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08:30 - Cleared Cattle Point. The wind is picking up as we enter the Strait of Juan de Fuca and we are getting seas from two to three feet as we set our course for Port Angeles, 25 NM away. It's hard to be sure without makinhg a direct comparison, but the steadying sail seems to be working.
12:00 - Port Angeles. We went to the small Boat Haven at the west end of the harbor but turned around and came back out. The only easy-to-get-to transient spaces were full and with the wind at twenty knots I wasn't interested in jockeying in the narrow channels. We went back to an anchorage next to the Victoria ferry dock and dropped our hook next to a sailboat named "Sirius".
Got down the Metz and buzzed over to a packing house float right in front of the Cannery Shopping Mall - lots better than a two mile hike from the Boat Haven! Spent a couple of hours walking around town, poking our heads into book stores and gift shops then came back to the boat for a lazy afternoon of reading.
About 4:30 a man appeared on the sail boat anchored near us. He got down a wooden skiff and rowed over in our direction. He was an elderly man dressed in dark pants, several layers of shirts covered by a wool Macinaw jacket, a knitted wool hat, and rough, high topped work shoes. He rowed the heavy wooden dory with lots of expertese in the 20 knot chop. We invited him aboard and, after he ran an errand to shore he came back for a drink and stayed for dinner.
| Bob Carr is a true sailor! The only power he has on his 37 foot gaff rigged yawl is a five horse outboard which he says he can use for maneuvering in close quarters in calm weather. With no electricity, he uses kerosene lanterns for all his light, including his running and anchor lights. He built the boat himself thirty years ago by hand, and I mean really by hand! He said he tried to rig up a Monty/Ward rip saw to rip his planks with but found it ruined so much wood that he gave it up and ripped them all with a hand saw. He bought a little forge and made all his own iron fittings! | 
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Bob kept us facinated with his talk for about four hours while we drank our drinks (he took his scotch neat) and ate dinner. From things he said we recon his age at seventy-two. Served a hitch in the U.S. Navy before the war, then in the merchant marine during it. He has never married and always wanted to sail the world so, after shopping all over the country for a place to build a boat, he started to build the "Sirius" in Vermont in the early fifties. He has taken it to the Azores, to Porto Rico and through the Panama. He lost his main mast on the way up the Pacific Coast and, since he was still in the Trades, decided to go to Hawai. His only navigation aids are a chronometer and a sextant. He has dual U.S. and Canadian citizenship (the boat is registered in Canada) and draws a small pension from each country on which he lives. He is also heading for Southern California, and then maybe to Mexico and New Zealand. Quite a guy! Hope we run into him again!
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She's built like the old ships, strong and simple - oak planking over oak ribs and thick beams. He designed her like the boat of one of the first single handed circumnavigators, James Slokum. She's broad of beam and rounded in the stem and stern for buoyancy. Her decks and hatches are planked and covered with painted canvas. Her poles are fir, greased with rings to hold the sails. |
Down below the hold looks like Howard Coon's old workshop. Tools and materials are stacked high on all sides. A huge anvil is in the center, two 150 pound anchors and the ancient outboard are on the starboard side, racks of fittings on the port, and several tool boxes aft. Hundreds of lines are stacked high forward (Bob says he never throws away a line). He used to haul cargo and says he has carried 17 ton in her.
Aft in the living quarters is a single bunk with a fold out chart table over it, a wood cook stove and a tiny alcohol burner to heat his tea, and dozens of plastic five gallon buckets which hold his food stores. His water supply is in a pony size beer keg. He showed me his chronometer, of which he is very proud, stored in it's gimbaled mounting in a wooden box, a beautiful thing to see. His charts are a strange mixture collected over many years. The only harbor chart he has for Southern California where he is going is an old Texaco facility chart someone gave him.
On the aft deck his hand built steering wheel is the only thing on the boat of "yacht" quality. Made of oak scraps left from the hull and newly varnished, it is a thing of beauty! The steering mechanism itself is simple and effective, rope lines around a drum leading to a stubby tiller. It was an interesting visit. I'm kicking myself for not taking the camera with me!
09:10 - Up anchor, wave goodby to Bob and on our way.
11:00 - Visit from a pod of Dall's porpoise - nice to see them again! We are running on a glassy sea with just a little swell so we get a good look at their antics.
15:30 - Dropped anchor in Neah Bay. Down with the Metz and over to the Coast Guard station to talk to them about La Push. Surprizingly, they know nothing about a station 30 miles away. The OD did look up the phone number of the station at La Push for me and I gave them a call. "No problem!", was the cheerful answer from the Seaman who answered. He said, "The channel has just been dredged, there are good markers, and lots of room at the float for you! We'll be looking for you!" A nice surprize after the pessimistic word of the Coast Pilot.
Ran the Metz over to the Makaw Fisheries dock and walked to the store where we bought flashlight batteries and some Rubbermaid containers we hadn't been able to find in Seattle then came back and dined on salmon and congratulated ourselves on our good fortune. It is amazing how the talk with Bob has changed Lois' attitude about our trip south. She has been quite frank in saying she was dreading going on the "outside", but somehow the idea of a seventy plus year old heading out by himself, with no radio, electricity, or other modern aids, has given her courage that no amount of my rationalization could ever have given. Today she has even seemed cheerful about our prospects, a welcome development for which I'll always be grateful to Bob!
08:30 - Rounded the Duntze Rock buoy off Cape Flattery - lots of butterflies in the stomach now that we are committed. It's another beautiful morning with just a little breeze out of the east and a low 4-5 foot swell. We have the poles down but never put the foils in the water.
09:30 - Passed a couple of fish boats headed North and the "IKOMA", a Japanese freighter anchored just south of the cape - must have been waiting for some kind of clearance to enter the strait.
12:30 Gave the Coast Guard a call and took them up on their offer to escort us into La Push and am sure glad I did. They were worrying about us navigating the fish nets which I don't think would have caused us any problem. The thing I'd have had trouble with is the entrance to the river which is narrow and almost impossible to see until you have been through it once. Waves are breaking on the beach and the jetty to the right, and against John's Island on the left! You have to line up between the R"2" buoy and the day marker on a rock in the entrance. It was nice to have the lifeboat leading us in!
The Guard also helped us dock, and then went through their mandatory boarding and inspection. We passed with flying colors although they did point out that we only have two days left to replace our flares before they are outdated. Lois took a can of Cougar Gold up to the station to say, "Thanks!", to the boat crew.
Spent a lazy afternoon in La Push - not much of a town - one grocery store is the only business. Mostly an Indian fishing village except in the summer when the sports fishermen invade the place. We bought some beer, called Kristy, Mom and Dad, and Girl Friday, then laid around and enjoyed the sunshine.
We ran the whole way down the coast about three miles out where we could still get a pretty good look at the shoreline. The Washington coast north of Point Grenville is punctuated by huge rocks up to two hundred feet high which have been carved into strange shapes by the pounding sea. The view from the boat isn't as good as from the air or the beach but it's still impressive to see the towering fountains of spray as the waves break on the rocks.
15:00 - At the Grey's Harbor entrance buoy. I hadn't realized before just how shallow the water is along the shoreline. The ten fathom line is over three miles out in the vicinity of the harbor mouth. As we got in to about the forty foot level the swells, which had been running maybe six feet from trough to crest, built up so we had a couple ten or fifteen feet high. They were so smooth that we hardly recognized them until we found ourselves surfing down the front side. That only lasted for a few minutes and then we were across the bar and into the harbor.
15:30 - Docked at Westport. Quite a change from the crowded marinas we have been used to - probably two thirds of the slips are empty. When the salmon left Westport almost died. The harbormaster told us that a few years ago every slip was filled and they had a two year waiting list! We went up to a marine supply store and replaced our almost outdated flares, then walked the length of the town, from the shipyard to the Islander. It isn't entirely dead. The shipyard is busy building BIG glass boats - seventy feet or more - and there are quite a few charter operators and businesses open even now at the end of September. At the fishing derby weigh-in station there is a picture of this years winner, a 56.5 pound King!
07:15 - We push off the dock against a stiff easterly breeze. It's a warm and beautiful morning as we head out over the bar. A Coast Guard cutter is servicing the buoys just outside the harbor and the international orange topsides of the "Chahalis", a Pilot Boat which has just bid a freighter on its way, are shining bright in the rising sun as it heads back in our way. As we cross the bar we see our first flight of pelicans, a bird we never saw while north. (The town of Pelican, AK was named after a boat of the same name, not the bird)
The run down the coast was as easy and uneventful as the one yesterday. More traffic on the water - we pass, and are passed by, several fishing boats and ships then, as we near the Columbia, start to see sports fishermen doing their thing on a warm Wednesday afternoon. The notorious Columbia River bar isn't even as exciting as the Grey's Harbor bar yesterday although it is easy to see how it could get very rough under the right conditions. Lots more fishermen, both sports and gillnetters, behind the North jetty as we enter.
The channel into Ilwaco is narrow, winding, and about 15 feet deep but is very well marked. We had no difficulty in finding our way.
14:00 - Docked at Ilwaco in record breaking 85 degree heat - lots of space on the docks here also although the Harbor Master told us that last month they were all full. We paid our dues then walked up through town. It's a nice little city, quite a mixture of the new and the old, the properous and the run down. Visited the museum which is one of the best we have seen in a small town, rivaling those of the big cities. It is obviously a labor of love by some of the citizens and covers everything from early Indian food gathering and discovery of the Columbia to oyster raising in Shoalwater Bay, cranberry havesting, and the building of the Columbia River jetties.
Kind of hazy on the way down the coast but we could easily make out the beach and Tillamook Head even running about eight miles off shore. We started really picking up the fish boat traffic about ten miles north of Tillamook and by the time we got to the bay entrance it looked like Point Defiance on a Sunday afternoon!
Coming across the bar and through the channel I was wondering how we could avoid running down at least one of the hundreds of small boats but they seemed to somehow move out of our way as we came through on the range.
14:00 - As we cleared the last day marker into the bay a Coast Guard boat started to pass us going seaward and then swung around and got ready to board us. I slowed and the skipper asked if we had recently been boarded. I said, "Would you believe two days ago?" but he still wanted to come on board and copy all the poop from the report by the Quilliute station to one of his own. Nice polite kids, I think they just wanted to see our boat! They were very helpful, suggesting that we not try to get into the marina and showing us the best place to anchor out.
14:30 - Dropped our hook in 11 feet of water. Yes, eleven feet was the deepest spot we could find! Fortunately, the tides here are nothing like what we have been used to, averaging less than six feet in range. No sooner got anchored than a cold wind came up and the fog rolled in so thick we couldn't see the town about 1/4 mile away. Thought we might be stuck but within an hour the fog bank had passed over and the sun came out bright and warm again.
We got down the Metz (We're getting so proficient at that that it only takes us five minutes now!) and ran over to the boat harbor to take a look at the town. Glad we didn't try to get in - it's stuffed with fishing vessels, big and small! As we land near the boat launching ramp a guy bawls us out for running the Metz at more than 3 MPH and then kicks us off the dock! Welcome to Garibaldi! It's going to be hard getting used to crowded places with lots of grumpy people - we've been awfully spoiled for the past year and a half.
Tied the Metz to a piling and walked up to the "town". Garibaldi is a typical automobile oriented coastal community with fishing and tourism as it's economic base. Spread along the highway and grubby in appearance, are a bunch of antique stores and taverns with a few other businesses in between. We found a grocery, made a phone call, and decided we had seen all we wanted to see of the big "G".
Once beyond the jetty, all but one of the trollers headed north while we turned south toward Cape Lookout. The weather's not quite so nice this morning - cloudy with, as the weatherman describes it, "local areas of fog". It was noon before the visibility improved enough to get a look at the shoreline about three miles away. The swells are coming more from the southwest and there is a bit of a chop on top making for occasional lumps but we never felt the need for the flopper stoppers.
15:30 - Newport! The fish must be north because, except for a half dozen trollers near Depot Bay, we saw no fishermen. At Newport the bar and entrance was empty with only a few die-hards fishing off the south jetty. We first went into the South Beach Marina which is large and mostly empty, but it's shallow and almost all of the slips are 40 feet or less. So we braved the pack of sea lions guarding the channel and moved over to the commercial port on the north side and parked with the big fishing boats. We find that Yaquina Bay is a major boat repair and outfitting center for the Northwest with capability to handle the big offshore tuna boats and Alaska trawlers. We are parked between two of them, the "EMERALD SEA" and the "LESLY LEE", big 90 foot steel boats. A couple of boats at the head of the float are selling tuna from their holds for $1.00 a pound.
We had hardly gotten tied to the dock when a nice young man from the Coast Guard is at our door telling us we are about to be boarded! He seemed a little embarrassed when I told him this was the third time in four days but he too insisted on coming aboard and copying all the information from the two previous boarding reports onto his. I would be a little upset if it wasn't that the kids are so nice, courteous, and helpful. This one was full of complements for our boat and suggested we try the Smuggler's Cove restaurant across the street for dinner.
After the Coast Guard is through we check in with the "Lady of the Port", Mildred Hines, call Bernie, have our Martini, and walk across the street for dinner. Not bad. My razor clams were good but would have been better if I had remembered to specify that they be saute'd in butter. Don't know why people think a bunch of batter improves the taste of clams!
Fooled around with a bunch of little things in the morning while waiting for Chuck and Bernie to show up. Edited the Alaska Log and printed out a copy for Bev as well as letters to Mom & Dad and Nan. Lois cleaned house and did a wash then cut my hair. While she was doing that, out on the dock, we got to talking to the crew of the "Bellevue Star", a 1.5 million dollar 72 ft Hatteras docked across from us. They were delivering it to Friday Harbor from Miami and had been traveling for 62 days. They too had been boarded by the Coast Guard three times in three days, all since they got to Brookings which is the first station in the Seattle district. ????????
Chuck and Bernie got here about 12:30 so we walked up the waterfront to Moe's for a bowl of chowder then later Chuck drove us around the area in his car. Newport has grown but not changed a lot since the early seventies when I was coming down here with the kids. Lots of people - we've got to get used to that again!
Sunday October 4 - Wednesday October 7, 1987
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Had a nice few days with Chuck and Bernie. Spent Sunday night at the farm then on Monday drove over the McKinsey hiway to their cabin at La Pine south of Bend. The weather was perfect - in the low eighties. Spent Tuesday sight seeing in the area, lava fields, pine forests, and beautiful mountain lakes, before coming back over North Santiem pass. The views of the Sisters and Mount Jefferson were spectacular!
Chuck and Bernie sure love to eat! We sort of drove from meal to meal all the way. We bought a fresh tuna from a fisherman in Newport before we left and barbequed it in La Pine. It was pretty good - not as good as salmon but lots better than the canned tuna.
Back down to Newport Wednesday with only one stop at a neat restaurant in Lincoln City called the Dory.
07:00 - Out of Newport at dawn under high clouds and with a good weather forecast. The bar was almost flat.
14:00 - Almost to the Umpqua river and Reedsport where we had planned to stay for the night I called the Coast Guard and asked about bar conditions at Coos Bay. They said, "No problem!", so we kept running. The coastline here isn't very interesting, mile after mile of sand dunes and beaches, all directly accessable from hiway 101 but not from the water. Not even much in the way of wildlife, just lots of sea gulls with an occasional sea lion or flight of geese to break the monotony.
17:30 - Across the bar at Coos Bay just before the max ebb current. No problem but I can sure see how it could get wicked with any kind of sea or wind! There were 2-3 foot standing waves in the channel where all the water from the big bay flows out to the sea.
The Charleston Boat Basin ain't much for the cruising boat! We couldn't raise the harbormaster or find a transient slip. Finally decided to take our chances and tied up in a fishing boat slip, one of the few with a finger float - most just have piling so you have to climb down over the stem to get to the dock.
No sooner got tied up than here comes the Coast Guard boarding party. These guys were nice, as usual, and didn't even fill out a report but it sure seems like they are overdoing the boarding thing!
07:45 - Out of the harbor on a sunny morning with patches of fog drifting around to make things interesting, particularly when the radar starts acting up. The heading sync went ape for about an hour before it settled down in the forward direction. It's kind of hard to interpret a picture when the orientation changes on every scan! We ran out to about four miles off shore and then paralleled the coast to Cape Blanco.
12:00 - Fog getting thicker as we get near the cape but the radar is OK now. We're running down with a four to five foot swell from the NW.
14:30 - Dropped anchor just off the breakwater in Port Orford between a brace of fishing boats. Not really much of a port here - there's a wharf tucked in close behind the breakwater but no one is using it. We are in about 20 feet of water and the swell is just enough to keep us rocking gently. Bet it could get mean in south weather but tonight we have almost no wind. There is a Corps of Engineers dredge working over by the wharf but other than that things are awfully quiet.
13:00 - Crossed the 42nd parallel into California waters! Didn't seem to make much difference, still about 65 degrees, no wind, and a flat rolling sea.
14:00 - Passed the giant horn buoy on Saint George reef. It's a big platform, maybe 100 feet in diameter with about a 40 foot tower in the center. The sea lions have taken it over for a home! There must have been 100 lying on the platform and another 100 playing in the waters around, all making lots of noise. Fortunately we were up wind so were spared the stink. They sure can jump! The platform must sit at least six feet out of the water but they get on it with ease.
15:45 - Tied to a nice concrete dock in Crescent City at the best marina we've seen since Westport. Quite a few fish boats here, and a few small cruisers which are probably used for sport fishing, but no other large cruising boats like ours. It appears we are unique in our endeavor, at least at this time of year. Quite a bit of room on the outer finger floats, all with power and water. Tried to find the harbormaster but it appears he works a five day a week.
Got out the bikes and rode to town to mail some letters. Crescent City is another typical Hiway 101 town, with its "Sea Wonders" acquarium and redwood burl shops. A little cleaner than most and spread out a little more because it isn't hemmed in by mountains close behind. Still not much to offer the recreational boater. We picked up a bucket of the Colonel's Kentucky Fried and went back to the boat for dinner and a show - "Somewhere in Time", courtesy of Dick and Allyn.
07:45 - Radar working well now. Seems to take it about an hour to warm up the sync circuit. I'll call Bill Diltz tomorrow and ask him if there is anything I can do to fix it. If not, I'll start warming it up before we start out. Sure need that Radar in the fog!
14:30 - Over the bar and into Humbolt Bay. Very well marked channel all the way to Eureka about four miles from the entrance. It's kind of a pretty run past the Coast Guard station and all the lumber mills to the boat basin. I had talked to a guy at the Woodley Island Marina on the radio, but when we saw a good spot on the city dock we decided to stay there. It has both power and water and will probably be less expensive.
The city marina is in the industrial section of town so we took quite a walk to a convenience store for beer and milk, then made telephone contact with Bob and Mary. They came down for a visit, a drink, and a tour of the boat. Also talked us into staying for another day - didn't take much talking, this coastal run gets pretty boring and any break is nice!
In the PM we took the bikes and rode up town to look at camcorders. After doing a little shopping at Radio Shack and The Works we ended up buying a Sony 8mm from The Works where Mary works - she got us a $150.00 discount! It's a neat little camera, about the same size as the old 8mm movie cameras but much more versatile. Took it home and could hardly wait for the batteries to charge before trying it out - works really well!
As promised, Bob and Mary came over to cook a super oyster dinner. Lois fixed a salad then Bob did his thing with oyster stew, Oysters Rockefeller and a delicious clam pasta. We've heard about his cooking for years but never had the opportunity to enjoy it before. He is some good cook!
We took Bob and Mary to Panama Jack's restaurant for dinner and celebrated Bob's 31st birthday which is tomorrow. Really had a super dinner! If we don't stop eating so well I'm going to bust 200 pounds!
07:00 - Left the dock at the Eureka Mooring Basin with some reluctance - sure enjoyed our two days here but figured we'd better take advantage of the good weather while we have it. We have about 2 miles visibility in fog this morning but no wind and the swell is long and smooth as we clear the bar.
09:00 - The northerly swell is getting a bit steeper now with an occasional lump that rolls us around so we put out the poles.
10:00 - Decided that the speed wasn't worth the discomfort and dropped in the fish - immediate and definite reduction in roll!
11:00 - Rounded the Bluntz Reef buoy off Cape Mendocino. This is one of the most westerly points on the coast. From now on it ought to be down hill to the southwest.
12:30 - The afternoon wind has picked up to about 20 knots now and we're running down with the swell past Punta Gorda. Glad we have the F/S's in - seas of maybe eight feet pushing us along!
16:30 - Into the bay at Shelter Cove. We ran up toward the cove where we saw a bunch of mooring buoys and skiffs and dropped our hook in about 25 feet of water. Hadn't been there long when a long-liner named the "Cuhny" came in and told us that we weren't in a very safe place to anchor. Most of the buoys are old and held down by things like old engine blocks so there is a good likelyhood we could loose our anchor if we dragged at all. So we thanked him, hauled up, and moved down the beach a ways to where he suggested.
Later I tried to call the "Cuhny" on the radio and another fisherman answered, asking if he could help. Offered to assist in any way he could, including taking us ashore if we wanted to go. Fishermen are neat people!
10:30 - Still bright and warm. Ran through an area where thousands of birds were feeding - mostly gulls and pelicans. I get a big kick out of the pelicans, they are so graceful in the air, and big! Some of them must have wing spans of over eight feet!
12:30 - At the Noya River approach buoy. Today was a short run because the next stopping place, Bodega Bay, is 76 nm from here. The entrance to the Noya Anchorage and river is kind of intimidating, a rather narrow entrance with waves breaking on both sides and lots of kelp even in the channel. We followed a fish boat in, pausing long enough before entering the river to pull in the F/S's. There are wharves all along the winding, 10 foot deep river channel for the 1/2 mile from the mouth to the mooring basin. By the time you get fishing boats tied up along both sides it's not much wider than we are long and makes a pretty picturesque place.
| The basin is stuffed with fishing boats but I had called the Harbormaster (she monitors channel 66) and had a slip assigned, so we moored in C3, checked in (only $7.50), then got out the bikes and rode off to see the big city of Fort Bragg on the north side of the bridge. It looks like lumber and tourism are the basis for its economy. Georgia Pacific has a huge operation here. We could see the mill from far out on the way in. On Hiway 1 on the way to town they have a tree nursery where we stopped and looked at a couple of million, I counted them, little trees. They also help sponsor the "Skunk train", a rail ride through the redwoods to Willis over on Hiway 101. | 
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We looked around the town, found a place that sold Mendocino ice cream and had a cone, then came back to the basin where I got out the Camcorder and took some pictures of the neat bunch of boats. Big day tomorrow so went to bed early after a super Lois dinner of barbequed chicken.
10:40 - Rounded Point Arena. From here on the coastline bears to the east all the way to San Francisco so we are running directly down the swell - makes a really nice ride. Even Lois relaxed!
15:15 - Strange orange-red colored streaks in the water. Must have covered a quarter mile of ocean. At first I thought they were jelly fish but they turned out to be more like bunches of fish eggs, clumps with little trails of red granules. Have never seen anything like them.
17:10 - Saw our first whale since we got out on the Pacific, an Orca, just north of Bodega Head. Only one, and he was quite a way ahead of us on a crossing course.
17:30 - Bodega Bay - bunch of sport fishermen just outside the entrance between Bodega Head and Bodega Rock. Ran up the very well marked two mile channel to the head of Bodega Harbor then had to call the Harbormaster again to find out which marina to go to.
18:05 - Docked at the beautiful new Spud Point Marina. The facilities here are by far the nicest we have ever seen, individual seventy foot slips with concrete floats, huge cleats, private dock boxes, water, and both thirty and fifty ampere electrical hookups. The only problem was that the thirty amp service has ground fault detecting breakers which wouldn't work with our system. (I need to fix that!)
Went up and checked in, only $7.95 per night. We are beginning to wonder when we will see the high California mooring prices we have heard about. Not complaining, mind you! There is a nice clean laundermat and showers right at the head of the dock by the harbormaster's office. Called Kristie - Bob's not home yet so will call back in the morning to see if they want to come ride the rest of the way down with us.
09:45 - They caught me in the last of the oil changing. We dumped the oil, took Bob's car over to the town of Bodega Bay for beer and a few groceries, and got ready to depart.
11:00 - Headed out. Still pretty thick - not more than 1/4 mile in fog but Raider is working well and we have no trouble navigating. Just outside Bodega Bay three Humpback whales surfaced just in front of us! First we've seen since Alaska! Got a shot of them sounding on the Camcorder but they were pretty far for a good picture.
Ran out the bay and down toward Point Reyes. As we got out a ways we started to pick up a pretty good wind and chop from the north which was rolling us around so we put in the F/S's.
13:00 - Fog stops at Point Reyes! It rolls up across the hills and then dissipates as it comes down the other side leaving only a thirty knot wind, blue sky, and sunshine. Couple of commercial fishing boats just in the lee so we decided to try our luck. Didn't have any! We fished the whole south side of the point, fighting the wind but getting never a bite.
15:30 - Gave up and ran around and into Drake's Bay dropping our hook in about twenty feet of water. Still blowing hard but we've got a good holding bottom and we're rock solid.
Had a nice evening visiting and looking at the video movies we've taken the last few days but had to eat pot roast for dinner, no fish!
08:45 - Up anchor and off to see the Golden Gate. We hadn't run five miles when the fog closed in again, heavy this time. Couldn't see more than 100 yards ahead but old Raider did a good job for us. We ran to the "Potato Patch", a four fathom shoal about three miles from the bridge, and decided to fish while we waited for the fog to lift. Fished for a couple of hours with no success.
| 13:30 - Fog lifting a bit now so we gave up the unproductive fishing and headed on for the bridge. As we came by, the whole north side of the channel, Point Bonita, Point Diablo, and the north approach were in bright sunshine while San Francisco and the bridge towers were all in the fog. | 
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Made a pass at the bight in front of Bob and Kristie's place but it shoals too rapidly to make a comfortable anchorage so we went back and anchored just outside the Corinthian Yacht Club in downtown Tiburon. Nice location and view of everything going on but not visible from Kristie's. Found out later that the Angel Island Marine Park, just across Racoon Strait, has mooring buoys and floats. We'll check that out tomorrow.
Sat around enjoying the sunshine and then went up to Kristie's where she and Bob cooked us a great dinner of roast lamb.
After we got back Lois and I went over to Sausalito and talked to a nice lady named Tamara at the Armchair Sailor about charts. She was out of the one we wanted but gave us a lot of good poop about the area.
Back at Kristies we picked up our mail then went to the boat to get it all read and sorted. Later Kris came out and we moved the boat over to Angel Island where we had a small fiasco trying to get tied to a mooring buoy. There was a pretty good current running and before we knew what was happening there was a big knot tied around the buoy! I'm hollaring and shouting but it doesn't do much good. We finally get it all sorted out with the help of a nice neighbor who came over in his inflatable to help.
I'd left the handheld VHF radio at Kristie's so when Bryan came home he called and I ran over to pick him up in the Metz, about a five minute run across Racoon Strait. Bob was working so missed a super porkchop dinner by Lois & Kris.
Called around and got an appointment to haul out over in Oakland next Tuesday. I'll feel better if I get a good look at the bottom and zincs before we head off south for another six months.
After a couple of near groundings (the channel markers are OK if you already know where the shallows are) we made it to the fuel dock in Clipper Yacht Harbor. There a very helpful guy by the name of Jules Hind sold us $3.00 worth of gas for the Metz, filled our water tank, took our garbage, and explained the rules of operating in the big city - don't turn your back and don't leave anything unlocked! As a member of the Sausalito Yacht Club he invited us to use their mooring buoy and dock while we went to town just a couple of blocks from there.
That we did - tied to the SYC buoy and went in with the Metz. While there I talked with a Canadian who had come down from Victoria a couple of weeks ago. He said he had pretty good weather except for some head winds but some others, who had gone out 150 miles, took quite a beating. Hard to imagine after our smooth ride. Also ran into the guy who had helped us with the buoy at Angel Island, Paul Cooper with his wife Paula. They had come over in their inflatable - invited us to their boat for a drink later.
Walked up town to the Armchair Sailor - still no charts - bought an ice cream cone, then cruised back through Racoon Strait and around the point toward Paradise Cove. Saw a nice park but didn't get to the Marina that Bob had told us about - guess we weren't persistent enough. Back at Angel Island we had no sooner gotten tied up than in came the "Valkerie", a sailboat which had been our neighbor in Friday Harbor all last winter. The red bearded skipper, whose name I can't remember, was as surprized to see us as we were to see him. He's been here since May.
Took the Metz over to Kristie's, called Doc Freeman's to order some bottom paint, had one drink with them then came back and had another with the Coopers. They live on their cruiser/trawler,CALYPSO II, in Pittsburg near the confluence of the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers and like to spend some of their vacation at Angel Island. He gave us some good poop on local supply sources. Things are looking up!
That's about the only thing we did accomplish, but it was a fun day anyway. Started out with a little rain, the first they've had in San Francisco since June. We went to San Rafael to the Farmers' Market with Kristie and bought a bunch of good looking produce including some more of those Kumumoto oysters like Bob Putnam fed us. Then did a little shopping through marine stores in Sausalito.
Had dinner at Kristie's, Kumumotos, chicken parmesian, fetticcini with fresh basil, red chard and brocolli. Um, good!
Stbd 16 3/8
We've used about 750 gallons since filling in Ketchikan, 1000 to go.
Rained, or rather drizzled, most of the morning. I was planning on cleaning up the boat but worked inside instead. Found that my loudhailer problem was the speaker. I think it was under-rated for our hailer and several hours in the foghorn mode just did it in!
'bout noon we took the laundry over to Kristie's and found Bob home cleaning up after the roofers. The new garage really improves the appearance of their place! I fooled around helping him while Lois did the wash. Kris got home about 3:00 and we headed for the boat.
16:30 - Off the buoy at Angel Island. Ran around the Tiburon penninsula and north in the bay. We looked over Paradise Cay, a real estate development for boaters, and were in about 15 feet of water heading for the San Rafael bridge when a monster fish four to five feet long lept out of the water in front of us! It was on of the sturgeon we've been hearing about. Had white spots all down it's back. Sure surprized me!
Hadn't gone too far beyond the bridge, bucking a strong ebb tide heading up toward San Pablo bay, when we decided we had better stop for the evening. There is no comfortable place to anchor before Vallejo which was obviously several hours away, so we turned around, went back and anchored in twelve feet of water just off Paradise Cay. Nice view with lights of the city in all directions.
09:30 - At the juncture of the Napa River and Carquinez Strait where the naval base on Mare Island is located. I guess most of the navy ships are on up the Napa toward Vallejo because we only saw one, the training ship "GOLDEN BEAR". Just to the east of the Vallejo bridge is the big C & H sugar processing plant at Crocket.
10:30 - Into a very nice marina at Benicia where they made us feel welcome even on a busy weekend. Assigned us an end tie, gave us a key to the dock, and told us to have a good time in the town of Benicia, only a couple of blocks away. We got there just in time to miss the annual Holloween parade, but the streets were still littered with little ghosts, skeletons, and pumpkins.
Benicia, a very savy Park Ranger at the "Capital Building" told us, was the third Capital of the State of California. Monterey and Vallejo were the first and second. We toured the old building, a very sturdy one which he told us the residents had built from scratch, including making the bricks, in ninety days to induce the legislature to move to Benicia. It's a nice clean little town with lots of history and cutesie little shops to bring in the tourists.
12:30 - On up Carquinez strait into Suisun Bay and past the mothballed ships parked there. Bob and I were wondering about the first one we passed, which had all kinds of gantries, cranes, and conveyers on it. We later learned that it was the Howard Hughes deep ocean research ship that recovered the Russian sub a few years ago. The hundreds of big ships parked in the bay are a pretty impressive sight.
Taking the Suisun Cutoff, we ran east through the bay to Pittsburg. There we decided to take a peek at the Pittsburg Marina where Paul Cooper, the guy we met at Angel Island, is Commodore. Sure enough, he hailed us down as soon as we got in the entrance and we had a nice chat. He suggested that Five Fingers Island would be a nice place to stay for our night on the Delta.
14:00 - East out of Pittsburg into the mouth of the San Joaquin River we start getting into real Delta country. We are soon running between dikes where we look down into corn fields and pastures from our high waterway, kind of a new perspective for we boat people! Occasionally there is a large lake which was formed when a dike broke and a field flooded and never reclaimed.
17:00 - At the mouth of the Mokelumne River, a major tributary of the San Joaquin which rises in the Sierras. It is getting fairly late in the day and Five Fingers Island is still quite a ways away so we decide to look for an anchorage here. I kind of scared myself getting into the river by passing over a bar where Charley is yelling, "FOUR! FOUR!". (When he says, "Four!", we are aground.) Once in the river it is deep enough, but there are two large marinas with hundreds of cars and boats and it doesn't look like a very good place to anchor so I decide to go back out and run on.
I had studied the chart and it looked like we could find deeper water on the way out by taking a slightly different route so I did. The water was deeper for a while but then Charley screamed and my heart sank as we slid to a sudden halt on a bar! It sank even further when I realized that we were almost surely at the high high tide of the day!
As fast as we could, we took the 75 pound Danforth out in the Metz and dropped it in twenty feet of water off our stern but no amount of winching would move us, even with other boats trying to rock us with their wakes. After one abortive attempt by a helpful fisherman to heel us over by pulling on our mast, and with the tide falling rapidly, we gave up and resigned ourselves to this as our parking spot for the night.
03:00 - At 37.5 degrees now and have been for some time. We may actually have the hull on the bottom. The ports are well under water now, and enough pressure is behind to force a steady stream of water though the leaking seals - Lois and I are bailing steadily. The bilge pump switch has stuck in the on position so I have to work it manually, and the bilge alarm switch also came on because of the tilt so I had to shut the alarm off. We are pretty groggy now, and awfully tired of being on the side hill!
06:00 - We are starting to come upright now, back to about 25 degrees. Lois is trying to sleep crosswize on the bed and with the leaks in the ports slowing down I'm able to lie down on the floor of the stateroom for a few minutes at a time. Unfortunately, after studying the tide tables I'm realizing that we won't be fully upright until the evening high tide.
07:30 - It's light now, and already we've quite a group of spectators on the shore and in other boats. Bob and I get in the Metz and go over to the "Pirates Lair" marina where we get some local poop on tide timing and the names of a couple of towing companies. I call the "BLACKFIN", boat the locals had recommended and talk to Herb Hickman, a pretty savy sounding sort of guy. He promised to come see what he could do before the evening high tide.
| 08:30 - It's the morning high tide and we are still laying over at 15 degrees. It's amazing how tiring it can be to be tilted so long, and we have 10 hours to go! We do what we can to clean up the mess, put out the little lunch-hook anchor with a line to our starboard flopper stopper pole in an attempt to keep us heeled as the tide rises (just in case our rescue boat doesn't show up), got out the calking gun and gooped the galley ports, then just waited. Bob and Kristie took the Metz over to the marina and brought Lois and me a ham and egg breakfast which we ate while lying on the cabin floor, then I went up to the forward stateroom and tried to sleep without much success. | 
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15:00 - Herb and Lizz Hickman show up in the "BLACKFIN". My heart kind of sinks when I see it. I don't know what I was expecting, maybe a big tug, but this boat is about 26 feet long, open, and sure doesn't look like it could do much for us. Herb circles us several times taking depth readings and concludes that we have plenty of water behind and about ten feet off our port side. (I should have hugged the island closer) He is fairly optimistic about getting us off but says he can call a bigger boat called the "BLACK JOKE" as insurance. I tell him to go ahead, we sure don't want another night on the bar!
17:00 - The BLACKFIN is back and we are at last upright again as we approach high tide. We have dumped most of our fresh water in attempt to lighten the boat and are rocking in boat wakes. We appear to be high centered because both bow and stern are moving up and down. Herb gets the tow line on our bow and first tries to rotate us so that we could move forward into the deep water on our port. No success! He can turn us slightly but can't make us move. I'm plesently surprised at how much pull he has.
17:45 - Almost dark now and still no BLACK JOKE. Herb has gotten a call that they have lost a water pump and have been delayed but will still make it before high tide. I'm trying to get mentally prepared for another night. We decide to try attaching BLACKFIN's line to our mast and let him pull us on our side while we try again to winch ourselves off backwards with the stern anchor. We get Herb's line attached, Kristie is cranking on the anchor winch with Bob tailing, Lois is watching the line on the stern, and I've got the engine going. As the anchor line comes taut and BLACKFIN starts to heel us over, I give Jimmy about 1000 RPM in reverse. For a moment there is nothing then Lois screams, "We're moving! We're moving!" and I feel like our 35 tons have been removed from my shoulders.
We retrieved our anchor and Herb led us across the bar, still brushing the bottom, into deep water and a safe place to anchor for the night. By now the BLACK JOKE shows up, running with an external water pump but ready to have helped if needed. I'm more than happy to pay Herb's $275 fee and also the $320 for having BLACK JOKE make the trip from Pittsburg. We all have a drink and then fall into the sack for a much needed night's rest.
In hindsight, I think we could have, knowing what we know now, gotten off last night with just the help of the boat that tried to help. It was an expensive lesson but may come in handy some day.
08:30 - Headed down the San Joaquin. Ran back the way we came as far as Three Mile Slough where we decided to go over and run down the Sacramento to get some new scenery. Three Mile Slough is a fairly deep waterway with a drawbridge at one end that joins the San Joaquin and Sacramento rivers about ten miles above their confluence. It has a marina and a very nice launching ramp and park for boaters.
12:30 - Back at Benicia, we park at the end tie again and spend a couple of hours filling our water tank and just enjoying the 80 degree, Indian Summer day. It's sure nice to be on the level again!
17:00 - On a buoy in Angel Island's Ayala Cove we have a spagetti dinner and hash over what now seems like a real adventure, but one we're not anxious to repeat!
Kristie called on the VHF to tell us our mail and paint from Doc Freeman's was there so I took the Metz over as the clouds started to look more threatening. Good thing I did because as I got back the rain began in earnest, the first real rain we've seen in months - went on most of the night.
When the rain finally stopped I went over to Kristie's and called American River Outfitters who will send us some Hypolon paint to put on the Metz where the covering is deteriorating, then went up town to the Post Office and hardware. Kristie's again for a super dinner of lamb shanks! It was a tough day!
08:30 - At the Sea Breeze Yacht Center we had a bit of a shock. I suppose I should have gotten suspicious when his prices were so low and he didn't seem to care when we came in for a haul-out. The fact that when I talked to him on the phone he wasn't sure he could lift us should also have been a clue. The entrance to the marina was so narrow we could hardly have gotten in. The docks were in bad repair, the yard unpaved and filled with little boats in various stages of disrepair, and the lift was so small that, even if it could have handled our weight, it could never have lifted us high enough to get into the yard. Oh, well, after getting a good look at the bottom last weekend I don't think we really need a haul-out anyway!
Back out of the harbor, enjoying our tour we ran across the bay to the San Francisco side and toured the waterfront there. Slipped through the South Beach Marina - lots of open slips there, wonder why? North past the ferry docks and the high rises to North Point and Pier 39 where the marina is very crowded. The difference is probably that Pier 39 is also a fancy shopping center while South Beach is pretty much in an industrial shipyard area. Farther to the west are two more large boat basins and the San Francisco Aquatic Park Lagoon. Lots of boats but few sailing on this mid-week morning.
11:15 - Back at Ayala Cove we tied to the dock so we could do a little cleanup of the hull. It gets pretty cruddy after a month of cruising but a bit of oxylic acid takes the smile off her face. Went over to Kristie's and borrowed Bob's car for a run into Sausalito for some supplies and spent the rest of the PM working on the boat.
In the evening Jim and Stacie, Kristie's new business partner, came over and we had another gormet dinner, this time Peppercorn Lamb. Kristie is sure some cook!