Seattle - San Francisco (Part III)

We join the crew of Ho-Beaux as they pull out of the Crescent City harbor. A large 8-10 foot swell greets them as they round the breakwater and are exposed to the open ocean. But strange, rather than the forecast 20 knots wind, there is... nothing. Nary a puff to be found. And let me tell you, out of all the conditions to be out in, apart from, say, a hurricane, nothing is worse than a big swell and no wind. The forward motion and lean of a sailboat stabilizes it; without wind, the waves rock the boat back and forth. You've got to keep the mainsail up to damp the motion a bit, but then the sail slaps and jerks back and forth with the boat, shaking everything with a jarring "thunk!" each time. Ugh.

We forgot the logbook again, so I'll spare you the details of each day. No matter, they more or less blend together anyways. The first couple were spent in the uncomfortable conditions described above. Catching the occasional light breeze, we made slow progress Southward. After a couple days, still no wind, but the seas flattened out. It wasn't really unpleasant to spend the day on deck, relaxing in the sun and reading. Every time a light breeze came up, we'd spring into action, setting the sails and windvane, and making a couple hours' progress before the wind died.

So, blah, blah, we made it to the Bay Area. Yay.

What was noteworthy about the voyage was the wildlife. The best story? We're sitting in the cockpit reading on an especially calm day. Out of the sky comes this little puffball -- I think he was a sparrow? -- who lands on the deck a few feet away. Now, we're something like 40 miles offshore at the time, and he's a land bird who eats bugs and stuff, so I've no clue what he was thinking flying out there. The boat, as mentioned previously, makes all sorts of creaky clacky noises, and he's scared of every sound. He's clearly exhausted from flying, so eventually he convinces himself that it's not worth being scared, and goes to sleep.

We made an effort to not be too threatening, and he got used to us moving around, and would hop all over the deck around us, pecking at dustballs, flecks of dirt, and whatnot. We thought he might be hungry, and put out some food, but he wouldn't touch it. Apparently, sparrows don't like:
- Cocoa Puffs
- Crushed almonds
- Wheat crackers
- Red bell peppers
- Bread crumbs
That's why I think he likes bugs.

He kept trying to walk through the plexiglass dropboards on our hatch:


He'd fly away from time to time, realize there's no land in sight, come back aboard, and hop around some more. One time, he flew over the plexiglass dropboards and into our cabin. The last we saw him, he was in the bunk we use to store various large items; suddenly he was gone. Either he finally flew away to his doom, or he had a birdie-heart-attack and is deceased in our bunk; we haven't found him yet. [Editor's Note: It was a birdie-heart-attack. M found his corpse under our vacuum cleaner cord.]

Sea Lions:
An albatross:
A Humpback whale:

Point Reyes:
Pelicans:
Lots of birds:

A pelican diving for supper:

Approaching Golden Gates. . .


The bay is crowded! After barely dodging an army of aggressive racing boats we learned that the Saturday we arrived was in the middle of the Big boat Rolex series or something to that effect.

So, we're here, and probably will be until at least mid November. Anyone who'd like to visit is welcome.

Seattle - San Francisco (Part II)

After deciding to bow out from the approaching squall, we landed in Crescent City Monday afternoon. The decision was not an easy one, as the forcasted winds would for once be in the right direction and presumably carry us very quickly to our final destination. That is as long as they didn't pitch us over and sink us first. . . More than the level of winds, it was the forcasted dangerous seas that scared us. So far on the trip, we had maybe seen seas of half of what was now forcasted, and 20 ft waves in confused seas did not sound too appealing to two sailors who were already fairly tired after a week of not getting much sleep.

A small island with seabirds as we're pulling into Crescent City Marina:

Crescent beach close to the Marina we stayed at:
Crescent City supposedly had a charming downtown by the waterfront up until 1964, when it was wiped out by a Tsunami. The downtown was rebuilt on higher ground, but unfortunately the architecture at the time was pretty void of any charms. The city had the feel of recent decline, and a walk along the residential street facing the Pacific Ocean revealed that about 20% of the houses were for sale. Contrary to the downtown, a lot of the houses were artfuly decorated with old surfboards, fishing bouys and a lot of woodcarvings and wood-sculptures. Definitely a blue collar town, it appeared that a lot of the traditional jobs in fishing, shipping and forestry were in decline, and the painful transition to a fickle tourist-based economy had started. The biggest new projects touted by the Del Norte County economic outlook brochure was a Walmart and a Home Depot (oh, my...).
If the ecomony of the town looked like it could need some help, the people in town at least have a lot of options for what to do with their free time. The town had some impressive beaches, and surfing appeared to be a favorite pastime. Other than that, the most popular attractions in town was an old picturesque lighthouse, the vast marine life and of course the nearby Redwood forest.

We spent our first day walking into town, to the lighthouse and onward toward some beaches on the northwest side of town. Part of our mission was to get a closer look at what the ocean looked like in the gale. We walked out to a promontory that faced the North; the wind was so strong it about blew you over. You could lean over at a good angle. We decided that we were glad not to be out there.


Now a lesson in natural history. The beaches were bordered by a 20-foot high cliff on the landward side, made of sedimentary rocks. (First photo) The rock layer exposed at the bottom of the cliff was full of embedded clamshells! (Second photo) So this layer had been also a beach long ago, covered by 20-plus feet of sediment over time, compressed into rock, then raised up by plate tectonics, and finally uncovered by erosion from waves. I wonder how old those shells are? Tens of thousands of years? Hundreds of thousands? K took a souvenir (third photo).

There were some cool plants by the beach. This slimy stuff was interesting:
The nearby grasslands were dense with an incredible variety of plants:
The next day we hiked out to the Redwood forest. This forest is also where the land-speeder scene on Endor in Return of The Jedi was filmed. (For real this time, Jeff...)

See if you can spot K in this one:

We'd been optimistic, and brought our swimming stuff, just in case we came across some water. We were hiking on a dirt forest road, when we came across a trail to Mill Creek. Ooo, a creek! So we hiked a mile or so. And, (cue angels singing: aaaaaaaaaa) through an opening in the trees, THERE IT WAS. The Perfect Swimming Hole, complete with a rope swing!!!
Karl getting in (Yes, the rope was the only graceful way to get in):

Not a good picture, but the only proof we have that M (eventually) got in via the rope as well:
Our third day in town, we were planning to rent surfing gear, but it was cold and overcast and in a bout of laziness and anti-epic-making mood we decided to stay in and read instead. Saturday we finally cast off for what was forcasted to be still pretty strong northwesterly winds (20 - 25 kts) and 12 foot seas...

Will the stalwart crew of Ho-Beaux complete their epic journey? Or will they be smashed to bits by waves and become a shark's breakfast? Tune in next time, for Part III...

Seattle - San Francisco (PART I)

Hello, all! Evidently, we've made it to Berkeley, CA. Ho-Beaux is parked at the amazingly ghetto Berkeley Marina (no photos yet... in a future blog), while K and M are relaxing at the 'rents, enjoying things like showers, sleep, and the floor not heaving to and fro.

To acquaint you with The Master Plan at this point, we'll be staying in Berkeley until K finishes a writing and research sample and applies to school... likely a couple months: November or December? Then, we'll be sailing South, probably to Mexico, for a bit, and depending on various things, will either come back North or continue farther South.

Now, we've forgotten to bring Ho-Beaux's logbook to the house, so I'll have to go on memory for this first post. (Each boat carries a logbook, in which the crew note important things like position, course, breakdowns, etc, as well as anything else of note during the voyage, like seeing cool fishies, or what was for breakfast.) When we were last in touch, we were in Port Angeles, WA, ready to head out. This was, what, August 27th? I think we left the 28th.

We'd planned an early morning start, because it's something like 50 miles from Port Angeles to round Cape Flattery at the Northwest tip of the Olympic peninsula. We figured it would be nice to be the heck out of the Straits of Juan de Fuca and onto the open ocean by dark, to avoid scary encounters with incoming freighters and fishing vessels. The only item on the agenda that morning was to top off our fuel tank for the long passage ahead. Unbeknownst to us, we were not the only ones with fuel in mind this morning. When we pulled up to the fuel dock 20 minutes or so after they opened, one of our little Westport friends had beaten us to it. Ho-Beaux can carry 60 gallons of diesel, so for us to fill our tanks it takes just a little longer than filling up a car at a regular gas station. We had however, no idea as far as how much fuel the Westport was able to guzzle up, so we pulled up to an empty dock nearby and started to wait. About an hour and a half later we were still waiting, so at that point we sent out a spy to inquire how much longer we might have to wait. This was a good move since the fuel attandant stated that this one was almost done, and that he would wait to radio over the next Westport until we had a chance to stop by. When we finally got to the fuel dock, we learned that the previous customer had purchased over $10,000 worth of fuel (3500 gallons)!!! This astounded us until we learned that the even bigger Westport at the dock (a 50 meter yacht), could carry a total of 20,000 gallons of fuel. A visit to their web site reveals another curious fact; several of the Westport yachts were designed by Bill Garden who designed Ho-Beaux a few decades previously.

The gas hog (named "Sin or Swim") at the fuel dock:

His even more impressive bigger brother:

So a lot later than planned we finally motored out of Port Angeles, and decided to push out the straits in the dark rather than stopping again at Neah Bay.

Our first sunset on the trip:
The rising of the full moon that enabled us to see reasonably well as we rounded Cape Flattery:
Never having sailed at night before, it took us a few nights to figure out a shift-arrangement that worked well. We ended splitting up the night in one 4-hour and one 2-hour shift each. After the first 24-hours of hand-steering the boat, we suddenly felt very motivated to finally finish installing our new (used) Monitor Windvane. We expected trouble since every new piece of equipment we've installed on the boat so far has had unexpected "teething" problems. But the Monitor proved a pleasant surprise in that we finished installing the lines, engaged it, and it worked beautifully for the duration of the trip.

M navigating our way out of the Strait of Juan De Fuca:

Our 3rd crewmember, the Monitor Windvane:


After rounding Cape Flattery, we headed more or less due South, while the land fell off to the Southeast, eventually passing out of sight. The next few days (at least without the logbook) are a blur; there was sometimes wind, sometimes not. Most of the day was spent lounging on deck, reading, occasionally tending to the windvane. Night watches were essentially the same thing, except you couldn't see a heck of a lot; we listened to M's iPod to kill time.

K in racing mode:

It took a couple days to start getting any sleep. I mean, essentially, you're laying in a big plastic tub. Waves beat on the tub (a hollow splashing, thumping sound). Things in the cupboards clink and clack about. Lines near the mast tap, tap, tap. The motion of the boat causes the propeller, in neutral gear, to spin click-click, click-click. The wind howls in the rigging. The hanging lamp swings back and forth, squeak, creak.

The strategy is basically to get tired enough that nothing's going to keep you awake.

That was the first several days. Progress wasn't as good as expected, because winds were mostly from the South (this time of year Northwest winds are supposed to dominate). But still, we were about 40 miles offshore of the Oregon-California border by the evening of Sunday, September 2nd, fighting our way against a Southerly wind. Tune in to the weather radio (NOAA broadcasts on special VHF channels):

Coastal waters of Del Norte County, CA, out 60 nautical miles.
Monday: Winds SE 10 knots, wind waves 2-4 feet, SW swell 6 feet. [Wind waves are caused by local wind, and swell is caused by stuff farther away. Wind waves are steep and choppy, swell is long and rolling. The overall peak wave height is a bit less than a superposition of the two.]
Tuesday: Small craft advisory for strong winds. Small craft advisory for hazardous seas. Winds N 30 to gale 35 knots, wind waves 8-10 feet, NW swell 8 feet.
Wednesday: Small craft advisory for strong winds. Small craft advisory for hazardous seas. Winds N gale 35 to gale 40, with frequent gusts to 45 knots, wind waves 10-12 feet, NW swell 10 feet.
Thursday: Small craft advisory for strong winds. Small craft advisory for hazardous seas. Winds N gale 35 to gale 40, with occasional gusts to 45 knots, wind waves 10-12 feet, NW swell 10 feet.
Friday: Winds N 25 to 30 knots, wind waves 6-8 feet, NW swell 10 feet.

Um. Uh. Crap. That's like, up to 20 foot waves??? Hey M, get out the West Coast US cruising books. Look, Crescent City, Del Norte County, CA. Harbor of refuge. Easy entry around a protective breakwater into a sheltered harbor. 60 miles away: we'll never make it sailing upwind, but if we motor all day Monday we could be there by the afternoon.

Times like this are where the real sailors are separated from the chaff. I mean, gales are scary, maybe, but any self-respecting ocean cruiser has their gale stories. And Ho-Beaux was built to handle this sort of sailing. Head offshore a bit more, so no danger of hitting land. If conditions deteriorate, first we can reduce sail and run downwind, which is where we need to go anyways. Once the wind is too strong and the waves are too big, so that running is unstable, we can put up storm sails and heave to, stopping the boat's forward motion and pointing into the wind at an angle, at which point we can go below and ride it out. We can do it!

At least, we're pretty sure we could have; we thought on it pretty hard over a cold beer at a Crescent City restaurant Monday night.

This concludes Part I of the blog. More to come! Part II is Crescent City...

Thanks, Seattle!

We're back in Port Angeles after visiting Seattle one last time. Great seeing everyone! The next leg is to San Francisco, and we expect this will take 2-3 weeks, so check back in mid September. We'll be in Berkeley from mid-September through at least October, and anyone is welcome to visit. We'll be spending some time with K's parents, so the boat may be available for guests in town.

BTW, our new phone number is 206-359-5404. The old one has been disconnected.

- K&M

Hot Springs!

Where did we leave off again? Ah, yes, we were at Ucluelet, were we not? And we didn't say much about the town. Right, then. Ucluelet. Um, small town, lots of sport-fishing, whale-watching, and surfing, industry based on German tourists (yup, and don't ask me why... Whale-watching tours, in German), drunk fishermen handing out Kokanees at the dock. M saw a sea lion romping around next to our boat (see picture below). Frankly, the better Ucluelet stories are those when we stopped on the way back south, and we'll hit those later.



We left Ucluelet early on Thursday, August 16th. Dare I say that a better day of sailing has not been had, anywhere, ever. It started out by trying to scare us off; as we pulled out of the Ucluelet inlet, we hit a squall. At first, we had maybe 15 or 20 knots of wind on the beam, and we were flying along under main and staysail, but then we started hitting gusts of 25 or so, and then a sustained 25. The boat heeled way over, and we pulled up into it, sails flogging, to reef our mainsail. Of course, as soon as the sail was reefed (and it takes a while, when the sail is slapping violently back and forth) the wind slackened. But it turned into 15-20 knots on the aft quarter, and we enjoyed a downhill sled ride all the way to Hot Springs Cove. Not only that, but of several squalls that passed through, they all missed us (or we them), in front, to the side, behind. We didn't get rained on again the whole day.

Nature, who I think was feeling a bit remorseful for trying to blow us over earlier, decided to treat us to some fabulous displays of the sort of raw beauty that an engineer like me can only estimate would inspire a poet or philosopher to write something interesting. A gray sky may frequently be gloomy, but when the sky is gray, and the sea gray and frothy; yet a hole opens in the clouds, and lights a tract of green forest, or a far-off rocky isle, the contrast is... well, is... um... heck, I said I'm not a poet, look at the darned photos and see for yourself. And for good measure, Nature also threw in some whales, several of whom were eating, or playing, or doing various whale-like things as we approached Hot Springs Cove. Whales are (loosely) like lightning, in that they never appear twice in the same spot. "OK, I just flopped my tail really hard on the water, and what that means is I'm going to flop it again really hard on the water in the same spot, so get your cameras ready." Nope. You get your one tail-flop, you get the camera ready, and then nothing, until five minutes later he spouts on the other side of the boat. So, no pictures of whales doing "Free Willy"-s over the boat, however we did get a couple of dorsal fins to prove we saw them.

Now, on to Hot Springs Cove. What a place! We could easily have spent another week, and it was a sad day when we had to pull up anchor and leave. It's really a quite simple place, offering, yes, a cove, and, right again, hot springs. But these have been done so well!

The cove is pretty, surrounded by dense forest. There's a small Indian village (not like the movies, just a normal-looking small town of houses, but happens to be an Indian reservation) on one side. On the other is a short dock and a campground. There's no road, all access is by kayak, boat, or seaplane (more on seaplanes in a minute). The no-road part is key, otherwise this place would be just another overexposed tourist attraction where the big crowd and accompanying vendors would prevent anyone from having a thoughrougly enjoying and relaxing experience. Even though several tour boats and planes provide a steady stream of people between about 10am and 6pm, we were able to have the place mostly to ourselves when we went outside of those hours. The only conveniences available associated with the hot-springs is a boardwalk all the way from the dock to the hot springs about a mile through the rainforest preventing your feet from getting muddy. The hot springs themselves, were pretty unique, water welling up from the ground cascades over a rock wall (a perfect shower for those of us who like it HOT!) to feed a number of small rock pools (50 degrees C or 122 degrees F) before it runs into the ocean. Depending one the tide, the bottom pools are partly fed by the hot spring and partly by the waves rushing in from the ocean creating a pretty interesting effect. For a really refreshing experience, you can jump into one of the ocean pools to cool off to a mere 15(?) degrees C before jumping back into one of the hot pools. All with a magnificent view of course.

Yow, there's pretty ladies at the hot springs!

Forsooth, it burneth thy nether regions!

Although, some can take it better than others...

Look. What is that? There on the rock? Is that... a Merman?

We went back in the morning. It was still hot.

Here are some pools where the ocean water and hot springs water mix alternately.

And here's a rocky channel where the waves roll in. At the level of the tide, you could sit on the rock as the cold waves washed over you.

Looks like our Commodore just can't be satisfied.

The boardwalk itself is particularly cool, as yachties who have stopped by the cove have carved their boats' names into the planks. And yes, naturally, Almost-Master-Woodcarver M and Definitely-Amateur-Sketch-Artist K combined efforts to immortalize Ho-Beaux. Step aside, Michaelangelo!

If you want to stay at Hot Springs Cove, but don't have a boat, like we said there's a campground. But there's also the InnChanter (www.innchanter.com), an old wooden freighter that Shaun, the proprietor, converted into a bed-and-breakfast(-and-dinner) inn. Shaun was a super nice, interesting, easy-to-like fellow. He invited us to tour the inn, and we had tea and cookies with the guests. 'Course, we forgot our camera, but we have an exterior picture (check the InnChanter website for interior pictures):

He had the best plank, too:

Amazingly (because the interior was so nice), Shaun had bought the boat about 15 years ago, when it was decommissioned as a freighter, and converted it himself to an inn, constructing the above-deck level that extends forward from the pilothouse. I highly recommend grabbing your nearest romantic sweetie and making your way up there. Sure, camp for a few nights if you like, but stay at the inn for at least a couple, 'cause it was pretty swank. Also, you get to borrow the inn's kayaks and such, to go explore other coves, rivers, and such nearby. Shaun pointed out his favorite places, but in the end we didn't have time to take our dinghy out there.

As mentioned before, you can get there from Tofino, or if you are extremely brave, by seaplane. In Canada, if you are too aggressive to be trusted with a sport-fishing boat, they send you to seaplane school. Picture an entire cove, with only a few boats anchored near the dock, and a rather vast open area of calm water. Where do you think, as a seaplane pilot, you'd choose for a runway? If you said "right between the InnChanter and that sailboat, and a foot to the left of that old mooring buoy," you're already halfway to your pilot's license!

Here's a photo of takeoff. Fly with this guy, he wasn't one of the crazies.

Well, we've been at Hot Springs Cove for three days, and it's time to leave. Sigh. Actually, we hadn't been planning to stay the third day, but did because we liked the place a lot, and also because the winds were against us. The wind usually blows from the Northwest, but since our great sail up there, they'd kept blowing from the Southeast. Well, after the third day they were still against us, so we had to motor all the way back to Ucluelet. (Sure, you can tack a sailboat slowly upwind, but we are now unfortunately on a schedule, in order to get ready for the long leg to California. To make Ucluelet in a day, we had to motor.)

Back at Ucluelet, we wanted to check our email. This time, we didn't stay at the marina, we anchored in the harbour. So, we rowed our dinghy into the marina. Aw, chickenlips, we forgot a rope to tie off to the dock! No problem, let's row into this shallow corner of the bay and haul our dinghy up on the grass there, by the campground.

OK, dinghy's ashore. We went into town to find Internet. We'd heard of this place, the Driftwood, a restaurant that also had Internet access. This they did, although unlike real civilization where they have wireless, here they have a coin-feed Internet station. You drop in a Loonie ($1 Canadian coin) and it starts counting down from 10 minutes. The computer was all sealed off in this metal box, so we couldn't upload photos, which is why we couldn't post this blog earlier. (For contrast, here we are at the marina in Port Angeles, and there is free wireless at the dock.)

I can't be too negative on the Driftwood, though. To make up for the limited Internet access, they had THE BEST FISH-AND-CHIPS OF ALL TIME. Since they transcended words (and I'm not a poet, remember?) I won't insult them by trying to describe them.

Well, OK, at least we checked email and let folks know we'd be in Seattle this weekend, and had a yummy dinner and a cold beer. Yay. Back to the dinghy. Well, of course the tide had gone out, and the shallow corner of the bay was now a muckfest 300 feet from the water. We tried carrying the dinghy around to the docks, but it was too far. Squish! Squilsch! Mish! Ewww... (For those of your in Norway reading this, the tides here in the Northwest USA are on the order of 3 meters twice a day, so we really should have known better than to pull up on the shallows.)

From Ucluelet, we went to Port San Juan again. Motoring again, because now there was hardly any wind at all. Pretty uneventful, at first:

Who said that "pride goeth before a fall"? That was Apu on The Simpsons, right?

Clunk! Screeeeeeeeeech! Smoke! From under the sink! Aaaaaaaaa! Stop the engine! Is something on fire!?

Well, it smelled like rubber, so I knew it was a belt burning. Not oil or gas, at least, which was a good thing. After the engine stopped, the smoke cleared out, and I went to investigate. Well, well, well... Guess who decided he wanted to be in our blog again. Yup, Mr. Alternator Bracket snapped, this time while the engine was running, at the hole drilled by the Hot Machinist; and the alternator fell down onto one of the belts, the friction burning the belt and creating the smoke. At this point, I could launch into a lengthy discussion about moment arms, belt tension, engine vibration, and metal fatigue, but then I'd have to phone to wake you up afterwards, so let's just say that I fixed the problem temporarily. I bolted a padeye to the wall by the engine, ran a shackle through the bolt hole in the alternator that used to bolt to Mr. Bracket, and ran a bunch of twine loops between the alternator and wall. The twine flexes a bit to give with the engine vibration, but is stiff enough that it keeps sufficient tension on the belt. How do you like that, Mr. Alternator Bracket? Replaced with a bunch of STRING! Ha!

So far, the fix has got us to Port San Juan, and then to Port Angeles (again motoring for lack of wind). On the way, we saw some Orcas. And this one crazy little bird landed on the boom right above our heads, looked at us, then started pecking his way up the sail cover. Mmm, canvas.

Now we are in Port Angeles. (USA! USA! USA!) I was a bit worried that clearing customs would be a pain in the rear, but it was actually not hard, although they did charge us $27.50 for a yearly boat ID sticker. They drop by your boat at the dock, and the customs guy was very courteous.

We'll be spending Wednesday and Thursday here working on the boat. Friday we're going to rent a car and go to Seattle for the weekend. Then back here on Sunday, and hopefully to Neah Bay on Tuesday or Wednesday. We'll probably do another blog update before we leave Port Angeles. Looks like there might be a few things in town worthy of a closer look. Primarily, there's a mega-yacht manufacturer (Westport) around here somewhere, that I hope gives tours. We are parked right accross from some of their latest products, incuding a huge 50-meter tripledecker. Also our neighbour is an artist who gave us a walking map of all the sculpture art in town (including several of his own pieces), so we may check that out as well.