so we went back to sleep. Mike spent the day doing repairs on the boat, they are never ending. And I created a spreadsheet of our cruising budget and typed our crew list in Spanish. Later we went to get fuel, the fuel dock was being repaired and they had a make shift one that was a bear to tie to. It was made for commercial boats and was up against pilings with one little rope to tie to. There was a fisherman on the dock that came to our rescue (God sent an angel) or we would have never made it. He wanted to crew to Mexico, he owns fishing vessel Dancing Bear. The fuel attendant forgot to give us our credit card back and he was the one that noticed it. Thank goodness!

We found out we can’t take meat into Mexico so I cooked up a bag of chicken so it would be easy to use underway.

October 9, 2007

We got up and left at 2AM, it was cold, wet and dark but we are headed for Santa Barbara.  We first had to get around Pt Conception, which sounds a lot like Cape Scott, it is also called the “Pacific Horn” but once again it was uneventful. Thank you Jesus!  We spent a sleepless night in Santa Barbara, there were no slips available and the only anchorage was in unprotected waters. We put out 7 to 1 scope and rock and rolled until 2AM when we decided it was time to move on.

October 10, 2007

Somewhere I lost a day.

October 11, 2007

It was a dark but clear morning and easy to see our way out of the anchorage, actually there were 8 oil rigs lit up like Christmas trees, so they helped us find our way.  Our next port is Marina Del Rey, they do not take reservations for slips but there were some available when we called. We are crossing our fingers that we can tie up!  We arrived at the breakwater and there were no seals in sight, just pelicans covered the breakwater. At first we thought this was good but when the wind blew our way the smell was just as bad – Yuk! The good thing is we got a slip, and at only $24/night, the guy at SF was wrong about the price of slips in LA and this was a beautiful marina, nice docks and showers too.  We called Gary B. Mikes high school buddy and made arrangements for Friday and Saturday. Then watched my favorite ‘Survivor’ and went to bed

October 12, 2007

We spent all morning cleaning the boat so Gary wouldn’t see our mess that we make when underway. He picked us up about 2PM and drove us to see his little airplane and then on to meet up with his family Jeannie and daughter Brianna. We went out for Mexican dinner, which was great.  We really enjoyed their company!

October 13 2007

We basically spent a lazy day at Gary’s. I took a shower, which was great to not have to hurry and turn the water off/ Later I went with Jeanne to get her hair done and ended up getting my bangs trimmed. We also were able to catch up on our emails etc. Gary talked us into spending another night and promised to take us back to the boat early in the morning. He thought the traffic would be better Sunday morning.

October 14, 2007

Gary made everyone breakfast and then took us back to the boat.  Jeanne insisted on giving us a care package of rice and juice. She also let us do our laundry which is very helpful. Brianna let us use her bedroom, we had twin beds. All in all they treated us excellent and we had a really nice visit.

We stayed another night in the marina because it was really too late to get anywhere.

October 15, 2007

We left the next morning first for fuel dock where the diesel started coming out of the breather hole before the tanks were filled, so Mike had to fuel very slowly!  We were now headed for Newport, CA. We had to motor all the way. Once we got to Newport we tied to mooring balls at the bow and stern. The lines were the yuckiest and slimiest I had ever seen! And I had to touch them while Mike drove the boat, I think this was a little unfair! Actually Mike ended up touching them too!  We stayed 2 nights since it was only $5/night and I spent the day reading a book.

October 16, 2007

Mike did maintenance on the boat and I read. We planned another 2:30AM departure for San Diego.

October 17, 2007

We left at 2:30AM as planned and it was very nice, that is until we reached the end of the channel and now in unprotected waters.  The seas were extremely rolly with large swells for hours! Not fun. Then to add to it, the weather was so rainy we had to put on rain suits. When we arrived at San Diego it all changed. The sun came out and there were a lot of boats sailing in the bay. We followed the buoys in to the Harbor Police Dock where we had God’s favor again, we got the last slip and it was only $157 for 10 nights, and God’s favor again, you can only stay 10 days and then you have to leave, in this case we have to anchor out, only you can only anchor on the weekends and our 10 days ended on Saturday morning. We got a permit to anchor on Sat and Sun. night and the race starts on Monday morning! Talk about perfect!  As we docked we noticed all the Baja Ha Ha burgees, that was really fun and people introduced themselves right away.