We got to the harbor marker at Humboldt Bay last night around 9:30. It then took about 40 minutes to make our way across the bar and up the channel into the marina. The bar crossing was easy, as there was a slight flood tide and very small swells, but I'm glad Capt Rich was running the show. I feel confident that I can manage a bar crossing like that - in fact, I played along in my head as if I were doing it myself ("okay, I see the next set of range markers lining up; I'd turn 20-degrees right... now") - but it was good to have an expert do it the first time. Here's a view of the Humboldt Bay bar. The City Marina is in the upper left, just above and left of the smoke stack. This bar's got a nasty reputation when the swells are up, but of course I'll wait for good conditions to leave. Here's a nice model of the bar conditions that I'll use to plot my escape. You can see that at the end of the model (currently Thursday 10/18) the waves will be hitting the north jetty at about 18' and the swells even in the middle of the channel are 14'. There's no way that bar is passable then. For a longer range look, check out stormsurfing.com's prediciton model of Cape Mendocino for the next 180 hours. Note especially the predicted swells at 06Z Saturday (that's 6:00 AM Saturday GMT/Zulu, which is 11PM Friday PDT). Yes, those are 28 foot swells they're predicting. Now you know why I'm in port, and why I may be here for more than 10 days.
Anyway, last night after we got in we tied up on an outer pier for the night, and I made some more spaghetti. Woke this morning after a 9-hour sleep and Capt Rich was all packed & ready to go, so I got up and we moved the boat into my assigned spot which will be my home for the next week or so. Then we settled up finances, I thanked Capt Rich for his excellent help on my first ocean voyage, and then he got into a taxi and I started walking to town for some breakfast.
