Arrival in Seattle
We docked at Shilshole Marina on Thursday afternoon, May 31. It was 61 days since we left La Paz, Mexico .
I was anxious about the last section of the coast from San Francisco to Seattle and was thinking that we'd have the worst sea conditions of the trip in this last 870 miles but that turned out not to be the case. For the first time during the trip north we had fair weather forecast out for many days and the forecast held true, seas were calm, winds were below 15 knots and blew from the west and southwest at least half the time. Sometimes the winds were so light that we didn't get any benefit from having the sails up except to slow down the rolling from side-to-side.
After leaving SF Bay we motor sailed the 40 miles to Bodega Bay. The National Weather Service forecasts predicted west and southwest winds 5-15 mph for the next 5-days past Cape Mendocino and the long-term forecast called for those conditions to extend farther up the coast in subsequent days, so we headed out the next morning for Eureka. The weather remained good so we passed Eureka and headed on to Coos Bay (360 nm away, 3 days and 2 nights offshore). We rested up in Coos Bay for 2 days letting rain squalls pass over us while we were docked at the Charleston Marina. Charleston Marina is a fishing boat marina with old boats that belched diesel soot everywhere. It was in Coos Bay that we discovered that our SPOT GPS messenger wasn’t working. It began to send help messages to Vessel Assist one morning and Vessel Assist called to find out what help we needed. I told them that nobody on our boat sent a help message and we quickly figured out that the device wasn’t working correctly. We left Coos Bay intending to stop at Newport or Tillamook Bay but the weather held so we motor-sailed all the way to Port Townsend, Washington (470 nm away). In just seven days of sailing we covered 830 nautical miles!
We stayed two nights at Point Hundson Marina in Port Townsend to rest, celebrate our accomplishment and clean the boat so Cindy wouldn't be too shocked to see how 3 guys kept house at sea.
When we arrived at Shilshole Bay marina we were able to get a permanent slip assignment on D-dock (D-75). Cindy was waiting for us at the dock, Alex arrived a few minutes later in his new car (VW RABBIT 2009) as did TJ's kids. A few additional friends at showed up and we had an impromptu party and dinner later at Anthony's Home Port restaurant.
Now that I'm home I'm trying to get my land legs back and recover from the trip. Yesterday, I did 8 loads of wash, brushed the dog and clipped her nails. We spent Friday, Saturday and Sunday cleaning the boat and took all the cushions home to clean and dry. I started going through my log book to create a table listing the ports we stopped at, the distances between stops, fuel consumption and noteworthy events. I hope to update the blog soon with all our pictures and add a narrative of the trip. We had virtually no internet connectivity in Mexico and little or no internet connectivity after we left southern California, that's why I hadn't updated the blog. I promise I'll have that done in the next 10 days.
My friend TJ sailed the entire trip with me from La Paz, Mexico to Seattle. Mike, a guy that I recruited from a sail net who lives in Calgary, Canada, joined the voyage from La Paz to Marina Del Rey. A second recruit was a guy from Seattle named “CB” who we met in La Paz. He sailed with us from San Francisco to Seattle. Both of the recruits were good sailors and got along well with TJ and I. Mike was a diesel mechanic and taught me how to adjust the valves on the boat’s Yanmar diesel. Mike was also a great cook. CB didn’t cook much but he was always quick to clean up the galley when someone else did the cooking. He also ate my cooking without any complaints. All in all is was a wonderful trip and I can’t believe it’s over.
posted by Craig, Cindy and Alex on s/v Cool Breez'n @ 5:33 PM
1 Comments
