Ye Ole Cabin

"Light winds are okay," I keep telling myself.  When given the option of light winds and motoring or 15-20 kt headwinds beating into the weather, I keep reminding myself I should be grateful for the light winds.  So it went for several days... and it was okay.

We continued north through the night and next day, passing San Francisco with barely a glance.  Kelli spotted the Bay Bridge through a little break in the fog but it was more of a faint outline rather than a striking panoramic view.  Just outside San Francisco Bay is a traffic separation zone where commercial ships are required to stay in certain lanes while entering or exiting the area.  There are three two-way lanes making six total lanes of traffic.  Pleasure boats like ours are not required (and somewhat discouraged) from using the lanes, but there are some suggestions when dealing with the lanes, like cross them at right angles and watch for traffic.  When we started getting close, I explained to Kelli what the lanes were, our obligation to stay out of the way, and our intended course across them.  I tuned in to the VHF channel where the traffic announces their positions and pulled up the AIS display to see who was around.  It was VERY quiet.  With no one around, I planned to keep a straight course to Drakes Bay which took us in a diagonal path across several lanes.  We kept a good lookout and planned to alter course if there was any question of our impeding traffic.  Well, in the 2-3 hours it took us to pass through all the lanes, we saw one Japanese container ship.  We kept course until they came up to speed then checked our CPA (closest point of approach) on the display.  It said they would pass 1 mile or more in front of us.  So we kept course, kept an eye on the CPA and visual on the vessel itself.  No conversation was started over the radio and nothing else happened.  We passed behind them and then we were out of the traffic separation zone.  Easy peasy.  On a busier day we would have been more intentional about right angles and the like but on a day like we got, it would not have helped anyone. 

A few hours later we began our approach to Drakes Bay.  We went by Chimney Rock on the southeast corner or Point Reyes and saw a cool water spout where the swell would force air and water out a small hole in the rock and it would spray 100 feet in the air.  We anchored in 28 feet of water with some swell curling in around the point but it wasn't too bad.  I wanted to deploy a stern anchor and line us up with the swell so the boat wouldn't rock all night but it was getting late and I wasn't up to the task so we ended up sleeping in the berth sideways so we didn't roll around all night. 

Drakes Bay in the Point Reyes National Seashore was beautiful.  The shoreline departs the water at a fairly shallow angle before running up against vertical rock cliffs.  The bay curves around about 270 degrees with a decreasing radius to the east.  It was a very good anchorage for early sailors to visit the area due to its easy approach, decent protection, and moderate depth to anchor in.  Nevertheless, the San Agustín was shipwrecked there in the 1500s being driven ashore by a storm.  The bay is named after Sir Francis Drake who sailed there in 1579.  There was a painting of his ship, the Golden Hind, careened on shore getting repairs.  We avoided the careening and instead went ashore on the tender.  (Look up careening, it's an intentional grounding of the ship at high tide and allowing it to tilt so you can do repairs below the waterline.)

The next morning we weighed anchor and sailed a short ways northeast close to the visitor's center and dropped anchor again.  I loaded up the spare anchor and 100' of rope and rowed out in the dinghy to drop the anchor in line with the waves.  It went okay and after another go at it later, the boat was nicely set, lined up with the swell.

The ride ashore was a bit of a ride.  The surf was breaking along the entire shoreline though most of the waves weren't particularly large.  We motored up to the edge of the breakers and I watched them for a while, deciding when I wanted to risk it.  When I felt the time was right, we pointed the inflatable toward shore and gave the tiny Honda outboard the beans.  We ran up on shore dry and with what I imagine was full style points.  It was probably mostly luck but it was fun either way.

A portion of the beach was closed since we were visiting near the end of the Elephant Seal molting season.  Walking the beach, we could see chunks of skin and fur washed up all over the place.  It was pretty gross.  One Elephant Seal was hanging out by the visitor center, unconcerned about the people crowding around watching it toss sand on its back.  I think it looked more elephant than seal.  After our long walk on the beach, we walked up on top of the cliff and relaxed for a while.  The view was amazing and the sun had come out for a while to greet us too.  As we sat up there, I watched the surf get bigger and break harder.  It still had lulls but overall, it was getting worse.  It made me a little anxious to get back to the boat as I didn't imagine the surf would lessen for many hours.  

We plodded back down the grassy hillside to the dinghy and got ready.  We turned it around so the bow was toward the water.  I started the engine and got it warmed up while out of the water to make sure we would be able to make a quick escape.  We just stood there for a few minutes watching the waves roll in.  Some very large breakers made me rethink our decisions.  I was just imagining the scene from Pirates of the Caribbean where the two silly pirates got turned over in their rowboat while trying to get to shore.  About that time Kelli started to ask, "How are we going to decide when...." at which point I said, "Let's go! Get in!"  We gave the little boat a shove and hopped in.  I focused on the swell, giving the sea dagger eyes, daring it to start curling into a breaking wave while giving our 2.5hp outboard permission to release all its fury.  Swell after swell came in, we rolled over each benign bump in the water, then, we were past it all.  Not 15 seconds later, a big roaring surf broke behind us on shore.  Ha!  What a time.  It would have been a total mess if we got caught in one of those breakers.

Back at the boat we made dinner, relaxed, did some reading, and I reset the stern anchor I had set in the morning.  We had a pretty good angle to the waves and the ride in the boat was much better.

The next day we got out of there and continued north planning to stop at Humboldt Bay (Eureka, CA.)  The going was mostly light winds.  We had a full day, night, and another full day ahead of us.  We motor sailed a bit and just motoroed without the sail up when the wind was light enough it would just flap the sail around.  The fog rolled in and left, rolled in, and left.  Through the night the bioluminescence was intense.  At one point in the night I dipped a bucket the water, pulled it on deck, and splashed my hand around in it to stir it up and there were little green sparks bouncing around as I did it.  It was pretty cool.  Most of the glowing in the water is very faint and you can't see it with a phone camera but with no city lights, it is plainly visible.  The propeller mixes up a stream of bioluminescence that looks like jet exhaust coming out of the back of the boat.  If you look off the side of the boat, you can see the green glow coming up from under the boat where the prop must be making it go completely mad.  The splashing wake off the side of the boat makes little sparkly splashes.  Kelli said that on a night watch she kept seeing little skittering green spots going away from the boat.  Later she realized it was birds taking off from the water as we got close.  The would start flapping and running with their feet in the water that would leave little green birdy footprints in the water.  It's crazy.

About mid day before we pulled into port, I checked the diesel gauge and it said EMPTY.  I figured it wasn't close to empty and the float just didn't make it all the way down to the bottom of the tank but it made me aware so I did a little math.  We still had about ten hours to go and after I checked my engine logbook for the last couple days, we had motored over 75 hours since filling up.  The diesel tank is 85 gallons and I figured we burn about 1 gallon per hour.  So if anything was off in those calculations, we would be out of fuel as we entered the bay.  I didn't like that.  Once the wind picked up enough, we shut off the engine and went back to sailing.  I thought we had about 4 gallons left in the tank and didn't want to get stuck entering Humboldt Bay when the engine died.  It was nice to use our boat the way it was intended for a little while.  But soon enough we were a half mile out from the bar and prudence said to not cross the bar under sail. 

Quick note, a bar (river bar) is a entrance for boats where a river meets the ocean.  Jetties or rock walls are built out into the ocean a bit to break up the waves and the center is then dredged out.  The problem is, as the current from the river flows into the ocean, the waves and swell work against it running ashore and you can get some nasty waves.  Many river bars have Coast Guard stations on site that monitor conditions and put restrictions on the bar.  I had been listening to the Humboldt Bay Coast Guard Station bar reports and the bar was in pretty good shape with the bar closed to boats 20 feet and smaller.  

So we fired up the engine and doused the sails.  I told Kelli we want to keep the head sail ready to deploy if our engine dies while crossing the bar.  I took my position at the helm and started watching the entrance to see if there were any breaking waves, much like the dinghy adventure at Drakes Bay.  The south side of the bar looked nicer than the center or north side so I chose a spot closer to the jetty and we continued in.  As the waves rolled in, it would push our boat along faster for a moment then pass us and turns us sideways a bit as the water moved faster than us.  This is pretty normal but the trouble is, if it becomes too excessive, you can loose rudder effectiveness and get pushed completely sideways in a broach.  This makes the boat roll severely and in the worst case scenario, you can capsize or roll the boat completely over on a wave.  The bar wasn't even close to that bad at the time so we rolled in with just a little bit of adventure and were soon motoring up a secure and slow moving river.  

We leisurely motored up the river past giant wood chip piles and stacks of logs waiting to get loaded onto ships and taken to mills.  Without any more adventure, we pulled into Woodley Island Marina at our assigned slip and called it a day.  Fuel remaining?  Just enough.

One more post to go!