We were only 30 minutes or so from the channel leading into Crescent City, ready to duck in and tie up, get food and make a plane reservation. But then we listened to the weather reports. Eureka is very makeable by tonight around 10pm, so we decided to keep going. The United Shuttle from Crescent City to San Francisco only leaves once a day anyway (at 1:15pm), and we wouldn’t have been tied off and ready for Capt Rich to head to the airport until 3 or 4, so this move makes sense. One less leg I need to single-hand. Other reasons include the fact that there’s more for me to do in Eureka, more flights if I need to leave and a bigger harbor with more companies to do the work I still need done.It’s not pretty outside, but not bad weather for making progress down the coast. The ugly parts of the storm could be hitting the Oregon coast pretty soon, but the front being round-ish, and us being south, we've got a bit of time before it gets ugly here. It’s currently cloudy with some rain, and it's blowing about 10 knots on our nose. That might pick up to 15 knots, but that’s nothing Chemistry can’t handle. The way this boat has performed as a motorboat the past four days, I wouldn’t be too concerned with 25 knots on our nose, but we’d slow way down and be quite a bit less comfortable.When I went to bed this morning after my 5-8 watch there were porpoises swimming off the bow, but it was pretty wet out there, so I didn’t get any pictures. There will be plenty more. There also have been a few hitchhikers – little birds of an undetermined species – that were way too far offshore for their size, endurance, or lack of ability to float/swim. I was sleeping for most of the time they were on board, but Capt Rich reports that they were hopping around behind the cockpit enclosure sipping fresh water out of the mainsheet winch and generally resting up for an hour or so. When I came up a little while ago they were still here resting and looking for a good place to go, and I’d like to think they found some nice chunks of land as we passed pretty close to St George’s Reef just outside Crescent City before we turned to the south again.Ok – time for some coffee and lunch. More later.
TT
