Off To san Francisco

We left Seattle after exploring a little and going to Pitt Street Market for 2 days. Were given a huge batch of crabs from someone on the dock so am learning to make crab cakes, crab and corn soup, crab sandwiches etc etc!!!

We then sailed to Port Angeles overnight then to Neah Bay where we spent a day readying the boat with life lines and the sea anchor and all other worst case scenario options. The weather forecast looked ok so with nervous trepidation we headed off into the Pacific. We kept waiting for the “big stuff” to hit but it wasn’t there. We had been warned to go 100 miles offshore to avoid the fog and bad weather closer in and be ready to freeze our buts off. Oh well our biggest problem was finding anything!!! We had various light winds and motor sailed for the first two days to keep our speed to 5knots. Finally on the 3^rd day we hoisted to spinnaker as the wind was right behind us and it worked well getting up to 7.2 knots. We also headed closer to shore as it didn’t seem necessary to so far out.

We definitely have personality issues with the “bobbing thing”, neither of us bob well!! I think we have both spent our lives doing, rather than watching, which has to translate to sailing too if we are to spend the next 3 years doing this. We have decided to buy more jerry cans for diesel before tackling the larger crossings!!

This one will be our longest voyage until we cross to the South Seas in May as between now and then each voyage is only a day or two.

Ken caught a great coho salmon on our first day out which became dinner for 4 nights-“fish again!!” He then hooked a LARGE tuna the next day but much to his chagrin and my relief, lost it.

We found the BIG SEAS at the end of the third day and headed back out to100 miles. We skidded along the waves which was a little disconcerting until we got used to it. The winds were gusting up to 34 knots but mostly 20 to 22. We are still getting confidence in ourselves and the boat and were probably reefed a little too much but we are learning. The watch schedule thing worked out as whoever was awake stayed up and we seemed to have our body clocks working together quite well. Ken is becoming a master at sail balance on a broad reach which seems to be our usual direction so far.

Our boat handled it all with ease and sleeping in the back cabin is so comfortable and smooth that it is easy to forget the waves. We had set up our chair inside so were able to do all of our “watches” inside very comfortably—almost felt like cheating—but I will take it!! Fortunately (although it hadn’t seemed so at the time) we had just replaced the autohelm so we had a brand new one and it performed admirably

We spent the time reading, doing sudoko and learning about all of the stuff on our fancy electronics which we hadn’t had time before and fine tuning them. I also did yoga and sewed some of the curtains I am making for the boat.

The weather forecast was deteriorating on the 5^th day and as we would have needed one more night at sea decided to go into Bodega Bay—50 miles north of San Francisco.

We arrived at dusk in a thick fog so had a little bit of a nerve racking experience anchoring among dozens of fishing boats using our radar—we are also thankful we had that as we already had 50 miles of fog before we got there.

We came alongside today for 2 nights to treat ourselves (US marinas are cheap compared with Canadian $20 a night) and cleaned up the boat. Were given enough fish for three more meals by a local fisherman—I feel fish is my future!!!

The next day the weather looked good so we then headed to San Francisco for the last day of our first voyage. We had a good sail with winds 15 to 20 knots (our boat’s favorite wind speed, a broad reach again) and it was exciting to glimpse the Golden Gate Bridge as it got closer. It was quite a thrill to sail under it in beautiful clear weather. We are now anchored in Richardson Bay, Sausalito where we have magnificent views of the city and will stay here for 2 weeks exploring before we venture further south.

All in all we didn’t have any major issues and I think we feel more able to meet whatever challenges await us.

Pictures to follow