Arriving by Boat

I love sailing and the ocean, that’s no secret or revaluation, what is surprising to me is my reaction to the places that we’ve stopped at so far.  I had visited our first stop, Crescent City CA years ago and hadn’t enjoyed it nearly as much as I had on this last visit.  I remember thinking that it was quaint, but not being very impressed with the place.  My first visit there happened on a road trip.  I had driven my van down to see the red woods forest and then shot over to the coast to make my way back Eugene along the ocean.  

This time, Crescent City seemed so much more interesting and alive to me and that it made me wonder why.  Why the difference.  One difference is Beverly, she wasn’t with me on my first visit and most things are usually better with her, but I suspect that it may be something else too.  Our next port Eureka, was quite exciting too and then this last stop, Point Reyes, was practically off the charts for me excitement wise.  I was in rapture of it’s simple, austere beauty and now I have a theory to explain it.

I think it’s actually two related things that are causing this effect.  First is the effect that one's mode of travel has upon their mindset upon arrival.  I’ve noticed that places seem different depending on how one’s one gets there. How we arrive at a place seems to makes a big difference at to how we experience it.  Simply put, places seem different because we experience them differently based on the effect that our mode of travel has upon us.  Think of a place, any place, now imagine arriving there via different modes of transportation, say by train, airplane, automobile, on foot, by swimming, running or biking, climbing etc… Each one of those modes of transportation will set us up to have completely difference experience.  

Another aspect of that comes into effect when arriving by a sailboat.  Before arriving at one’s destination you’re immersed in a very stark and purifying environment, the sea.  External stimulation is limited with very little outside contact.  No news, phone, TV, internet, radio*, newspapers etc…  Your whole world gets reduced to just a few things; ocean, sky (both day and nigh skies) and the sails.  That’s pretty much it.  For me that calms me down and cleans out my head.  In that way, it’s like spending some time in jail, when you get out, everything is suddenly so stimulating and interesting, except that, I’m happy to report, sailing is a much nicer experience than jail.

This effect is probably much more pronounced today that it was, say 200 years ago.  Through out history, sailors are famously overjoyed to make port and have a reputation for happy-making to excess upon arrival.  Today we’re probably overstimulated in our daily lives and given few opportunities for mental and spiritual timeouts.  So in a simple and direct way, sailing nicely fills that void.  Now if we could get insurance companies to recognize and support this beneficial activity. 

* On Malo we could listen to radio, AM, FM & shortwave, are all available to us, as is a large collection of music via our iPods.  We choose not to listen to any of this when making passage in order be able to better hear our boat and the environment we’re in, because sound is often the first indicator that something has gone wrong on a boat.  A side benefit of that is a deeper emersion and awareness of ourselves and the sea.  

Half Moon Bay

The passage from Drakes Bay to Half Moon Bay was our shortest so far, only 47 miles and it only took us about 5 hours.  Short and sweet.  We did see lots of whales, one shark, some seals and the high point for me was seeing Mola mola (ocean sunfish),  We probably saw 8 or 10 of those unusual creatures which was very cool. 



So this is where we’ve landed.  It’s kind of crowded, kind of cozy, kind of famous (home of Mavericks, one of the famous big wave surf breaks in the world) and defiantly all Californian.    As we were walking around town tonight a mint Porsche 356 Speedster went by with the top down.  What could be more Californian than that?

We’re going to enjoy some showers, do some laundry (clean out my skivvys from our Eureka bar crossing), enjoy some internet, phone reception and fix some boat things such as a couple of twisted up halyards (mast money anybody?), the jammed anchor windless, dinghy wheels, rig a kettle for the anchor, check over the engine and a few other odds and ends.  



We’re also going to hook up with some sailing fiends and check out this place too.  Then, after all that, we going to head on down the coast, probably to the Channel Islands before heading down to old San Diego and staging for Mexico.  

Drakes Bay, Point Reyes

I hadn’t heard much about this place other that it was a handy place to anchor just outside the mouth of San Fransisco Bay.  We were thrilled to discover it is that and so much more.

We were planning to just spend a night here and then be on our way but now that we had two anchors out, the dinghy all set up and a steady weather forecast, we thought we might as well spend an extra day exploring this place that, from the bay looked pretty sweet.  That’s how a one day stay turned into three.

For our first shore trip we motored over to the old Coast Guard life boat station what had built in 1927 and abandoned in 1968.  The National Park Service restored it in 1990 and now preserves it for posterity.  One of the old type “T” 36-foot motor lifeboats in the boathouse sitting on marine rails looking ready to go.

The primary structure is the station is the boathouse, built in 1927. Designed to house lifeboats on the first floor with the station’s crews quartet on the second floor.  They have a CG surf boat sitting on the marine rails looking ready to go, with period furniture all about and even art work on the walls.  In it’s hay day over 50 people staffed this station.  It kind of spooky now with no people around and looking like they all just stepped out for a moment.  



Bev and I hiked up the hill from the life boat station and as we gained altitude the views just kept getting better. We passed a small heard of deer that let us get within 50’ of them.  It’s was wonderful to be around wild creatures that don’t consider is a threat.

That’s Malo in the photo below sitting at anchor in Drakes Bay:

When we were on Malo, 100 miles off shore, she doesn't feel small to me.  She feels big and mighty.  But when we got off of her, climbed that hill and looked down upon her sitting out in that bay, she looked so small and venerable.  Like a delicate sea bird bobbing out upon the waves, improbable things but yet, there they are...

Every way we looked the views were spectacular.  The air was crystal clear and the light has a special quality about it that seemed sharp and glowing at the same time.  I wondered if that was caused by the moisture in the air.  





The next morning we set out in the dink to explore both sides (ocean & bay) of the point from the water.  The ocean side was craggy, wild and ocean blasted.  We came up on a beautiful and secluded beach covered with about 50 or so sleeping sea lions.  They were sleeping in the morning sun arranged in three groups.  The first group was made up the largest ones.  We guessed those were the males.  The second group was composed of smaller individuals.  Both of those groups were sound asleep at 8:30 in the morning.  The last group must have been the nursery as it was made of about 4 or 5 very small sea lions the smallest of which seems to be an infant.  These ware all awake and playing in the water right next to the beach.  



We turned back into the bay and headed over to a large beach where we landed the dink and went for a walk along the shore.  

As we walked we could see a whole lot of fresh animal tracks in the sand.  We could see lots of raccoon tracks, a couple pair of deer tracks and some dog like tracks.  Popular place.



We were delighted to see lots of pelicans too.  They were successfully diving for fish all around us.  We could tell because then they camp up from under water we could see them raise their huge beaks and shake their catch down their throats.  As we came into the beach, the flock settled down just down the beach from us to digest after their meal.  



Over all, besides being remote, unspoiled and gorgeous, Point Reyes seemed quietly magical and even sacred.  Bev wondered out loud about how the native Americans felt about this place, if it was sacred to them.  I had been wondering the same thing.  As a society, we’re loosing our connection with nature, which makes the few remain places like this all the more precious.  

Eureka to Drakes Bay Passage

The passage was only two and a half days long and already it’s all a blur to me, none-the-less I shall try to recount it as best I can.  It’s becoming evident to me that I should start keeping passage notes as I go because I’m getting older and more forgetful, or perhaps because passages we’re always blurry to me and my young self just wasn’t aware of that.  Either way I’m going to try to maintain a running log of our future passages because there can be so much richness that it would be a same to lose.   

 We got up at 5:00 in order to complete the final preparations for departure for points south and secure Malo for passage.  There had been a lot of energy building within both Bev and I surrounding the departure.  We were both ready to move on and at the same time a bit concerned about the passage.  One last check of the running lights and we were ready to go.  

The big, unspoken question in our minds was would the new batten cars work.  After breaking seven of them on two short and relatively mild passages Malo seems to have developed an unhealthy appetite for them and at sixty bucks a pop, an expensive appetite at that. 

We wondered if all our hard work and time that we had put in on the problem, in researching, selecting and modifying the new batten cars, would pay off.  The new cars were a better design with wheels rather than feet on the outside to facilitate the vertical movement of the cars.  They were longer, thus increasing their inherent stability and web strength.  The webs them selves (the middle part of the “I” section of the slide) is much thicker and shorter (closer to the mast), making them stronger and reducing their moment of inertia (means less leverage that the sail loads could impart on them).  So far we had spent a total two extra weeks in two different ports addressing this issue.  Would these new cars be the answer to our problem or prove to be just more inept offerings to the mast gods?  Time, wind and seas would soon answer that question but first we had to get out on the proving grounds and to do that we had to cross the dreaded bar.  

It so happened that a good window for crossing the bar and for a 2 to 3 day passage south opened up the day after we finished installing the new batten cars.  At 8;00 the following morning, at slack tide, the wind and ocean swells were all supposed to abate, like the result of some kind of celestial alinement that would allow us to continue on our way south.  

In order to be at the harbor entrance a little before 8:00 we left the marina at 6:45.  It was dark and dead calm when Bev cast of the dock lines, gently pushed Malo away from the dock and then stepped on board.  I eased her into reverse and we were on our way.  

Eureka is supposed to have one of the most dangerous bars (channel entrances) on the west coast, second only to the Columbia River bar.  We had planned for the best possible conditions for our exit but plans and reality are two separate things.  We would soon see what the sea was dishing up this morning. 

We arrived at the entrance way jetties a little early as planned so we could have enough time to observe conditions and plot our escape.  As we rounded the harbor shore that brought us to the twin breakwater jetties that form the entrance channel, we could also see waves breaking over the inner most end of the north jetty.  Rut-row!  As we turned the corner and looked down the barrel of the beast we saw…surfers, Whisky-Tango-Foxtrot, about a half a dozen of them. The crazy bastards.  They’re never a good sign in a boat channel.  Who else would get up before sunrise to go play in cold, rough water and these guys were getting some good rides on overhead sized waves that were braking on the north side of the channel.  Double rot-row!  

We had heard that the south side of the channel was favored by boaters so we went around the surfers in order to get a look at that side of the channel.  So far the large breaking waves completely obscured that side.  I wasn’t very optimistic at this point but had come this far so we might as well fully check it out.  Carefully we proceeded up the left side of the channel and to my surprise and delight I thought that it just might go.  I looked over to Bev and she seemed ok, calm, focused and alert.  There were large swells ahead, but none were breaking down the southern half of the channel.  We continued on past the surfers who were just off our starboard beam.  It was thrilling to see them getting nice rides on well formed waves not too far of from the side of our boat.  Spooky too.  About half way down the channel the swells started getting pretty big, 8’ to 12’ high with short 6 to 7 second periods.  Steep!  Going up the faces was exciting and sledding down the backs even more so. Cowabunga   Malo did fine and I could wash out my skivvys later.  It was with great joy and relief that we cleared the bar and proceeded out to sea.  

As soon as we cleared the entrance buoy Bev rounded Malo into the wind and we started to raise the main sail with me on the foredeck pulling on the halyard and Bev taking the slack into the cockpit.  To my surprise we got the sail almost completely up by hand, which is pretty impressive for a 40’ boat with a 56’ mast.  The best ever and my hopes continued to build for these new batten slides.  Bev put the halyard on a wench and cranked up the last few inches.  Then we rounded off of the wind, rolled out the jib and headed south again, back on the fun-way.  



Bev had visited a walk-in clinic in Eureka and scored some Scopolamine patches that she was tying out.  That last passage was quite hard on her.  Once, at night when I came up on deck to relive her of the watch I could see quite a bit of vomit on the deck to both sides of the helm station.  What a trooper but that couldn’t stand.  Now she was trying one of the best seasickness remedies out there.  But I have to say that there was one good side effect of Bev’s Mal de Mur, that when she felt it coming on, she start to starts to sing, one of the best natural remedies for seasickness.  Sailors become quite attuned to sound, particularly the sounds that happen around your boat.  One often will hear a problem before it’s ever seen on the water and it is allays better to address those issue sooner than later.  Happy sounds are also noted; the gentle lapping of small waves agains the side of the hull, the cry of sea gulls, or the occasional wine of the bilge pump doing it regular duty.  All those sounds make a sailor relax, at least a bit.  So when I was down below on the off watch, trying to get some much needed rest, hearing Bev’s heart felt songs made me feel warm and relaxed in many ways.  

This day the with it’s lumpy 6’ to 9’ seas would soon test her again.  The Scopolamine  seemed to be working like a charm and Bev found her happy spot at the helm even in some pretty big seas but would it last and would she suffer and of the side affects and I hoped that she might continue her night songs…

Later that night the wind came up quickly to 35 knots and caught us with only one reef in when we really needed two.  Poor Bev was on watch when it happened with me blissfully unaware down below, sleeping.  When things got out of hand Bev rang the bell to bring me up form below.  

When I got up on deck Malo was surfing down big waves at speeds up to 10 kts.  Impressive but we had work to do in order to calm our wild horse down.  She was also healing way to starboard as she rounded up in the gust and skidded down the faces of waves sideways.  It was pitch black and I was half awake when I had do to a slippery-wet-jig up on the foredeck in order to reduce sail.  With Bev at the helm and me on deck we finally got Malo back in control, even then she was surfing down good sized waves at 7 to 10 kts but this time it was manageable.  The wind slowly settled down over night and by morning we were both relieved to see that all our new batten cars survived the tempest.  Another victory for Malo and her crew. 

As the morning progressed the wind continued to drop down to a placid 4 to 6 knots.  It was hard to settle for 3 to 4 knots of boat speed after last night’s 7 to 10 knots so we decided to tryout our huge new sail, a code 1 gennaker sail.   



We dropped the main and jib and ran with just the gennaker for a few hours until the wind picked up enough that we had to douse the gennaker and get back to more traditional sails.    While we were were in the middle of that operation, Bev cried out that there were whales off to starboard.  Usually when that happens you look out to sea you see some spouts a mile or so off in the distance.  We had both been fully occupied with dropping the Code 1 so these whales took us by surprise.  They were only abut 200’ from Malo when Bev had spotted them, headed directly for Malo’s side and moving at a good clip, lined up for collision Whisky-Tango-Foxtrot again!  We had our big sail only half way down at the moment and we had no choice but to finish taking that down or face other unpleasant consequences.  My gaze went back and forth between the sail and the two enormous creatures that were baring down upon us.  Fortunately they altered there course at the last minute, passing no more that 10’ off of Malo’s stern.  Gasp! Thank god and pass the whisky.  I love whales, love the sight of them, the sound of their breathing and the way the sun sparkles off their spouts but I do wish they would keep their distance.  

It turned out that those two whales were not alone but were a part of a pod of about a dozen wales.   We finished stowing the big genie and commenced whale watching  Soon they were all around us feeding.  Diving deep.  At one point we were in the middle of the pod when they all disappeared at once.  Was it something I said?  It was eerie to have them so close and then have then all vanish in an instant.  Several minutes later they started appearing again, spouting huge plumes of water up in the air taking and then taking in huge cavernous inhales.  Air, life giving air and we share it with those amazing creatures who at this point seem more highly evolved than us.  These gentle giants of the deep can communicate great distances without telephones, wifi or internet, don’t need clothing, cars or houses, they can “see” in pitch black with their sonar and they can hold their breath for extremely long times.  Later, their little cousins, the dolphins, the original party animals, showed up for their own fun and games.  And, and, and… then I saw my first puffin beating wings north like it was late for a date or at least a good fish dinner.  

Wow, what an amazing day it had been and that’s how we spent our fourth anniversary of our marriage.  Bev made Yumm bowls (beans, rice, salsa and a special sauce) for dinner which we enjoyed in the cockpit as the sun set over the ocean. 

That evening the wind picked up again but we were ready for it this time with two reefs in the main and the jib already rolled up a bit.  The wind speeds built and the swells got bigger as we rounded cape Mendocino and Malo started doing a happy dance all her own.  We were surfing down the big ones at 8 to 11 knots for hours.  Thrilling to be sure.  After four hours of fun I angled her in towards shore to find some predicted, calmer conditions.  Still sailing well but at a much more manageable speed and with smaller swells, I spent a few incredible hours gazing at the sky between horizon scans for other ships and checking the chart plotter for AIS indicators of the same.   

It was an amazing night. I felt filled to overflowing with joy and awe as I looked up into the heavens.  Seeing all the other galaxies in our Milky Way,  spread out before me, with the gentle rocking of Malo under me, I could easily imagine myself sailing through the greater universe, which we are, it’s just that seldom have I’ve been so aware of it.  

What you gonna do when you feel your lady rollin'
How you gonna feel when you see your lady strollin'
On the deck of the starship
With her head hooked into Andromeda
                                         Jefferson Starship

After a long day and four hours of this incredible night watch I was finally ready to sleep when Bev came on deck to relieve me at 4:30.  Soon she would be enjoying the sunrise and the start of a new day.  

Later that morning I got up after a very nice sleep.  Bev had the boat in good shape and the day was already well started when we had a couple of visitors off the transom.  It was a pair of seals what surprised us as we were over 10 miles offshore.  They seemed to be a mother and child pair and the young child for some reason seemed to be particularly curious about Malo.  He swam right to our transom, sticking his head high above water to look at us.  Finally mom had enough of that and tried to turn her youngster away from us, even biting at the youngster’s face but the curious little seal would not be deterred.  From our stand position up on our deck, our heads about 8’ to 10’ above the water, we had a great vantage point to view their antics.  They are such beautiful swimmers, fast and quite agile too.  Sometimes zooming ahead of Malo and then stopping and popping up their heads as they waited for us.  This game went on for a good twenty minutes before they took off.  

It was iffy whether or not we could make Half Moon Bay, the furtherest south of our three possible destinations, so we decided to play it conservatively and head for door #2, Drakes Bay just north of San Fransisco in order to assure that we would be entering harbor in broad daylight.  

This stunningly beautiful harbor sits at the end of Point Reyes and was first visited by a westerner in 1579, Sir Francis Drake during his circumnavigation of the world by sea.  Drake was an English sea captain and privateer. He did the second circumnavigation of the world in a single expedition, from 1577 to 1580, and was the first to complete the voyage as alive (poor Magellan never made it home from his).

We anchored in 21’ of depth, tucked well within the bay.  It was a bit unusual of an anchor set in that the light 2 knot breeze was blowing against a moderate current of 1 knot.  Water usually winds out over wind in any show of force so we went with-the-flow of things and set against the current.  We were tired and hungry from all our recent activities, so after the anchor set and Malo was riding nicely we went below to make lunch.  Bev had just finished making us a couple of tuna wraps when I felt the boat tug a bit sideways.  In the few minutes that we were below the wind had picked up to 15 knots and had over taken the current causing Malo to reverse course and in the process managed to tie the anchor rode in a loop around her keel.  Bummer.  This was a serious predicament with potentially serious consequences if not remedied quickly.  

We had to react quickly because with the wind building and Malo turned broad side to it we were in danger of pulling our anchor.  If that happened we couldn’t motor with out risking wrapping up out anchor line in our propeller and we probably wouldn’t be able to sail very well dragging our anchor.  Rut-row.  

We dared not try to Malo’s to help untangle the anchor line for fear of entanglement either.  Yikes! So we launched the dinghy to try to pull her around but by the time we got the dink setup Mr. W was blowing 20 knots and our dink with it’s 10hp motor wasn’t able to bring her through the wind.  

Bev suggested that we use the dinghy to put out another anchor which was a brilliant idea and we soon had our second anchor set and was able to transfer Malo’s riding load on to that anchor and released force on the first one.  That’s when we discovered a downside of the newer blade shaped keels.  They knife to windward quite well but they also appear to hold a line quite well when wrapped.  

It’s been many years since I’ve cleared a line from under a boat.  I had snorkeling gear and a thin, shorty wetsuit on board but I wasn’t anxious to jump into that chilly 57 degree water but jump I did and lucky I got because I was able to clear the keel in one dive.  I was motivated not to drag that process out.  I’m please that my old body can still do some things and this is a good place to pause, reflect and express gratitude for my body.  It is old and showing many signs of ware but it’s is also responding when called upon whether it’s to haul sails on a pitching deck, lifting the dinghy or diving the anchor line. 

When we are on a passage we never get a full night’s sleep or the opportunity to sleep together because we have to take turns driving the boat 24/7.  Bev observed that “we were like two ships passing in the night”.  One of the joys of coming into harbor was getting a break from all that.  As we settled in for the night in this amazing bay, after all the activity, drama and wonder of the recent days we were rewarded with a beautiful sunset, the
gift of a full night’s sleep and finally being able to finally sleep together.  And the next morning we were treated to an amazingly beautiful sunrise.  



What a difference a single minute can make in a sunrise and what a difference a single day can make in ones life time.  



I am so grateful for these moments and days that I have been grated.  



Drakes Harbor, I’m looking forward to getting to know you…

Eureka, we were glad to meet ya

We came in broken and are leaving feeling whole again.  I wasn't pleased with all the batten car failures but I'm so glad that we got to spend some extra time in this special place.  Ordinarily we probably have taken off after a coupe of days but because we had to wait for parts and make repairs we ended up spending 9 days here.  

It's a real place full of folks that work the sea, fishermen, aquatic farmers, sailors, a few boat builders, marine tradesmen, and those that watch over them all; the men and women of he US Coast Guard serving in what may be the most noble of all the branches of Homeland Security.  

There was oyster farming going on right at our dock.  Lots of fishing boats came and went.  This time of year they were laden with tuna and we heard the crabbing was big here when that's in season.  

The coast guard kept two kinds of boats here:

47' foot surf boats that were designed to weather hurricane force winds, heavy seas, breaking surf up 20' high with impacts up to 3 G's.  They are also deigned to role and self-right if capsized with all their equipment fully functional.  All this with a crew of only 4.

                     

I had seen this magnificent boat out on the water numerous times but I'd never been docked next to one until we came into Eureka.  What treat to see these great stallions of the sea up close.  With a range of 200 nmi these boats were primarily deigned for near shore, rough condition rescue work.  They are the workhorses that protect the most dangerous harbor entrances and bars along the US coast.  

Also on the dock was the the Barracuda, on of the Coast Guard's 87' Protector class coastal patrol boats.  With a 900 nmi range and a crew of 10 these boats were designed for off shore work.  They have neat trick of being able to launch and retrieve a small, rigid-hull-inflatable-boat while underway from a stern launching system that requires just a single crew member to operate it.  I was thrilled to be able to see that in action.  

As fascinating as that is, our primary reason for prolonging our visit here was to repair Malo and the tiny chandlery run by Tom Sheldrake was key to that.  Tom put us on to another brand of batten cars that would fit our rig but are (fingers crossed & touch wood) much stronger.  Thanks Tom!  He also beat Bev in cribbage, something the I haven't been able to do lately, so there is that too.  

Batten cars - defiantly not nearly as sexy as Coast Guard rescue boats but quite impertinent to us non-the-less because they keep our seagoing party rolling.  Ultimately it doesn't matter what I think of these new cars, the sea will test them herself and determine their worthiness as she does to us all.  If they stand the test that will be wonderful, if not, we'll reassess, regroup and try again.,.

We have a good wave forecast for crossing the bar tomorrow morning and a decent weather window for heading a couple hundred miles down the coast to the San Fransisco area.  Our plan is not it enter the great bay itself. That takes up a good amount of time both coming and going, so we'll stop into one of the beautiful but lesser bays near by.  Depending on the weather and our progress we're considering, in order of progression; Bodega Bay, Drakes Bay and Half Moon Bay.  

So with warm feelings and gratitude in our hearts we're ready to leave beautiful Humboldt Harbor and the charming town of Eureka.                              

Sailing while old...

Samoa Beach

After doing some boat chores yesterday Bev and I biked over to the peninsula that is adjacent to the island that we’re tied up next to.  Our destination was the ocean beach and an old lumber camp in the town of Samoa CA.

The ride was short, just a few miles and the bridges were not too high.  None-the-less my old knees were killing me.  My right knee has been acting up for the past year.  I finally went to see an orthopedic doc to get it evaluated this past summer.  After some X-rays and an MRI the doc said that I had arthritis, a tear in my meniscus and that down the road I should consider joint replacement surgery.  I couldn’t do that without impacting our trip so I chose to put it off with the hope that I’ll be able to “get by” for now.  Now my other knee has decided to join the pain choir and they are both piping up pretty good. 

I’m not a complainer, so it’s hard for me to write or talk about this but it’s a very real part of the trip now and it’s omission would seem somehow wrong to me because I want to tell the full story as much as possible.  That and the fact that this is a blog about an old couple sailing. 

This morning I had a frank discussion with Bev about my knees.  She knew something was up, had commented on my limping and noticed how I’ve been having to limit the lengths of our bike rides lately.  So it’s was good that we talked about it.  Bev was very understanding and we’ve made a plan to continue the trip, something we both really won’t, to carry on as long as I can and also to start the process of getting knee replacement surgery something that can take several month to get queued up for.  Ideally I’d like to have the surgery some time in the late spring or early summer which with would be at the end of the sailing season (begging of the hurricane) in Mexico.  

Back to yesterday’s bike ride.  It was well worth the the knee pain to get a glimpse into the history of this place.  Samoa is a very cool place.  The beach is beautiful and quite long.  All that survives of he lumber mill is a few old buildings and it's old cookhouse.  Although you wouldn’t know it now, the area around the bay was once surrounded buy giant redwoods. 

Those huge logs were cut down and hauled to the sawmill in Samoa that in the late 1800s was the largest in all of Humboldt County.  At Samoa the huge trees were turned into lumber and then shipped by rail and sail out to market.  The last old-growth timber was milled in 1980 but the mill's cookhouse survives today.  

Remarkably the old cookhouse is still serving food today:


















This is what it looked like back in the day:



Today's cook house maintains an amazing little museum of local logging artifacts:



I hope and pray that someday the giant redwoods will be allowed to grow again and people can find a balanced way to coexist with them.  

Cribbage, some hope and other boats at the docks...

On our passage from Crescent City to Eureka we broke 4 more sail slides in conditions that was a bit rough but not too bad; 10 to 20 knots of wind with steep seas of 6" to 10".  I've been in much, much worse conditions without braking any batten slides on other boats.  I say Whisky Tango Foxtrot to that.  I think a couple of things might be at play.  Thing #1, I noticed that the spare part we had on board was a "C" revision of the base design part number and the replacement parts that we had shipped in to our last port were a revision "S".    That's are a whole lot of design revisions between C & S.  That tells me something not-so-good was up with that design.  Thing #2, I noticed that there seemed to be and an excessive gap between the face surface of the sail track and the feet of the sail slide and and another excessive gap between the web of the sail slide and the sides of the sail track.  To me that says that the slides could have been stronger in the web and that the slides were not "grounding" the compressive batten loads into the mast thus putting an bending moment (load) into the already undersized web.  Long story short, those slides were probably not the best fit for out mast track.  

Bev in her wanderings about the docks heard that there was a guy running a small sail repair shop in back of the marina.  We checked him out, sweet guy, in his 80's, works 4 hours a day doing small sail & canvas repairs and playing cribbage, years of sail repair experience   We told him our problem and he suggested a slide from another manufacture, Challenge Sailcloth.  Bev photographed the pertinent pages from the parts catalogue and back at the boat I did the math.  Bev also played him in a game of cribbage.  It looked like they did have a slide that would be much stronger (thicker web) and fit better (roller slides that wold ground their loads to the mast).  Because they are from another manufacture/different design I'll have to so some minor modification so they will fit our track but they might just be the magic cookies that gets us out of batten slide hell.  Fingers crossed.  So we ordered one, I'll make the modifications to it and then see how well it fits.  If it looks as good in real life as it does in on paper we'll order a full set plus spares and be on our way.  Fingers crossed and touch wood... 

In the mean time we've been exploring the charming town of Eureka CA and enjoying the marina where we're docked; Woodley Island Marina, a super nice staff and the cheapest dockage rates on the west coast.  We've berthed on slip behind the big Cost Guard ship on the right side of the photo below.   



The the town, which is across the river from us has a wonderful museum of local history, The Clarke Historical Museum, that is heavy on local Native American history.  Our folding bikes have been a big help to us here.

There are lots of interesting and beautiful boats in the marina both large and small, sail and power.

 

“I believe much trouble would be saved if we opened our hearts more.” 

-- Chief Joseph

This beautiful fishing vessel invokes Jacques-Yves Cousteau's (French naval officer, explorer, conservationist, filmmaker, innovator, scientist, photographer, author and researcher) research vessel.  Calypso was the name of Cousteau beloved oceanographic research vessel.  That man, his ship and crew inspired a love and awe of the oceans in many of us.  

"Water and air, the two essential fluids on which all life depends, have become global garbage cans."

"The sea, once it casts its spell, holds one in its net of wonder forever."

                                                                                                           Jacques Cousteau

Eureka CA

We made it to Eureka.  It's is supposed to have one of the most dangerous entrance bars on the west coast so we did a night passage in order to arrive during the day, particularly the morning when it's calmest.  It was a beautiful night but a lumpy ride.  The combination big waves a light wind made the ride erratic.  I had a hard time steering by compass in those conditions so I steered by the stars.  It turned out the the milky way was right over where we were headed so for most of the night I headed right for/into that.  It was magical as my night vision became acute and the sky darkened it seamed like I was sailing right into the Middle Way it self.    Just beautiful.  The crazy motion of the boat got the better of poor Bev.  She was sea sick all night long.  Bummer.  But we made it and are safely tied up in a deliciously funky marina.  

Bev and I usually share the sailing, watch on watch, throughout the night the with but because Bev was sick I did most of it which helped to put me into some kind of altered state.  By morning I still felt pretty good so I was surprised when I couldn't do some simple math.  Rut row!!!

The bad news of this passage is that broke 4 more of our sail slides in the rough conditions last night so we've got that do deal with.  They're made out of plastic.  I'm going to see if I can get a local machinist to make us some out of metal or some other fix.  Who knows at this point, we might be here a while.  

Other that the sail slide breakage, Malo is doing great.  She's such a fun boat to sail.  Sort of like riding a spirited horse, responsive, sensitive, willing and somewhat fast...

Crescent City Harbor

You can give yourself to the sea

or she can take you,

either way you will be changed forever. 

She might even give you back,

then it’s up to you, 

what to do with yourself.

We finally got the tracking number for our sail slides.  They are do in tomorrow afternoon.  They left Massachusetts yesterday afternoon.  As I type this they’re in Oakland,  CA.  It’s kind of mind-blowing for me the juxtaposition of our mode of travel with modern times.  It took us two days to sail a couple hundred miles down the coast and now our parts are traveling across the whole country, 3,000 miles, in that same amount of time.  Crazy!  

The approach to C-City Harbor is filled with rocks but there’s no bar to worry about and with two giant breakwaters, an inner and and outer one, its quite a safe approach if you mind the buoys track down the range markers.  We saw no less that 19’ of depth the whole way in.  The marina is strongly build with state of the art facilities and at $25 a night it’s a bargain for dockage with full power & water hookups.  The marina staff has been friendly and helpful too.  We've seen harbor seals every day about the boat and once even a sea otter.  

We biked over to nearby Battery Point Lighthouse today.  It’s located outside the harbor on an island that you can walk out to at low tide.  It’s an old and charming light house (was one of the first lighthouses build on the California coast).  It’s still operating, staffed by volunteer keepers and it’s open to the public. 

On the way over the low tied approach we saw this.  I don’t know what the hell it is; man hole cover for the bay’s drain or access to some kind of “Lost” like entrance way to a secret Dharma Initiative facility.  

The light house is charming.  We go a full, top-to-bottom tour by the keepers, even up to the light it’s self.  

When we got back a beautiful bird landed in Malo's companionway.

One never knows what they might see on the sea...