<Dawn and I both wrote this post>
After staying in Neah Bay
for a few days we were itching to start heading south. Neah Bay isn’t the
most hospitable of towns to stay for more than a few days. We were
originally going to leave Neah Bay and head for San Francisco, but the
weather in Northern California was looking rough.
Aaron and Nicole on s/v Bella Star suggested
heading down to Newport, OR so we could at least bite off some of the sail down
and we thought that was a splendid idea.
We left Neah bay around 4pm in thick fog, light winds and low swell.
Knowing that we were going to need it we switched on the radar. Not too
shortly after that, in thick fog, we came port to port of a fishing
vessel squeaking by within one hundred yards of each other. I believe
that we were both equally surprised to see each other as we both veered
to starboard to keep clear. Immediately Dawn was screaming it wasn’t on
the radar! So we deduced that she was too close in our vicinity when we
switched on our radar for it to pick the fishing vessel. Lesson learned!
We spent the rest of the time calling out visible vessels to hone in the
radar. We hailed Bella Star who was about an hour ahead us on the VHF to
see if it was clear after the Straits. We were going to head back to
Neah Bay if it was foggy on the coast! They said it was clear to horizon
at Cape Flattery so we pressed on.
We rounded Cape Flattery,
which was absolutely stunningly beautiful. The view was spectacular with
high cliffs and strong imposing coast line. Once we hit our mark around
15 NM offshore we did the big turn left. Dawn marked the occasion by
signaling a left hand turn signal just to be safe. We were very excited
to finally be free of Puget Sound’s grasp. We headed offshore sailing
about 5-7 knots with the wind over the starboard quarter and the swell
not quite exactly on the beam, but enough so that every 4-5 minutes we
rolled from rail to rail which could have not be more uncomfortable.
Have you heard the fisherman’s rule: “The 7^th^ wave of the 7^th^ set”?
It’s true… very true. Just as the boat settles down after the first few
swells another set is lined up to toss you around. But we pressed on
through the night with triple reefed main and furled jib as we had to
put in the reefing lines anyway, and being new at the whole offshore
thing we decided to play it safe. We setup the
Hydrovane and sat back for a long
night.
Have we mentioned how much we love the
Hydrovane??? If not, we do…we are
in love with the Hydrovane. As the
night wore on the winds died but we stuck with the sailing. Pea took the
first watch to 0200, Dawn the 2nd at 0200-0600 and then Pea from
0600-1000. After morning broke we pretty much swapped turns taking naps
and kept an eye out for crab pots and fishing vessels. Oh yeah, did we
mention crab pots…yep, they suck. In 30 fathoms of water below the keel
we had two close calls!
The second day and night we sailed in light winds making 3-5 knots again
with a swell approaching the beam. We seemed to be just outside the
fishing areas, and we were hoping to stay well outside until south of
the Columbia River where we were planning to jibe in and start to make
some distance eastward heading in to Newport. At 0200, the start of
Dawn's watch we were well enough past Columbia River so we jibed east
and remained so until all the night watches were over.
With the day upon us and many miles to go and very light winds we
committed to motoring and made a rhumb line course for Newport about
70NM away. The motoring was pretty easy in increasingly fickle winds and
dying swell. The water was beginning to flatten out (thank god) and the
swells were more aft. The weather was calm and cloudy and the water took
on this thick glassy oily texture. It became difficult to differentiate
the horizon as it all looked the same mercury gray color. We took up one
of Dawn’s favorite past times and began referencing all of the sea birds
that were gracefully skimming along the very edges of each swell. We
spotted Black Footed Albatross
and Short-Tailed Albatross and several others throughout the evening.
Albatross are such beautifully elegant birds with long powerful thin
wings and short thick bodies and a nubby long beak.
Around sunset the sky darkened and fog rolled in, but it wasn't so thick
you couldn't see things close-by. It was just enough to make the things
in the distance lose their depth. So in this blur we were looking for
our first mark off the channel entrance to Yaquina Bay. Coastal Explorer
showed a Yellow light and our charts showed a Red & White light and Charlie’s Charts
(which we love) was calling it yellow! We started to get a little nervous
thinking that we missed the mark. Because the night was so calm, Dawn was able
to make out the whistle of the buoy! But where the hell is it? Oh, it was right
off our port side and guess what, it's WHITE!! In Coastal
Explore the light descriptions are
turned off by default (now fixed) and while the little navigational buoy
icon has a yellow light, the description is correct. Not a huge deal,
just caused us to do a fly by before we double checked our navigation
and headed in the channel.
Dawn’s anxiety level was building because we had difficulty seeing the
green buoys. There was this weird large orange light that seemed to be
causing our night vision to get out of wack. Dawn had her eyes peeled
with the help of the binoculars and soon realized that the orange glow
was a fishing vessel trying to leave the very channel that we were
trying to enter! After the fishing boat cleared and veered off to port
we were able to see the markers much clearer. At 11pm at night in pitch
dark with the lights of Newport behind it the channel looked about 20
feet wide. (We both remarked today that after having seen it in the
daylight it's about 50 yards or more wide but yet looked soooo very
small at night.) It’s definitely still tricky, as the currents rush
through at blinding speed. Dawn kept asking why I wasn’t slowing down,
we were doing 7.5kts with the engine at idle! After we went under the
Yaquina Bay Bridge, we had to make a very fast turn to starboard right in
front of marina breakwater at the green buoy in 7.5 knots of speed into the
Port of Newport Marina fuel dock. Patrick did an amazing job at handling that
turn under such conditions, even though they were probably close to
perfect for the seas and weather were calm. I can’t imagine trying to
navigate this at night in anything other than perfect conditions. Once
we tied up at the fuel dock, we exchanged a quick hello with Aaron and
Nicole from s/v Bella Star who were trying to tell us that we were
docked at the fuel dock and not in a slip. We told them we were needed
fuel and were going to pass out for night and handle it in the morning.
We quickly passed-out in our nice and warm cozy v-berth.
The trip was great, it taught us a lot about our boat and our systems
(more on that to come) and about ourselves. We both wore Scopace patches
for the entire trip. Pea was fine all day and then at twilight on the
first two nights he instantly got nauseous, puked and then was fine for
another 24 hours. Dawn was fine and was able to eat and quickly warm up
the stews and soups she froze for the trip. We both loved having Sirius
XM Satellite radio to keep us company and awake at night.
Deep Playa is on J dock (funny we left J dock behind us at Shilshole)
docked next to Bella Star and relaxing in
Newport for probably at least 5 days or so before we head down the
Oregon Coast. There is a nasty low over Northern California right now
and gale force warnings. We liked this short hop and thinking we'll
stick with this strategy if the bar conditions allow. Our next stop may
be Coos Bay
if the weather behaves.
