September 26, 2014 - Eureka California

We had a VERY easy transit to from Crescent City to Eureka, about 9 hours of motoring.  In fact, they were best conditions so far on the pacific ocean.  5 knots of wind, if that, and virtually no swell.  I think it would have been good waterski water!   Since the Washington/Oregon border we have been seeing strange little things floating on the water.  They look like pieces of clear plastic floating upright in the water.  Surprisingly, at 7-8 knots we pass them too quickly to really see what they are.  We have seen large patches of them at night in our spotlight, and they seem to show up in clusters.   On our trip to Eureka we saw many more of them.   In the afternoon we slowed way down and caught a few in a small net to take a closer look.  They are very strange creatures.  They are about 4" in diameter and have a clear semicircle sticking up on the top.  The bottom side is blue.  Kathy looked them up and they are called Velella.  They are related to the Man-O-War.

A Valella, from the top.

The clear "sail" on the topside of the Valella.  This is all we see sticking up
out of the water.

Thousands of Valella floating by.

Here you can see the little sails that move the Valella across the seas.

Here is a great link to info about them.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Velella

Just after Kathy looked them up we sighted them by the thousands!  It was amazing.  We have never seen anything like it before, and apparently neither has the California coast in the numbers seen this year.  They are being washed up on beaches by the thousands.

In Eureka we secured a slip in the Woodley Island marina, just across the channel from "old" town.  It's a very nice facility with a lot of commercial fishing/crabbing boats.  In fact, a commercial crab boat I completely rewired a few years ago is here.  I rewired it back in La Conner and then was here in February to install a new autopilot when the old unit finally failed.  So, I've been in this marina before.  Zach, the crab boat owner stopped by for a visit.  He's a nice guy and has a very interesting life, crabbing off the California coast.

Beautiful sunset at the Woodley Island marina.

Rainbow.  It rained hard here for a solid day, and then scattered showers the
following day.

The weather is not going to be favorable the next week or so.  We need to get past Cape Mendocino which is the most notorious obstacle for boats on the west coast.   The weather here can be terrible, and change very quickly.  In fact, in July it's the only place in the entire Pacific Ocean likely to have gale force winds.  That's omminous.

Eureka is the "waiting room" for boats heading down the coast, as it's only about 15 miles north of Cape Mendicono.  There are a few other boats here waiting for the right time to get past this next hurdle.

NOAA has a weather forecasting office here and we took a tour of the facility yesterday.  We got to go into the main forecasting room and sit down with one of their forecasters to look at the computer models and tools they use to generate the forecast.  It was very interesting.  There were about 4 other people in the room each with a bank of computer monitors in front of them studying weather data in order to make the predictions for the marine weather that us boater's rely on when making go/no-go decisions.

Yesterday, I (Steve) spent most of the day working on Zach's boat.  I installed a new charge sharing relay, a new battery charger, and also went out to re-calibrate his autopilot.  His motor seized up a while back and he had to have a new motor installed.  Fortunately the motor was under warranty and the entire bill was covered including cutting apart his boat and then re-fiberglassing it back together.  The total bill was close to $70,000!!!  During that engine swap the autopilot somehow lost it's configuration information and we needed to get it all fine tuned again.

Coming back to port after tuning the Autopilot on Zach's fishing boat "Miss Phyliss"

We are renting a car this afternoon and will have it for the weekend.  We are "stranded" here until probably Monday morning due to bad weather on the ocean.  Tonight we go over to Zach's house in Trinidad for a Tuna BBQ.  Yum!  Tomorrow we will go exploring by car.

A friend's of Zach's with a commercial boat two slips over from us stopped by an hour ago.  He has some electrical work for me on his boat if I'm interested.  Since we will be here a few days, I'm going to take advantage of this opportunity to help offset the cruising costs.  It's nice to have skills that are valued by our slip neighbors in the marinas  :-)

September 24, 2014 - Crescent City, CA

At was an easy trip from Coos Bay to Crescent City.  The weather had been a bit bad wile in Coos Bay so we waited until conditions improved.  As soon as we had a good weather window, we left.  We spent several days in Crescent City, California, which is just a few miles from the Redwood Forest.  We took a cab one morning to the forest and hiked through the redwoods at the Jedediah Smith Memorial Park.  We strolled among the largest and oldest trees in the world for about 4 hours, and 5 miles.  The trails were great, and the trees were huge.   Some of the trees are estimated to be almost 2000 years old!!!  They are awe inspiring. although I think Kathy and I appreciated the Redwood Forest more than Cindy and Kevin.

Cindy in front of a giant Redwood tree.

The trees are HUGE

Close-up of the root ball.  The Redwoods are impressive.

Cindy working on her "park ranger" activity book which she picked up at
the ranger station in the park.

We also rode our bikes into town and found a great playground that the kids enjoyed.  We went to Safeway and even Papa Murphy's to re-provision for a the next leg of our trip.

The kids getting a big spin on the tire swing.
I get dizzy just watching them spin!

Great playground in Crescent City.

The kids on a concrete breakwater construction block.  They used hundreds
of these to built the breakwater for the marina.

Another town, another anchor  :-)

Our new friends on "Pesto" (the Brazilian Family with two children) ended up next to us in the marina.  We got together a few times with them.  The kids played games together for an hour or two, while we adults got better acquainted.  They are a really nice family and we look forward to seeing them all many more times.  It was great to see our kids having so much fun with their new friends.  We look forward to many more meetings with them in the future, as we have the same general travel itinerary as they do.

Pesto and Adagio safely tied to the new docks in Crescent City

The marina in Crescent City was completely rebuilt after the Tsunami wiped it out.  I have never seen a marina built this tough.  It has the biggest pilings I've seen, and they are very closely spaced.  The docks are concrete and appear to be very heavily built.  I think they may have built a Tsunami-proof marina.

The marina at Crescent BEFORE the Tsunami

The marina AFTER the Tsunami.  Yikes!!!

Cindy showing how large these piling are.  Huge.

Our kitty Zappa checking out the docks.

September 20, 2014 - Overnight passage to Crescent City, California

We are now in California!

The trip to Crescent City was about 17 hours, so we had to motor at night for at least part of the trip.  We decided to motor all night so the kids could sleep through most of the trip.  This allowed us to do home school the next day once we arrived at Crescent City.  We left Coos Bay Oregon at about 3:30PM just after the 3:00PM NOAA weather forecast came out.  Once we confirmed that the weather conditions looked good we fired up the motors, untied the lines, and headed out across the bar into the ocean.

The sea was glassy smooth, with rollers from the SW.  It was an easy ride.  For the first hour there was almost no wind, then it suddenly rose to about 8 knots.  Just enough to eliminate the glassy look, but not enough to make any waves.   Kathy saw one whale spout, and we saw one or two crab pots, but not much else.  After darkness arrived the winds gradually increased.  Around midnight or 1:00AM it was blowing about 18-20 knots (forecast was for 5-10 knots).  The ride was still good, but not as good as at was earlier in the day.  At times the wind was directly on our stern, blowing the diesel exhaust right up and over the boat.  We could see it in our forward spotlight, in fact it looked as if we were running in heavy fog, unless you looked to the side to see the lights on shore, or the lights of a few commercial fishing boats.  I suspect that I have a failing fuel injector or two on the starboard motor, as that motor is smoking more that the other motor, and leaves a little oil sheen on the water at start up.  In fact, the port motor has virtually NO smoke, even on a cold start.  I with the starboard motor was as clean burning.

Kathy came to relieve me at about 1:00AM and I went down for an engine room check.  Much to my surprise the port transmission was running hot.  It was about 210 degrees compared to it's normal 160.  I reduced rpm's and monitored the temperature with a handheld laser thermometer.  It didn't drop much.  So, I reduced rpm's to idle, and took it out of gear.  Still not much improvement.  I shutdown the engine and removed the sea strainer.  It was pretty clogged.  We had seen a few patches of sea weed that we ran over , in the dark.  Perhaps some had been sucked into the cooling system?  I put the strainer back together and started the motor, leaving it in neutral and at idle (for maximum cooling).  The temperature did drop back down to normal.  I put it back in gear and brought the speed back to normal.  The temperature was stauying in the normal range.  At about 3:00AM I felt I could take a nap, and did so.  About 6:00AM I woke up and relived Kathy, so she could catch some sleep before we arrived in Crescent City at about 8:00AM.  We tied up at about 8:30 on the beautiful new guest dock.

Crescent City was hit hard by the Tsunami and had to be completely rebuilt.  It is still being finished with landscaping and signage being installed right now.  This is a first class facility.

Crossing the Coos Bay bar.  It was an easy departure.

The kids in heaven while we motor.  A DVD movie playing on a player and
two laptops so they can play games together. 

A fishing boat, an hour or so before sunset.  Beautiful conditions to be motoring
in for a long overnight passage.

Beautiful sunset on the Pacific Ocean.

Miss Sayoka.  A boat I worked on in La Conner.  The boat was built by
La Conner Maritime last year.  I helped a little with the electronics installation.
Crescent City, California.

September 19, 2014 - Coos Bay Oregon

We spent several days in Coos Bay, Oregon.  It's not a marina setup for cruisers at all.  It is a commercial fishing marina, period.  There are virtually no facilities even remotely close to the marina.  The only things here are a bait and tackle store, a restroom with showers, and a tavern with pool tables.  The only restaurant was out of business.  There is no laundry, there are no restaurants, there isn't even a grocery store or mini-mart within a mile.  The pizza place in town (6 miles away) won't even deliver to the marina.  The nearest marine store is more than a mile away, over a bridge.  The nearest grocery store is several miles away.

The transient/guest is dock is home to people crabbing from the pier.  So, we had people camped out 5 feet from our boat day after day tending their crab pots.  We could hear their voices and smell cigarette smoke during most daylight hours.  Many commercial boats around us left their generators running 24/7 for days on end, so there was a constant diesel engine background noise, and the associated smell.  We had to keep our windows closed most of the time.

Can you tell we weren't thrilled with Coos Bay as a cruiser's stop?  Actually the town of Coos Bay is further up the river, but the marina is close to the ocean in Charleston.  So, technically we were in Charleston Oregon, but everyone refers to this as Coos Bay.

We spent our mornings with home school, and even some afternoons, getting caught up.  We worked on some boat projects too.  I finally got our water heater hooked to the electrical system so we can make hot water when plugged into dock water, or when the generator is running.  Previously we only had hot water after motoring for a few hours.  With 30 gallons of hot water in a well insulated tank that would last a couple of days.  But, we have ended up in a few locations longer than the hot water would last.

Rob at the bait and tackle shop (Basin Tackle) was GREAT!!!  He set us up with some Tuna gear than we can drag behind the boat as we motor down the coast.  We motor at about the ideal tuna trolling speed.  Tuna are biting out there and we hope to catch a meal or two :-)

Coos Bay was an escape from some weather.  It was also a comfortable distance from Florence for a day's cruise.  It was not a stop we were eagerly anticipating like some of other previous stops.  So, as soon as we got a break in the weather we left Coos Bay and headed to Crescent City, California.  It was an overnight trip, and the conditions were quite favorable.

Here are some pictures from Coos Bay.

Nice little fish market out on the docks.

Kevin and Cindy find a great climbing tree.  Charleston

Lots of commercial boats here.  Not many pleasure boats, anywhere.

Kathy finds her boat.   She decided she wanted to keep Adagio!

The Coos Bay Coast Guard practicing docking a "disabled" boat with a
second boat.  It was interesting to watch them practice.

Crabbers tending their pots right next to our boat.  This went on during daylight
hours until 10:00PM every day.

September 16, 2014 - BF - Newport Oregon Adventures

Hi,
    Buttercup here, reporting for duty! On Sunday 14, 2014 we rode our bikes up to some sand dunes and other fun things to do.
    On Sunday, we all rode our bikes up the highway onto a bridge that has about 2.5 ft across the sidewalk. It was a very nerve racking walk. When we got to the other side, we had to bike uphill for a while and then go down a long, curving road down to some sand dunes.  We locked up our bikes and walked up a small hill.  On the other side, there was...
    A couple of sand dunes sloping down to the ocean that were so soft and sandy. As I walked across the warm sand, I kicked it up in the air and it floated away in the warm breeze. Then, I ran forewards and jumped down the smooth soft slope, ran strait to the ocean, and felt how COLD the water was. I ran right back to where Mom and Dad were, and yelled to Flunky that I would give him $100 if he came down to the ocean with me.  What he didn't know is that I would be paying him with Monopoly money!  We played on the beach for a while and then got all sandy in the dunes.  After that, we left and biked back up the hill to Sandland Adventures.
    There we played a game of Minigolf and then rode go-carts around a track at about 20 miles an hour!  It was really fun.  Then we took a dunebuggy tour for an hour.  We rode down steep sand cliffs, up and down sand dunes and next to the ocean as the tour guide told us all about the dunes and the animals that live there!
As you can tell, we spent a lot of time that day outside in Florence, OR! Fun!
--------------------------------------
Hi "Flunky" here,
     We had a great time in Florence Oregon.  Me, Cindy, Mom, and Dad played minigolf.  Mom won and I was third.  Then we drove go-karts around a track.  I was too small to drive by about 5 inches.  Dad drove and I was passenger (next to him).  Next we had to get on a dune buggy for a tour for about an hour.  It was mainly all on sand dunes.

September 16, 2014 - Florence and Coos Bay Oregon

It's been a few days since our last post.  We have been quite busy enjoying the Oregon coast.  What beautiful country this is!  Sand dunes, lakes, endless sandy beaches, rugged shoreline with impressive rock outcroppings, and quaint waterfront towns.

We motored from Newport to Florence last Friday and had good conditions for our transit.  About 1/2 way to Florence we heard a sailboat hailing the Coast Guard on the VHF.  They were having fuel problems and were just about out of usable fuel.  There was not much wind so they were motoring.  They were intending to go straight from Anacortes WA to San Francisco until they had this problem.  After 30 minutes of back and forth between the vessel and the CG it was decided that the sailboat would come into Florence and the CG would bring them enough fuel so they could motor up the Siuslaw river (pronouced "Sigh-ooo-slaw") to Florence to work on their issues.  3 hours later we arrived at the bar crossing just 1/4 mile behind them.  The Coast Guard had delivered the fuel earlier and had now come out in their 47' motor lifeboat to escort them all the way to Florence.  The Siuslaw river is quite shallow and has shifting sand bars that can make navigation a real challenge.  We took advantage of the CG escort and dropped right in behind the sail boat.  That made the trip up the tricky river a breeze.  We arrived a few minutes before 4:00PM at the highway 101 bridge, which we had already arranged to have opened for us at 4:00.  A crew has to drive an hour from Coos Bay to open the bridge, so you have to arrange for an opening in advance.  So, at 3:55 the bridge opened and all three boats passed underneath.  We could see people getting out of their cars to take photos of our boats, and people also came out of their houses, apartments, and hotel rooms to watch us pass under the bridge.  I guess it's a pretty big deal when the loud bridge siren sounds.  Locals scramble to see what kind of boat is coming to visit their town, and tourists get a unique photo opportunity.

Oh, the sailboat is from Anacortes, and is headed to Baja just like us.  They are part of the Baja Ha Ha rally beginning around Halloween in San Diego.  That's the 6th boat we've seen so far that is part of the "Ha Ha" rally.  They replaced a dead fuel transfer pump and left two days later.

The Coast Guard comes out to escort the troubled sailboat.  We follow them
upriver all the way to Florence.  That makes it easy!

Highway 101 bridge opens for us, and the sailboat.

No problems getting through.

Adagio tied up at the transient moorage dock, Florence OR

Beautiful weather in Florence OR

Friday afternoon we walked around Florence, which is a very cute little riverside town full of small shops and several nice restaurants.  Saturday we did home school in the morning and then went meandering through Florence in the afternoon.  Sunday we hopped on our bikes and rode a few miles to the dunes and fabulous beach just south of town.  We then rode back up a long hill from the ocean to highway 101 and stopped at a "tourist" activity place.  We played miniature golf on their fun course.  We raced around their race track in go carts.   But the best part was the dune buggy ride through the dunes, down to the ocean, and through the forests.  It was a blast and we learned a great deal about Oregon's sand dunes.  This would be a really fun place to own dirt bikes, or ATV's.  There were probably hundreds of people out playing on the dunes with all sorts of motor vehicles, but with so much territory you didn't see many of them.  It would be very easy to get lost out here.

Sandy Oregon coast.  Hmmm, where are the kids going?

Playing mini-golf. in Florence OR.

Every seaport town seems to have an anchor monument.
  Florence is no different.

The "dune Buggy" we rode out to the dunes.

From our dune buggy tour.  We ended up next to those two "sand Islands"
way off in the distance.  It was a very good 1 hour tour of the Oregon Dunes.

Close-up of the dunes.  They are far more expansive than this picture reveals.

After talking to a local with a Tolly 48, whose boat is just about as tall as we are, we concluded that we don't need to have the bridge opened when we leave.  We should easily fit under the span next to the drawbridge if we lower our two 22' antennas.  We did that and we had plenty of clearance.  We didn't feel the need to close highway 101 again.... although it made me feel oh so important and powerful :-)

Foggy for our morning departure.  You can't even see the bridge.

 We still have challenges with the weather and deciding when to leave.  This is very different that cruising in the NW where you can duck into any sheltered bay, drop the anchor and wait for conditions to improve.  Out here on the coast, once you cross the bar and get onto the ocean you better have a plan, with contingencies.  If you find that conditions worsen, river bars could end up closed, eliminating your escape route to inland protection from the wind and waves.  The bars are typically 40 miles apart at the minimum, which at 7 knots is 6+ hours.  That's a bit daunting!  It also explains why we have stayed a little longer at some of our stops.  We want to make sure we don't get stuck on the ocean riding out bad weather.

Yesterday (Monday) morning we left Florence in heavy fog intending to motor 24 hours to Crescent City CA.  The forecast was great with 5 knots of wind forecast.  The winds gradually increased until we were seeing 20-22 knots, from the south, within less than 2 hours of leaving Florence.  As time progressed the waves grew larger, and closer together.  About 3 hours into the trip it became uncomfortable "hobby horsing" our way south into the waves.  The constant up and down, bow rising and falling quickly, just isn't fun for anyone.  Nobody got sea sick, but I didn't feel too good after one of my routine engine room checks.  It's 105+ degrees in the engine room, and there are some fumes that go along with two hot motors screaming away in an enclosed space.  Those fumes, and the heat combined with the boats motion gave me an instant headache and an unsettled stomach for an hour or two,  We decided to bail on our plans for Crescent City, not wanting to endure an uncomfortable overnighter. We turned for Coos Bay, OR instead.  Their bar crossing is one of the safest, with the fewest number of closed days of any of the bars.  It's also the biggest port between San Francisco and Seattle with large container ships frequently crossing the bar.  We had an easy crossing and secured a slip at their transient guest dock.

Coos Bay is definitely a working marina.  There are very few pleasure boats here.  I'd guess it's at least 90% commercial boats.  Big fishing boats with generators running 24/7.  It's not a quiet place, nor is it dark at night.  Commercial boats are coming and going at all hours and they generally have their huge lights turned on.  These lights turn night into day much like the lights in a sports arena.

Adagio hanging out with the working boats in Coos Bay

Fishing boats are everywhere here.  Hardly any recreational boats to be found

There is not much here at the marina, and the real town of Coos Bay is a few miles away.  So, we don't have a lot of entertainment options here.  The kids are home schooling right now.  They are almost a day behind due to the inability to homeschool while motoring yesterday.  It's a catch up day with "boat school".

Back in Newport we met a nice couple from Brazil.  They have a gorgeous Hallberg Rassy 53' sailboat and have almost exactly the same plans as us for the next year or two.  They have two children ages 9 (girl) and 10 (almost 11, boy).  Perfect :-)  Obviously they are homeschooling.  Last night they pulled into the marina right in front of us.  They also had a rough time out there and were pretty exhausted from their passage.  It is going to be great to meet up with them from time to time along the way during our adventure.   We've only been gone two weeks and already we have met another couple, with kids, on the same adventure, going to the same places!  We expect to cross paths many times with them.

Alex and Adriana's beautiful 53' sailboat.  They also have two children close in
age to ours.  They have roughly the same plans we do for the next year of more. 

September 15, 2014 - Newport Oregon wrap-up

Before Newport is just a memory I thought I should tell you about our last few days there.  We were planning to leave on Tuesday, but the weather just wasn't cooperating with our plans.  So we ended up with a few extra days there.  We took advantage of that time by taking a tour of the NOAA facility.  They have a little museum there, which is about all we saw of the inside.  We then got to go out to the docks where a few large boats are being decommissioned and will be auctioned off.  They are ex Navy mine-sweepers (if my memory is right).  Thanks to our slip neighbors Dean and Lynn for arranging the tour for us.  Unfortunately for them, they are Canadians, and as foreigner's they need 3 days advance notice before they can take a tour, so they could not tour NOAA along with us.  Dean and Lynn are on their big lifetime adventure aboard their 46' sailboat.  They are from Winnipeg and plan to be out sailing for years, now that they are retired.  They loaned us a huge DVD collection of kids movies.  I think our kids watched 3 of them.  Thanks Dean and Lynn!

We took a private tour of the NOAA facility in Newport.

We then walked over to the Hatfield Marine Science Center and spent a few hours inside learning all about the marine environment and wildlife.  It was GREAT and definitely a must see if you are even in Newport.  The kids spent at least an hour with their two wave pools.  They built Lego structures and then sent various computer controlled waves (of their choosing) at them to see if they could withstand the force of nature.  They even sent tsunami waves!  It was pretty cool.

Here Kevin and Cindy built a canal into a bay, complete with sea walls.  It easily
held up to the "Kevin powered" wave generator.  Great learning experience.

Kathy checks out a great fishing boat exhibit.  The Hatfield Science Center is very
well done.

Kevin still does not believe this is a real submarine, that a full-sized
adult can fit in.  But it is, trust me!

We took the bus back over the bridge and into town where we did some provisioning at Fred Meyer.  We also stopped at that playground again and let the kids play for about 90 minutes.  They really liked it as it was more challenging than most playground structures.

Cindy makes a paper mache Stonehenge as part of home school.

Kevin at home school, or should we call it boat school?

University of WA research vessel in Newport.  Steve's alma mater.  Go Huskies!!

Newport was a great stop.  We were here longer than expected, but in Newport it's OK.  There is plenty to do here.