Five Ports of Call and Sea Life Beyond Our Wildest Imagination

We were supposed to round Point Conception this morning.  The alarm went off at 6 am and Tony crawled out of bed to shut it off and turn on the VHF weather channel for a final check.  Point Conception can be a rotten place to be in the wrong conditions, and although we researched the weather a dozen times yesterday, it still needed to be confirmed before we would pull up anchor and head out this  morning.

Good thing we did check because the forecast was revised and now they were calling for 20 kts of wind off the point, with possible gusts to 30.  Oh…..man……too bad…..how horrible.....we’d better go back to bed and think about going tomorrow instead!  Snzzzzzzzzzzzz..... Snzzzzzzzzzz.........

At the much more reasonable hour of 10 am, we were woken by the repeated sound of WHOOSH right beside our bedroom porthole.  This time Kathy dragged herself out of bed to see what could be making such an annoying sound and reached the salon just in time to get a text from Tarpan, which was anchored near by. “Look outside!”  Surrounding the boat were dozens and dozens of dolphins and sea lions, all trying to outdo each other in the speed swimming and crazy-jumping-out-of-the-water department.  Man, what a sight.

We have been to some wonderful places and seen so much sea life since leaving San Francisco, almost 2 weeks ago:

1.  Halfmoon Bay - about 3 hours, mostly down wind sailing, from San Fran.  It was still cold and the anchorage was super windy, but we tucked into a corner and enjoyed some nice hiking up on the bluffs.

2.  Monterey -  We had a great sail to our next anchorage in Monterey.  The trip took about 10 hours and although we tried very hard to catch Tarpan (even to the extent of flying a full main long after a reef was called for!) we never quite made it. We wish that we hadn't given them quite as much of a head start!  The town itself is very touristy, but beautifully laid out and we had a nice lunch out on Cannery Row.

3.  Stillwater Cove - Just around the corner from Monterey and the only real BC-like anchorage we've stayed in for a while.  The yacht club had vacant mooring balls and we were allowed to pick one up for free, which was really nice.  We were excited to be there as it is just a long iron shot from the famous Pebble Beach Golf Course.  We had in mind a walk along the golf course and into the town of Carmel by the Sea.  Sounds great, but by mid morning the next day we had huge swell in the anchorage and some surfer style breaking waves developing.  So, in pretty quick order, all three boats in the cove high tailed it out of there.

4.  Morro Bay - Our first solo overnighter took us about 110 nm to Morro Bay, mostly under power and in the fog.  We kept about 4--7 nm offshore and really had nothing too exciting go on.  Kathy had a nice long chat with a tug driver in the wee hours of the morning, but it was more out of boredom than for any real navigational issues.  We arrived mid morning, very tired but feeling proud of ourselves, and anchored in the harbour just a stones throw from a sea lion rookery.  Not even their constant barking, “singing”, and growling could keep either of us awake!

5. Port of San Luis - Three hours of motoring in light winds brought us into PSL and Avila Beach, where we are still waiting for a weather break to carry on.  We believe it will be tomorrow.  This is another great Californian Beach area with fabulous kayaking, walking, town touring and ice cream (only Kathy's second cone on the entire trip....honest!).  The sea life here has blown us away, with sea lions, sea otters, harbour seals, dolphins, and numerous types of sea birds checking out Vakasa.  We'll be sorry to leave here but are looking forward to getting to the Channel Islands!

Vakasa from the bluffs at Half Moon Bay

Lunch out in Monterey...we believe that's Smokey Robinson behind Tony, playing guitar

In some pretty swanky company in Monterey

The local surf club (all 20 of them) just had to paddle between Vakasa's hulls

Breaking waves coming into Stillwater Cover...not sure where they got the "still" from

Rizzo, the wonder dog, checking out the sunset by Morro Rock

Port of San Luis old lighthouse on the left (beautiful)....new high tech light on the right (not so nice)

Rizzo getting ready to ascend the ladder at the pier in Port San Luis...yes, she's in the pack.

Going back down the 25 ft ladder....the only way to get Rizzo to and from land...what a trooper!

Anja is now hooked on kayaking

A bit of a dunking getting to the beach in the surf...as soon as the first wave broke over the kayak, Rizzo jumped ship.....smart dog!

Anja and Bram....our friendly Tarpanians! 

Doesn't look that comfy, but he didn't seem to mind

Sea lion rookery just behind Vakasa in Morro Bay...noisy devils

Egret using a kelp bed as a fishing platform

Pelican and Cormorants parading down the beach 

Sammy the sea otter...wrapped in kelp and too lazy to be worried about us

Sorry there are no dolphin pics....we have hundreds of them, but none of them actually show a dolphin!  They all just show where the dolphins once were.  We just aren't quick enough to catch them on film!

  

Impressions of the Bay Area

1.  San Fransisco Bay can be COLD….FOGGY…WINDY…..and LUMPY.
After sitting out a few cold days in lumpy anchorages (Sausalito and China Camp) in the North Bay we realized that this area can be somewhat unwelcoming.  Isn’t it supposed to be sunny and warm every day in California?  There are a ton of marinas in the area but good anchorages are fairly scarce and mooring balls are expensive.  On the other hand, the ice cream is delicious and the wine is really cheap!

2.  Californians have a WEIRD PERSPECTIVE on dogs.
It baffles us that dogs are welcome on restaurant patios but not allowed in any of the Californian Parks.  You can take your dog out for lunch or dinner and they’ll actually get served their ice water before you……but don’t try to take them for a walk in any “official” outdoor space.  Does that seem backwards or what?

3.  There are a GAZZILLION boats blitzing around the Bay.
When the afternoon wind starts to blow, the Bay gets covered with every type of boat you can possibly imagine (including really big ones, like freighters and ferries)….all trying to get in your way and most of them oblivious to the rules of collision avoidance.  But man…we have had some rippin’ rides on the Bay!

4.  The Sacramento and San Joaquin River Delta are a little piece of HEAVEN.
An 8 hour trip up the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers took us to Potato Slough and we simply never got any further…nor did we want to.  It was so nice to just sit in flat water, soak up the sun (90 degrees most days), and swim, swim, swim!  Rizzo was welcome to walk the dikes, which we did most days, and even learnt to kind of enjoy a cooling off session in her “pool”.

5.  Dragon boaters make GREAT birthday entertainment.
On our return from the river to SF Bay….yes, the long undies, toques and gloves came back out of the closet….we headed to Treasure Island to celebrate Tony’s birthday.  To our surprise, the San Fran International Dragon Boat Festival was on and we anchored right beside the finish line, providing some real excitement to our celebrations.  We also enjoyed a pot luck dinner with friends Denis, Holly (also celebrating a birthday and who brought a fresh Tuna to the feast!), Bram and Annya, all of whom spent the winter moored with us in downtown Victoria.

6.  We are ready to head further south to more WARMTH and SUNSHINE!
Our 3 weeks in San Francisco have been a wonderful start to the adventure but it’s time to move on. We will leave tomorrow as the weather looks good, and harbour hop our way to the next big layover in the Channel Islands.  There, we expect to  find a myriad of birds, sea and wildlife, and undoubtedly some more “No Dogs Allowed” signs.  Poor Rizzo!

Would that bridge be as famous if it was green?

Someone's getting a great ride across the bay to Alcatraz

Down town SF in the fog.....surprise!

Golden Gate Bridge in the fog....surprise again!

The pointy one is the Embarcadero

A wind farm on the way up the Sacramento River

Doesn't this guy know that he's supposed to be in salt water?

Potato Slough sunset

River Rat #1

River Rat #2

We know it's just a bin, but don't tell her that....she thinks it's a pool

Out for lunch at Pirates Lair in the River Delta

Vakasa at anchor in Potato Slough

Taking a walk on the dike

Tony rockin' it on his birthday....8 knots across the bay

A BC boat came in 4th at the SF International Dragon Boat Festival...we cheered loudly from our mooring just off the finish line at Treasure Island!

Can't Believe We're In San Francisco!

Well, the ride from Coos Bay to San Francisco was a real adventure!  The weather predictions at the time of our departure from Coos Bay looked pretty good to us amateur forecasters.  Winds would be light as we rounded Cape Mendocino (“the major navigational challenge of the Pacific Coast south of Alaska”) and even though they would pick up a little during the day and turn to southerlies, which isn’t great, they would have a westerly component and we should be able to sail into them. 

Our first mistake was in underestimating the discomfort of bashing into winds and waves from the south (we were headed directly south, so it was basically them against us!) Our second mistake was in disregarding the fact that the storm we sat out in Coos Bay would still have lingering effects in the form of big and confused seas.  Mistake number three was that we should have known that the weatherman is never right and realized that the 4—8 kt SW winds forecast would really be 12—18 kts SE and would be directly on our nose making for an extremely uncomfortable ride.  Hoping to stabilize the boat by raising the sails, we tried a few tacks but made little way, so down came the sails and we just settled in for some very lumpy motoring for most of the day.  Finally, we should have realized that believing Cape Mendocino was going to be kind to us was just asking for trouble of one kind of another!  As Tanner puts it……we were sucker punched!

Once around the Cape, we experienced just about everything mother nature has to offer.  Light to no winds, requiring more motoring, medium winds from the west for some good sailing, and even a perfect downwind run with the spinnaker.  But, again……this sort of adventure teaches you to take nothing for granted and just to make sure we’d really learnt this lesson, our autopilot packed it in about 12 hours shy of San Francisco, meaning that we had to hand steer through our night watches.  This is a lot more difficult than it sounds as we had some pretty big swell going on which makes it very hard to steer and monitor the chartplotter/AIS/and RADAR at the same time.  Thank goodness for our extra crew.  We doubled up our shifts so two people were always at the helm, one steering and the other dealing with the equipment. 

Coming into the traffic lanes on our approach to SF in the pitch black of night was a little nerve wracking, but we managed to avoid Noonday Rocks, Point Reyes, and the freighter “Bum” (yes, that really was its name!) and by dawn the Golden Gate Bridge was almost in sight.  What a thrill to motor under it and into San Francisco Bay.  We were lucky to have no fog and beautiful sunshine to enjoy the experience.  Tony almost started to cry at his first sight of a palm tree!

Our fabulous crew, Tanner and Tom, have both left for home and we are feeling a little shell shocked!  Not to mention that our land legs are completely gone and we tend to list a little as we walk the streets of Sausalito.  It will take a couple days to get re-energized, re-orientated and re-organized and then we plan to head up the Napa and Sacramento Rivers to visit wine country.  Life sucks!

PS  Rizzo, being the fine sailing mutt that she is, did manage to poop on the boat.  Sorry, no pictures. 

Nobody out here but us

Helm station during night watch

No wind and calm seas are still good for something

Spinnaker run

The Gold Gate Bridge......finally

We made it!

Do you see what I see?

OK.....just one more bridge picture!

Vakasa as the Sausalito Yacht Club... San Fran in the background

The crew of Vakasa toast their arrival in San Fran

A Bit of Harbour Hopping After All

After interviewing a bunch of sailors that have already done this trip and having countless discussions about the best way to go about it, we had decided to head about 30 nautical miles offshore and just make a beeline for San Francisco.  However, throw some gale force winds our way and it was a pretty easy decision to head to port and wait the bad weather out.  Fortunately we had perfect timing to run into Newport on Tuesday night and then Coos Bay on Wednesday night.  Both have relatively friendly bars (most of the ports on the Washington/Oregon coast are up-river and there can be very nasty conditions at the mouth of these rivers due to wind and current over relatively shallow depths).  So now we are settled in at the dock in Coos Bay looking forward to going out for a nice seafood dinner this evening and hoping that the wind will settle by tomorrow morning so we can get back out there.  The entire fishing fleet seems to have come to the same decision as us, so there are a ton of boats holed up here.

We've had a great journey so far.  A bit more motoring on the first day than we would like, but yesterday we sailed the entire leg in 20 kt winds, averaging about 7.5 kt/hr.  Not that bad!  The sun was shining, and although it was a tad chilly we were all having a good time.  The night watches also went well.  Tony and Tanner managed to avoid a very large freighter. Tom basically had nothing happen on his shift and so he just played around with the radar. Kathy seemed to have the most fun with the wind speed doubling and shifting, requiring a change in the sail plan, and an AIS target heading straight for her, requiring a change in course.  Lucky girl!

By far the most exciting thing to happen on the boat occurred about 12 hours after leaving Neah Bay.  We took Rizzo out on the front trampoline and told her to do her "thing" on the green carpet provided.  However, while we were watching her there was no way she was going to break any rules, despite our pleading with her to do just that.  Hmmm......what next?  We decided to give her a little time and privacy and left her out there for a bit (leashed to the trampoline lines) and low and behold, pretty much as soon as our backs were turned, she soaked that poor old carpet!  We were as excited as we were the first time Bryn and Lea were successful with their potty training!  We have yet to manage the "nether-end" business......but this is a great start.....

So we hope to leave tomorrow and if conditions are as forecast we should be arriving under the Golden Gate Bridge sometime in the afternoon on Aug 27th.  Wow......what a trip so far.

It's not all fog, cold and crazy seas

A man's gotta fish when a man's gotta fish

Completely out of sight of land...weird...

The Princess of Pee

Once your watch is over it's time to relax

Heading into Newport, Oregon

Repairs in Neah Bay

We are just 2 days out of Victoria and we are already in need of repairs!

Our first day from Vic to Port Angeles was a rockin' ride in about 25 knots of wind.  We got lots of practise at reefing and no one, two-legged or four-legged, got sick so that's a good thing. The next day had us bucking winds from the west and current from the east, leading to 8 hours of motoring into some pretty heavy and steep seas.  One "rogue wave" actually tore part of the port side trampoline from its rail.  Poor Vakasa!

However, the good news is that the seas calmed down in the last few hours of the trip and we decided to let Tanner have a go at fishing.  We were a little worried that he would abandon ship if we didn't.  Some of us needed showers and Tony needed to contact the "net" regarding our position, so we gave the fisherman 20 mins to do his thing (of course no one actually expected anything).  Low and behold after only 15 minutes he hooked a beautiful 9 pounder and brought it aboard with elegance, grace and style (he paid us to say that!)

Once at Neah Bay we were happy to meet up with our Dutch friends, Anya and Bram, who are also heading to San Francisco. They joined us for a delicious fresh salmon dinner and wonderful cosnversation that, as is typical at this time of a big sailing journey, centered around talk of wind and weather.

We have had our "crew meeting" this morning and it looks like we will be leaving on our offshore leg tomorrow morning as long as our trampoline repairs today are successful.  Winds will be light which will make rounding Cape Flattery nice and easy and hopefully there will be no fog.  There is a storm brewing a few days south of us which might cause us to head to port in Coos Bay on Thursday in order to wait it out.  This would make our ETA in San Fran sometime around Aug. 30.  This is later than we had originally planned, but it seems that Mother Nature has her own ideas about our itinerary!

All in all, we've had a great start and no one seems to be too unhappy about a day of hanging about on the boat before we have to start doing night watches.  It is warm and sunny here with wifi, a grocery store, and good walking for Rizzo.......what more could we want?

Tom keeps Tanner onboard while he reels in his fish

Show off!

Not only did he catch it, but he filleted and cooked it too

Surveying the damage

Repairs begin

Anya and Bram join Vakasa's crew for the salmon feast

The Time Has Come...Finally

Well, the time has finally arrived and we are going to have to put our money where our mouth is.....walk the walk and talk the talk, so to speak.  We are ready.  Well, that's a little bit of a lie, we do have a few more chores to do.  Tony is changing the oil as I speak and I just arrived home from the laundromat.  The boat is in total disarray but a few hours tomorrow should put it right.  But, no matter what, the day after tomorrow (that's Sat, Aug. 18th) we cast of the lines, head to Port Angeles to provision and get our cruising permits, then hang a left to San Francisco.  Estimated time of arrival being Aug. 28th-ish.  The extra berths are made up and our crew (my brother, Tom and Bryn's boyfriend, Tanner) is arriving bright and early Sat. morning.....hopefully with Transderm patches ready to apply!

We have spent the last two weeks visiting with friends and family......in fact, we have shared 10 dinners, 4 lunches, 2 brunches and numerous "come over for a drink" occasions in that time.  We had a wonderful 81st birthday celebration with Tony's Mum and a 24th birthday/going away dinner party with both of our girls and their respective boyfriends. We are extremely blessed to have so many caring individuals keeping their eye on us.  The general consensus from most of our non-sailing friends is that this offshore sailing business is "pretty crazy", but they're not too surprised that we want to do it!  On the other hand, most of our sailing friends are jealous that it's not yet their turn to take off.  Those of our sailing buddies that have been offshore already are full of wonderful last minute advise, completely unaware of the fact that our brains are totally saturated and absolutely nothing new is sinking in.  But we nod and smile and look forward to actually getting on with this thing, so that we can put all that we've learnt to the test and explore brand new cruising grounds.

So stay tuned and the next post should be from San Fran and full of all kinds of exciting stuff.

The Navy watches over us at our present digs--Canadian Forces Sailing Association Yacht Club

Tony doing those pesky last minute chores like oil changes

Laundry on the hottest day of the year...40 lbs of laundry, 20 min walk away, 30 degrees

A daily visitor

More visitors of the smelly kind!

The crew....ready for the adventure