To The Strait of Juan de Fuca
Monday, July 10th – We have a day off in Monterrey and take the opportunity to clean up the boat and do a little maintenance. The actual marina area where we have the boat isn’t all that great. Bathrooms are clean, but there’s nothing really nice. There is only one shower, and a laundry is non-existent. The views, though, around the harbor are beautiful, and we do find the historic district an interesting area to walk around. The area has been nicely restored, preserved and turned into a money-making tourist venue. It is fun to walk around in the evening.
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Later tonight, our friends, Bob Trenary and Jim Stanek, will arrive to join us for the trip north to Seattle. They each have far more sailing experience than we do. Bob, a good friend from Telluride, has been a boat owner for years and has done a number of ocean passages between New England and the Caribbean. Jim is a delivery skipper who has many thousands of miles and a number of ocean crossings. Bill has sailed with both of them before on a trip from Newport, Rhode Island to the British Virgin Islands.
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Tuesday, July 11th – The guys spend the day getting to know the boat and tidying up some loose repair ends. That’s The Captain up the 75-foot mast. A little later, Jim also heads up the mast to check things out. Bob will get his turn up there later.
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The original sailing plan was for us to leave tomorrow morning with our first stop being San Francisco where we would spend the night, have a good dinner in a nice restaurant and refuel for the next leg of the passage. However, our sailing guides advise us to go under the Golden Gate Bridge on a favorable tide. After a check of the tide tables, it is decided that the best way to do that is to have an early dinner and leave around 1900 today. We will sail overnight and enter San Francisco in the morning.
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We also decide to fuel before leaving Monterrey. Off we race to the fuel dock before they close at 1700. That done, we head off to Massaro Santos for a very good dinner.
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We set sail at 1915, and the four of us head off on the next stage of this journey. Weather is clear with 15 knots from the west, so we turn off the engine and sail. Before darkness falls this first night, it is decided to put in the first reef. Winds have strengthened to 20 knots right from the direction we need to go. Seas are choppy with a chaotic wave pattern, but The First Mate manages to get a good night’s rest with the 3 guys handling the watches. For that, she is thankful. Her job this leg of the passage is to feed the watch standers.
Seasickness Prevention Therapy: Bob Trenary has the cure! He starts by taking 2 Bonine a few hours before departure. Later, he takes a NoDoz to counter the sleepiness caused by the Bonine. Twenty four hours later, he takes one Bonine and keeps up the NoDoz as needed. A downer and an upper – Wow! The First Mate can do that! She follows this regime, and, to her delight, she does not feel any queasiness, not at all. She can honestly say she feels the best she has ever felt on a sailboat. This is great! Maybe she can handle this ocean-going sailing.
Wednesday, July 12th – We have been keeping an eye on the weather, as forecasts are changing. The latest forecast shows conditions north of San Francisco are acceptable for the next two days. Then, they get worse with quite strong headwinds. Our weather router advises us that if we go into San Francisco for one night, we will probably be stuck for 3 or 4 days. Unfortunately, our crew has some other commitments, and we can’t risk the delay.
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We are all disappointed, for sailing under the Golden Gate Bridge would have been a first for each of us. Sadly, we sail by San Francisco, and at 0930, we can just barely discern the Golden Gate Bridge over 15nm far away in the distance. There is going to be no picture of us on Avante sailing under the Golden Gate Bridge. On the right side of this photo, one of the uprights of the Golden Gate Bridge can just barely be seen if you look really hard!
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On we motorsail north up the California coast. Jim is amazed to see that there is any part of California free of development. It honestly is surprising to realize that there are vast stretches of untouched coastline especially if one’s concept of California comes from looking out the airplane window while flying into Los Angeles. Though the seas are rough, we do manage to have a quiet, sit down dinner that evening.
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Thursday, July 13th – This proves to be a most frustrating day, for it seems the whole, long day is spent slowly rounding Cape Mendocino. As we approach the cape, winds are 20 to 25 knots on the nose. They are blowing right down the coast, and we are slogging up the coast with wind and current against us and sometimes not able to make much more than 4 to 4.5 knots over the ground, despite our running the engine at 2750 rpm, much higher than our normal cruising setting. Are we ever going to pass this point?
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During a rare somewhat calm spell, the guys pump fuel from two plastic jugs into the main fuel tanks. It turns out to be a fairly painless process with Bob’s “South American Blow Job” method of creating a siphon to transfer the fuel from the jug into the main tank. A long hose that reaches almost to the bottom of the fuel container is inserted into the container. A short hose is held in place as towels are stuffed around the opening to seal off the container. The other end of the long hose is put into the fuel tank. Then one blows as hard as one can into the short hose, and the increased pressure in the jug causes the diesel to go up the long hose and down into the tank. Voilà! Bob takes no credit for the tactic. After years of sucking on a hose to create a siphon, often ending up with an mouthful of fuel as a result, he just recently learned this technique from a South American boat worker in Equador last winter. Bob’s sailing plans are to continue sailing his boat, S/V Homefree, down South America and to round Cape Horn next winter.
Later that afternoon, during The Captain’s watch, winds start clocking in at over 25 knots with strong gusts up to 36. The First Mate learns that over 35 knots qualifies as gale force winds. She wonders to The Captain whether the boat isn’t being overpowered and should we put in another reef? To her untrained mind, the boat is really heeling over and seems slow to recover. Finally, he agrees to wake Jim, whose watch is to start shortly, for help with reefing the sail. The reefing is accomplished, but the temporary rope fix replacing the boomvang breaks in the process. We are bouncing wildly by then with waves crashing over our decks. Jim wants to go up and fix the thing, but he is argued out of it. The boomvang is not all that critical in our current sail configuration. Winds soon calm a bit and so does the sea. It turns out that the stronger winds were caused by being funneled down a ravine between hills on land. Once we pass that ravine, everything improves immensely. We still have several hours to go to round this Cape, but our spirits are rising with the improving weather. The sun comes out, and everything becomes quite pleasant. Even so, it was 1800 before we rounded Cape Mendocino and left it in our wake. The irony is that Point Conception, which had generated such concern, had proved to be a non-event, and Cape Mendocino, which we hadn’t really worried about, proved far more ferocious and took much longer to clear.
With the cape rounded, we all feel that a bottle of wine is called for to celebrate the event. Bob shows us the way to fittingly end a bottle of wine: Fill it with sea water, lift it high and intone, “Sand to glass. Glass to sand. This wine bottle’s made its very last stand.” And, with ceremony, drop the bottle into the ocean’s depths. We have a calm dinner of pasta and salad. The sky is clear and blue. We even watch the sun set. This is sailing – even if it is really motorsailing.
Friday, July 14th The calm seas continue all night with a bright full moon, too. The First Mate sits on deck until 2200 that night. It is beautiful – cold still, but beautiful. We had planned to make it as far as Coos Bay, Oregon before refueling, but we have been burning fuel faster than normal due to the higher power setting. Most sailboat fuel gauges are not very accurate, and there are not a lot of places along this coast where we can easily get fuel. So, we decide the prudent thing to do is to stop in Crescent City, California for fuel.
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We arrive in Crescent City at 0600 in the morning. The seas are calm, and there is patchy fog. It all looks soothingly pretty, but it is deceivingly calm and pretty, for we know there is a weather system creeping up on us from the south.
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The depths in Crescent City Harbor drop to under 9 feet at low tide today. That is a concern because Avante’s draft is almost 9 feet. With only 3 hours to go before that low point, we carefully motor up to the fuel dock which towers above us. No one is there at this hour, but there is a phone number posted. To our surprise and pleasure, an attendant not only answers the fuel dock phone number but tells us that someone will be down shortly. And he is! In less than 15 minutes in fact! We fill both of Avante’s fuel tanks and the 2 plastic 50-liter jugs. We are also able to top up the water tanks and throw away the garbage. Great stop! We are motoring out of there at 0730 and feeling very good about all that was accomplished, when Bob, in the process of raising the main, accidentally loses hold of the mainsail halyard. Unable to reach it, we helplessly watch it slowly ascend to the top of the mast! Now it is Bob’s turn to go up the mast. Bob slips into the bosun’s chair while Jim hoists him up the mast and The Captain holds the boat steady among all the lobster pots set around the harbor. In less the 15 minutes, we are underway again. What a team!
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The First Mate thought that Crescent City was quite pretty in that early morning light. To her surprise and delight, several of the photos she took came out quite nicely. The fuel dock was an ugly, old affair, but, with the right framing, the wooden supports provided an interesting foreground.
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She also likes one of an old fishing boat going out to sea with what likes like a white church on a small hill outside town. It would have felt so good to take an early morning hike out there – but such was not to be.
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Before the seas became too sloppy, we have a breakfast of bagels, lox and cream cheese with sliced onions and tomatoes. Cut up pears, oranges and bananas are added. Life is good!
We had been looking forward to the possibility of shore showers in Crescent City, and Bob was hankering for a cheese burger. Right now, however, we are very happy to be heading north in good weather. The latest forecast for Cape Mendocino calls for gale force winds starting tomorrow and lasting for 4 days. We are all glad we did not stop in San Francisco and have been able to stay ahead of the really bad weather. The rest of the day is a blessing with very comfortable motorsailing, making good time, sun shining, and whale and dolphin sightings. The best part is that we all did get showers, albeit on the boat. With clean bodies and clean clothes, we were feeling more human. Our passage is so calm that The First Mate even set up her computer in the salon to update this journal.
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The highlight of the day was a resounding “zing” when the fishing line took off. At first The Captain thinks it is just another kelp catch, but Bob quickly declares the pull a fish. A fish! Our first fish! Bob reels the fish in while The Captain holds the boat steady.
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Jim gaffs the fish to bring it aboard, and shortly thereafter, Bob pronounces it a Coho Salmon. Filets are cut up down in the galley. The First Mate has never had a fish so fresh! She cannot wait for the taste adventure. Bob offers to sauté the salmon. What a fantastic dinner, and there are two more fillets in the freezer as well as two end pieces which The First Mate plans to sauté tomorrow morning to accompany a Tortilla Española.
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What a great day! With the sun shining so brightly all day, The Captain even comments that he got too much sun today! With due ceremony, after our superb freshly-caught salmon dinner, we toss another bottle of wine into the sea.
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Up until now, The First Mate has bought into The Captain’s passage making mantra: If the weather is good, one keeps going. The idea is to get from A to B as quickly as possible because bad weather is out there to catch you if you do not. She learns a slightly different passage making concept from Bob. It is perfectly okay to slow down on passage, ease the sails and take the tilt out of the boat so that the cook below can do so in relative comfort with the boat on a more even keel. It is also okay to do the same at the end of the day to enjoy a cocktail hour and to continue the same so that a relatively calm dinner can be enjoyed by all. On a lengthy passage like ours, you may lose some time, but the gain in crew morale is worth it. She takes this all heart and will darn well make sure her Captain does, too!
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Saturday, July 15th The day starts out just great. Seas are a beautiful emerald green, and the sun is shining brightly. Those 2 salmon slices are grilled up, but the planned Tortilla Española turns into scrambled eggs with potatoes and onions. When the bigger burner on the stove top would not light, the small burner proved too small to evenly cook the omelet so The First Mate had to re-invent. The mix was stirred like scrambled eggs. However, it turns out just fine, and with the salmon, baked tomatoes and toast, it is great!
By early afternoon, our fine day has bit the dust. Winds have picked up, and an angry dark sea is developing. The main sail is reefed when the winds rise over 15 knots. Onward we motorsail with the jib and winds clocking in at 20 – 25 knots. Avante is slamming into the seas. The Captain advises that we are passing Cape Foulweather, Oregon. How well named! Unused to such turmoil, The First Mate finds the whole experience both extremely soporific and irritating. To save her from herself, she sleeps most of the day. Sleep probably is not the correct word. To be more figuratively correct, she levitated most of the day as her body was slammed up and down on the bunk. Thank goodness for the 4-inch tempur-pedic mattress topper she had insisted The Captain buy us back in San Diego.
Nobody is going to get a gourmet dinner tonight. A Costco frozen lasagna is stuck in the little oven with hopes that it will not burn before it us fully heated. We have several of these kinds of meals onboard for when passage conditions are rough. The lasagna turns out okay, but not great. Food it is, and with conditions as they are, all anybody wants to do is keep their stomach from grumbling with hunger.
Sunday, July 16th – Another rough night of sailing. Winds have continued to be 20 – 25 knots still on the nose. This was 10 knots over the forecasted windspeed. The First Mate is learning that she can’t always trust the forecasts. Fortunately, the weather improves some after daylight.
Our next planned stop is Neah Bay, Washington at the western end of the Strait of Juan de Fuca. Our progress has continued to be slow, making only 145 nm per day, and our estimated time of arrival at Neah Bay is now in the middle of the night. Not finding the prospect of going into an unknown harbor in the dark, we decide to detour into Gray’s Harbor and spend the night in Westport, Washington. The good news about this decision is that we can fall off the wind and really sail nicely for an hour. Bob takes the helm and does 9.99 knots in 15 – 18 knots of wind.
We pull into Westport in the late afternoon. The blue skies and calm water are a nice contrast to the rough seas and ugliness that we had endured the previous night. Our plans included topping up our fuel, but fueling proves a problem as the marina fuel dock is closed. With a huge fishing fleet pulling in after a local fishing contest, we are surprised that the fuel dock is closed. Don’t those fishing boats need to refuel? This time there is no sign with a number to call. Fortunately, a local gentleman offers to take us and our 2 plastic jugs to a near-by gas station in his truck. With relief, we are able to top up with enough fuel to take us to Victoria, Canada. Our friendly local also advises us that this lovely weather we are having is an anomaly, as the town’s nickname is “Wet Spot.”
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After 5 nights of sailing into the wind, the entire crew is more than ready for a quiet night. Luckily, we are able to get a slip for the night. The First Mate’s number one objective is to shower and wash her hair. Once done, she feels ready to take on the world again. Everyone else does same. Feeling refreshed and socially acceptable, we enjoy cocktails on the boat and then head off to a to find a good local restaurant. That proves harder than getting fuel. The best restaurant we can find serves us an extremely poor meal. It has no liquor license, so we can not even buy wine or beer to wash it down! The only plus is that the meal was inexpensive, but we all agree that our dinners on the boat were better than that greasy-spoon restaurant. The First Mate has found that she enjoys cooking on the boat. The creativity and ingenuity it takes to get a good meal out on a boat spurs her on.
Monday, July 17th – We sail out of the harbor at 0400, leaving early to go through the Strait of Juan de Fuca tonight and arrive in Victoria, Canada first thing on Tuesday. To everyone’s delight, it turns out to be a great day. We are in high spirits, as we sail along this wild and rugged Pacific Northwest coastline. With returned cell phone service, Jim finds out that he needs to return home earlier than planned. Bob calls his travel agent to explore options for getting Jim home. It is not going to work for him to fly out of Victoria, Canada sometime tomorrow after we have cleared customs and immigration, and we cannot make it all the way to Seattle in time. What else? Our next possible stop is Neah Bay, which is not exactly a transportation hub, but we can make it there before dark.
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We enjoy watching the Washington coast go by. There are very interesting rock formations just off the coast, and how The First Mate wishes she either had a better camera or that we could sail in closer. The weather warms up, too, allowing us all to take off a layer or two.
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Rounding Cape Flattery with its lighthouse out there on the rocks is a quiet, emotional moment for The First Mate. She is just so very glad to be there. Though she was hardly a major worker on this passage, still she had done it and held up well. “Not bad for this gal!” she thinks. With her first long passage done, she wonders how many more wait in store.
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Tuesday, July 18th – Neha Bay turns out to be a rather dismal, poor Indian reservation town with a shabby, dirty harbor. None of us want to put much time in here. Bob’s travel agent has arranged for them to take a local bus out that morning and then on to Seattle for flights home. We have a fun time speculating about what kind of adventure this is going to turn into, but the two of them look ready for it.
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We sadly, laughingly, and fondly see them off. Rounding Cape Flattery and sailing into the Strait of Juan de Fuca was the end of the hard part of this leg of our trip with all that slogging up the coast into the wind. We are really sorry that Bob and Jim will not get to enjoy the remaining fun part with us: sailing on to Victoria and Seattle, but as The First Mate is learning, nothing is ever fully set when it comes to sailing plans.