The Taco Traveler

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It's Friday morning, October 26, 2007, and what a couple days it's been. I'm sitting on Chemistry in the South Beach Marina at the Embarcadero in San Francisco after having a shower and breakfast, and giving Chemistry a good bath, too. I apologize for not posting last night when I got in here safely, but things couldn't be better.

As I posted in a previous log, I left Eureka about 1pm on Wednesday, my friends Greg and Kevin on Passing Wind II to follow soon behind me after fueling and giving their rebuilt engine a good test spin. Since they started a couple hours behind and were in a slower boat I didn't expect to see them again until San Francisco. I tried radioing them a couple times on the VHF Wednesday afternoon and night, with no response, so I assumed I was just way too far ahead. I was shattered to hear on Thursday morning, as I was approaching Bodega Bay, a Pan-Pan call from the Humboldt Bay Coast Guard announcing that they were receiving an EPIRB signal from Passing Wind II located about 50 miles southwest of Cape Mendocino (almost to the latitude of Fort Bragg, which I'd passed Wednesday night about 11pm). As I can't help but create backstory when I only have a piece of information, I had to assume that since there was no radio distress call, and just the EPRIB was activated (which could happen automatically depending on the model if there was a catastrophic event), that they had been run down by a freighter - the worst of all possibilities, and something we'd been joking about only hours earlier.

So there I am around the latitude of Bodega Bay, feeling euphoric about my experience, feeling pride in my boat and the immense satisfaction when the sun came up yesterday morning and I'd survived the night of big winds and fairly big seas, and never felt out of control of any situation. And then I hear this Pan-Pan call and my heart is broken. I was already 90 miles away from their location, and it would have been a ridiculous 5 knot upwind bash (at least 18 hours) to get to that position, so all I could do was radio the Coast Guard and offer them any information I had: who was aboard, that they had a life raft with hydro-static release mounted on the cabintop, that they'd had engine trouble and had rebuilt the engine over the past few days in Eureka.... And wait.

Before hearing that news I'd been pretty tired, but decided that rather than cross the bar at Bodega Bay and transit the narrow channel, I'd rather get down to Drake's Bay and anchor out, and then head into San Francisco this morning. So I kept going, and listening to the continuous Pan-Pan reports every 30 minutes about Passing Wind II's EPIRB activation (as well as a couple others - it was a bad night to be in a small or less-than-storm-worthy vessel).

I went around Point Reyes yesterday about 1 or 2pm, took a brief peek into the bay that was much much larger than I'd expected, and blowing very hard from the northwest despite the fairly big hills protecting the bay, and decided that San Francisco was doable. By this time I'd had 2 or 3 catnaps of about 15 or 20 minutes each (any time I closed my eyes I set my phone alarm to go off in 30 minutes), so I was wide awake and felt like San Francisco was now a very attainable challenge. I went through Bonita Channel and the Golden Gate came into view, and felt elation for myself and sadness for my friends. And when I finally passed underneath, I said a little prayer for Greg and Kevin (though not a praying person, I believe in the power of positive thought; prayer is just the easiest way to say it, unless of course you follow up that word with a big parenthetical statement explaining why you're using that word - sheesh).

I arrived at the South Beach Marina at the Embarcadero (the marina right next to Pac Bell Park, where the Giants play) about 7pm. Pulled into the slip, hopped off and tied off perfectly (solo docking a 43-foot sailboat isn't easy, and always gets my adrenalin pumping), came down into the cabin and relaxed for a few minutes, then immediately started tracking down a number for the Humboldt Bay Coast Guard to try to find out what happened to my friends. Turns out they'd been pulled off the boat by helicopter yesterday afternoon. It was probably around 4 or 5pm, but I don't remember when I last heard the Pan-Pan call. The duty officer I talked to didn't have the full story, but he said basically they got beat up by the weather. So they abandoned Greg's boat 50 miles out, and cancelled their dream of sailing her for a year down south to Mexico and maybe farther, then over to Hawaii, then north to Alaska. I haven't talked to them (Greg's cell phone is probably at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean with his boat, and Kevin doesn't have a cell phone). I wish them the best and maybe I'll still see them again - hopefully their experience wasn't so bad out there that they don't want to give it another try.

Update 10.27.2007
Just got this link from Dick Dato, another friend from Eureka, that recounts the events and the rescue: http://www.times-standard.com//ci_7285727

So what now? I'll be here in this marina for at least 7 days, working on "work" and working on the boat, seeing friends.... But I'm not sure. I'm planning a trip to see the boys probably from Tues Nov 6th to the 12th or 13th, and then there's Thanksgiving in Seattle.... If I stay more than 4 days and don't have time to get to San Diego by November 4th, then I may be here until after Thanksgiving, if I can find the slip space.

TT

8:30 AM PDT
Just a quick note - I got through the night just fine. There were some pretty rough sections - some pretty big seas and plenty of wind, but Chemistry and I are doing great, having good man+boat bonding time and continuing our motorsail towards Bodega Bay. I should be in there by 1pm, which will make this a 23 hour, 30 minute leg. I did take a couple of catnaps, but I think they were probably only 10 or 15 minutes each. I'd strap myself in on one of the cockpit benches using my safety teather so I wouldn't fall when a wave hit the boat from the side. I wouldn't fall, but generally I'd wake up.
 
In all the excitement about the weather yesterday / last night, I neglected to omention the whale or the pod of wild motorcycle-gang-esque Dall's Porpises who messed with me yesterday. Those are the ones that look likek little Orcas. I goto plenty of pictures but my signal is too low for much more than text. Plus it's still pretty lumpy out here and I don't feel like doing a bunch of typing / photo editing. So I'll edit those and post them tonight after a nap at Bodega Bay. For now, time for some coffee.

TT

4:30 PM PDT
I’m absolutely flying along under main only. Very nice breeze 15-22 knots off my port quarter at 120 degrees. (that’s 60 degrees from being right behind me, which is perfect for sailing). The seas are getting pretty rough with some decent wind chop, but it’s manageable. I rolled up the yankee a little bit ago and didn’t seem to lose any speed at all. I just hit 8 knots through the water (9.2 speed over ground, according to the GPS) while surfing down a swell. This is the way to do it, but at the same time I’m being careful. Rolling up the yankee was fairly conservative, but with the direction of the wind it wasn’t super-effective anyway. And like I said, I didn’t really lose any speed. And I’m continually keeping an eye on the wind behind me and considering putting a reef in the main soon, but she’s sailing along very comfortably right now. I’ve still got the engine idling just in case I need to come into the wind to reef the main. How’s that for conservative! :)

Anyway, we’ve passed Cape Mendocino and we’re approaching Punta Gorda (the next nib down the coast from Cape Mendocino, right before the coastline turns into the west. Don’t know when I’ll be able to post this (I don’t have reception here).

5 PM PDT
Update 15 mins after I just wrote that…. I just put a reef in the main as Chemistry was starting to sing to me (the mast/rigging was straining a bit). I can’t really describe it, but I’m quite sure she was telling me that a full mainsail was too much. Seems to have picked up to 18-25 or so, with some 30 knot gusts. I’d love to take some video of this, as this is what I really expected when I thought about sailing down the coast – lots of wind, decent-sized swells, big wind chop… and yet still sailing. It feels good. Please don’t worry, friends & family – I’m very comfortable, confident, and yet humble and very cautious. Bottom line, I know where I am. Though I’ve got the windows zippered, I’m still latched into the cockpit with my harness and PFD. And besides, this boat is absolutely amazing. What a great boat.

5:45 PM PDT
Wow – uh… things are really picking up here. Lots of whitecaps all around, big ones. I just put yet another reef in the main, and I now have only 3 battens showing (of 6). It’s hard to say how much I’ve reefed, as it’s a boom-furled main. Basically, I’ve got a little more than half of the main’s total area rolled around the boom right now, and still doing 7.5 – 8.5 knots. I’ve got the engine running in gear but fairly slowly, just to help keep forward momentum and motor out of the troughs – it’s quite a bit more comfortable than just main, but the wonderful autopilot is steering great – probably better than I do when I hand-steer. Time for some food; it could be a long night if this picks up much more. I’m headed a little closer to land which will eventually put me in the lee of Cape Mendocino / Punta Gorda (a little more protected from this northerly). So hopefully the wind chop will be a little bit flatter there.

8:45 PDT
Wind has eased just a bit now that I’m a bit closer to land (about 15 miles off, about midway between Punta Gorda and Fort Bragg), but about 30 mins ago I was relaxing and resting my eyes, and “bang” – the main had gybed as the wind shifted a bit and the boat rolled on a swell. Ugh. I knew I should have rigged a preventer. Done now after much planning, thought and very careful execution (while constantly strapped into the jacklines, of course). Starboard tack was quite a bit breezier – port is much nicer but I’ll have to gybe in a while, when I get about 5 miles from shore. Now that I’ve got the preventer I’ll relax a bit more and just watch for lights. Chemistry is sailing herself along at 6 knots in 15-25 knots of wind with a deeply reefed main. Conservative, but it’s dark & the winds are forecast to pick up.

11:50 PM PDT
Looks like I’m coming into range of Fort Bragg cell reception, so I’ll be able to post this. Nothing new, just lots of wind and lots of wind chop. Pretty rolly, but we’re doing great. Watching the horizon, listening to my iPod, and planning a gybe pretty soon to head back to the SW away from land. I’d just motor down the coast and not worry about keeping the wind on a quarter, but it seems to be just as rough here in closer, so I might as well keep my speed and keep using the wind. For friends/family who aren’t familiar, the quarter would be like back-left or back-right. It’s a lot better / easier to keep the wind coming over a quarter (120-130 degrees off the bow) than it is to have it come directly over the stern (from 180 degrees of the bow, which is directly behind).

TT

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

This may be a given, but I should start by saying that any post that starts with “Log” is probably pretty boring. Anyway, we pulled into Newport this morning at 7. It sucked last night having to slow down so much when we’re trying to get south ahead of this storm, but we didn't want to cross the Newport bar on a strong outgoing tide. It was only running about 1.5 knots at 7am (slack was at 8:30). If we wouldn't have slowed down last night (to about 5 knots), we would have hit Newport any time between 4:30 and 6, with an outgoing tide of at least 2, and probably more like 2.5 knots, which is a lot of current to fight in a relatively narrow channel. So we slowed to hit Newport at the right time, filled the water and fuel tanks, then went up and found some breakfast. I do not recommend the marina side of Newport (which is actually South Beach, over the bridge from most Newport stuff) for any forthcoming West Coast Breakfast/Diner Tours anyone may be planning.

On my watch last night, I planned and plotted, and decided that we’d shoot for Crescent City, CA today and tomorrow, and then I’d put Capt Rich on a plane and hang out in Crescent City on my own until the storm blows through. With S winds on Sunday evening, building on Monday, and then the storm itself kicking in on Tuesday and lasting through Thursday, it’s likely that by the time the30-foot swells subside it would be Friday or next Saturday, and it doesn't make sense to pay a professional delivery skipper to sit there for 7 days and wait with me. Also, there’s a ton of work I need to do before November 6, so a few days in port alone won’t kill me. Crescent City is a much better starting point for me to do some single-handing, with only one fairly long trip. So after the storm and its seas go away (assuming no more storms are lurking out there, and assuming fair winds), I’ll leave Crescent City for Eureka (58 miles), then head to Fort Bragg (100 miles), and then to Bodega Bay (88 miles) before the 54-mile glory run from Bodega Bay to South Beach Harbor in downtown San Francisco.

It’s still beautiful out here. Not a cloud in the sky, warm, and for most of the day it’s been very calm. Right before dinner, though, we started getting some good wind from the NW so I unfurled the yankee. With the motor still pushing us along at 7 knots, and the yankee flying, and with a little bit of current helping, too, we were doing almost 8 knots steady, up to 9 while surfing down the back of a swell. Unfortunately, though, the motorsailing only lasted an hour or so, as eventually the wind started coming from directly behind us, and there wasn't enough wind to let us motorsail in that direction and keep the yankee flying.

For dinner I cooked up some spaghetti & canned corn, with a bad-Safeway-candy-isle-decision-dessert-smorgasbord of Jujyfruits, Hot Tamales and Dots. It’s about 7pm and the sun just went down. We’re about 10 miles offshore at almost the latitude of Coos Bay. I’m sitting in the cockpit strapped into my harness and tether even though I don’t plan to leave the cockpit. I just want to get in the habit of wearing the safety stuff. It’s pretty comfortable. My watches tonight will be from 5-8pm, 11pm-2am, and 5am-8am. Oh yeah, I guess I’m on watch now. Better start watching.

TT

We passed the mouth of the Columbia a few hours ago, so now about 20 miles into Oregon. So far, the most interesting part of this trip to me has been the nearly continual cell phone reception. It’s a little sad, but nice. After all, it’s not like I’m headed out to sea; I’m just motoring down the coast. Sometimes I forget that, and think that it should be harder than this (knock on wood), but on this trip I’ll take it. The boat and its motor have been amazing – absolutely perfect. That thing just churns away hour after hour, keeping the same temperature and oil pressure – no problems whatsoever. All we’ve had to do is supplement the fuel tank with the jerry jugs (I got 4 additional 5-gallon cans of diesel that we lashed to the stern pulpit), and check and top off the oil level (she seems to burn just a bit of oil).

The day is so easy, sunny and warm that I decided to throw out a line. We’re not going to slow down and troll for salmon, and if there are any tuna out here right now I doubt they’re dumb enough to hit the excuse for a tuna jig I put on the line, but hey, it’s still fishing. There are 3-5-foot swells from the SW, and almost no wind. We’re just continuing to chug along at 2400 RPM (usually about 7 knots through the water) towards Newport, where we’all definitely stop to fill the tanks, rest, and consider next steps. We should be into Newport about 5am Saturday, and then have the rest of Saturday and all of Sunday to try to make more south. Eureka is still attainable, but we’ll check the status of that storm before leaving Newport.

Food has been good. Soup, sandwiches, “boat snacks” (like Triscuits and hummus), coffee, tea and Vitamin Water. And maybe tuna for dinner. Ugh – I forgot to get wasabi. This morning I said something about how sleeping from 1-5 felt like about 20 minutes. Well, I’ve been sleeping very well considering the rolly seas (they haven’t always been as mellow as they are now – last night/this morning we were getting some 6-8ft swells with 2-3ft wind chop). The challenge is to not wake up every time the boat rolls, so I end up falling asleep sort of spread out flat. Sea change: no more side sleeping.

I’ve said to many of my friends (and said to myself, very honestly) that I didn’t know what this was going to be like. Would I love it or hate it? Would the nothingness out there relax me or drive me nuts? It depends heavily, I think, on who’s sharing the boat with me. I like Capt Rich – he’s a good guy, a good conversationalist, a reader of good stuff… but he’s 20 years, a body, a beard and a second X chromosome away from my dream sailing partner from the Taco Traveler post. Being on the ocean, though… I’d always hoped I would love it as much as I *want* to. Only thirty-six hours out, and even just motoring - with almost no real sailing - I have to say at the moment that this is a life I could do.
 
TT

This boat is so good. We left Port Townsend this morning about 6 to catch a nice outgoing current, and have not stopped motoring yet. There was a one-hour period where we motorsailed, but outside of that there hasn’t been enough wind to do enough good if we were to put the sails up. We’ve been making 7 knots all the way, the current sometimes pushing that to 8.5 and sometimes down to 6, so current has definitely helped more than it has hurt.

It’s 6am on Friday, Oct 12 and I just started my second 4-hour watch shift about an hour ago. Somehow that sleep from 1am to 5am felt like 20 minutes, but I’m refreshed enough. Because of the storm lurking in the mid-Pacific right now, we’ll need to make as much Southing as we can while the weather is in our favor, so getting into a good pattern of watches where both Capt Rich and I stay well-rested will be key for us if we’re going to get to Eureka before Tuesday afternoon (when the bad stuff should hit). We won’t push it – worst case (according to current predictions) would be to go into Newport or Bookings and not be able to get into California until the storm blows through and its residual swells dissipate. I’m really hoping for Eureka, but to do that – with conservative time estimates and fuel-capacity estimates – we’ll need some nice following winds to help. We’ve got headwinds at the moment, but pretty light (wind gauge reads 15 knots, but that’s apparent, so subtract the boat speed and it’s probably an 8-knot headwind). Seas have been pretty calm most of the time offshore, maybe 5-foot swells and some 2-foot wind chop. However, as the sun comes up I can barely make out the swells as they approach from the West, and they’re 6-8 feet, seem to loom and then roll harmlessly under the boat, looking even more impressive from behind as they roll of into the sunrise, off to break on the shore.

Night watch consists mainly of staying awake, watching for other boats, and making slight course corrections to the auto-pilot, which means occasionally pushing the +1 or -1 degree buttons to follow the course we’ve laid out on the computer chart. We’re staying pretty close in, so there’s been no ship traffic and only a few fishing boats. I’ve only seen one other recreational boat. Speaking of staying awake – dang, I let my green tea get cold.

I don’t know when I’ll be able to post this, but we’re passing Gray’s Harbor soon so I may get a little Verizon signal. I’m very impressed with Verizon, btw. I still had one bar of signal for 10 minutes after rounding Cape Flattery. The sun’s just starting to come up. I already have some good pics of big ships passing and of rounding Cape Flattery. If I can, I’ll post some pictures here later today (signal-dependent, of course): http://picasaweb.google.com/iamthepants

TT

After going so hard for so long, it's a shock to the system to slow down, to steady the pace. I sit in a quiet, downstairs cafe in the sleepy town of Port Townsend, Washington, and I can't help but think: TIMING. Wind, currents, wave periods, boat prep, safe ports, car-borrowing, house-selling, relationships.

This town is so full of sailors, which makes it a great place to get important work done on a boat. And it also makes it the sort of place where nobody is in a hurry. Being in a hurry can be deadly to sailors. Try to beat that storm into port, and get slammed into the jetty as you cross the bar. Underestimate the speed of that freighter so you can lazily avoid a gybe, and get run down; on the freighter, chances are they won't even notice. No, we don't do that. Sailors generally are the over-the-counter brand of adventurers: safe and sane. When you're not in a hurry, you can plan things; you can wait for fair winds.

Tonight, the winds are with us, and if we time it just right, when we're ready to leave the Strait of Juan de Fuca and turn left (well, sort of left, to the SE), they'll be just shifting around to the East to blow us out to sea. Later Thursday or Friday they're supposed to shift to the North, blowing us down the coast to our first stopping point, either Astoria, Oregon, or, hopefully Newport, Oregon.

I'm the only customer in this cafe. There's a guy, slightly homeless-looking (like so many PT residents), but I think he's a reformed busker waiting for a bigger audience. That is to say, I think he's a busker who's convinced a coffee shop owner that he's actually just free entertainment. I look at my watch and I see that's it's almost time to go - to pick up my skipper-for-hire from the ferry dock, get a few hours of sleep, vacate the slip, and head out to sea. I never thought I’d wear a watch, but then I found this one. It’s a Baume & Mercier but I can't remember the model. Not ostentatious, just nice. White face, stainless band, real numbers.... Classic. I've already promised it to Grady someday but it will probably have to be after I’m gone because even now I can't get myself to take it off long enough to get it repaired and serviced (it's got a pin loose in the band that I have to push back in five times a day - if I don't keep track of it I could lose the thing entirely. It could probably use a re-waterproofing, too). "You want how long to ship it to Switzerland and back?" I should just bite the bullet and ship it off one of these days - it would suck to lose it overboard or something because of the broken band (and it is promised away). Besides, I'll need to hand one down to Ty, too, and a second watch to mark this completely new phase of my life couldn't hurt.

__________

I’m back on the boat now after having picked up the captain from Vashon. I went for more groceries while Capt. Rich looked at the forecasts. It looks pretty good for getting to Newport, but farther along could get hairy. There’s a major storm forecast mid-next week. Basically, we have until 4pm or so on Tuesday to get into a port or we’ll get slammed by some ugly winds (40-60 knot) and ugly 25-foot swells. If we can’t make it to Brookings, OR, then I’ll probably end up getting Rich a rental car and sending him home while I wait out the potentially 7-10 days I could be stuck in Newport waiting for the next storm and its residual swells to pass. Maybe I’d come back, too, if it looks like it might be that long. After the weather clears again, if Rich has returned home, I may just hop down the coast on my own. We’ll see. I’m not making any decisions right now based on a forecast that’s 8 days out.

It’s time to grab 6 hours of sleep before heading out early in the morning with the outgoing current. The next “real” storm is just now forming way out in the Pacific, and the surfing meteorologists are getting stoked. It’s funny how useful this site is, where they root for gnarly storms and I watch their predictions and hope, in this case, that they’re wrong from next Tuesday onward: http://www.stormsurf.com/page2/forecast/forecast/current.shtml

TT / STA / Sean

We're almost ready to take off on the first leg of the trip. It's very late in the season for this trip, so it's critical to find the right weather window. Currently, the wind is bad - blowing from the South, and the swells are from the W at anywhere from 8-12 ft. Bad combination when you're trying to go south.
I had planned to bring the boat back to Seattle from Port Townsend yesterday (10/2/2007) and provision with food/supplies and get final work done (vinyl name/hailing port installed), but the wind blowing up the Sound (20-30 kts from the South) forced me to take the ferry instead. So today I ran all around spending more money on an AIS receiver, refreshing the flare inventory (old flares have expired), getting jacklines, and purchasing a new liferaft.
 
Because issues with crew were so unsettled, I ended up hiring a delivery skipper to go along with me. Paying $350 + expenses means guaranteed crew, and it'll be far cheaper than trucking the boat. Plus, I really want the experience. Current plan is to take the ferry to the peninsula tomorrow, load all the new equipment onto the boat, and then meet the delivery skipper for a boat inspection. Then... dammit, start this trip. I'll probably single-hand the boat to Neah Bay, where I'll wait until the skipper says "Okay - we have a weather window! I'm on my way to Neah Bay!" With only two of us likely on board, we'll make stops along the way for rest. Tentatively Newport, Oregon, and Eureka, California. Man, this has taken so long. Can't wait to get going.