Friday Harbor to Half Moon Bay in California

Freighter watching in the Juan de Fuca Straits

Oct 1, 2012: The wind had been building for the last three hours, whitecaps mounting in bigger splotches of white, Blue Bossa going faster and faster downwind, engine on, reefed mainsail out, we weren’t feeling the wind, only the conditions and what the wind indicator was saying – 20knots, then 25 knots.  I was looking for the buoy marking the end of the channel entrance to Newport, Oregon, which was just a little by the lee of where we were going.

Newport, Oregon

Approaching Neah Bay

Hanking on the new Solent jib in Neah Bay

By the time we reached it, rounding into the wind, it was up to 30 knots, the waves coming towards us in steep liquid towers, pounding the boat and hitting the pilothouse so hard that water was squirting through the closed sliding windows on the side of the cabin. My son Alex was in the cockpit madly pulling in the mainsail, which was flogging like crazy. I was in the pilothouse staring through the window with the windshield wiper flicking madly, trying to keep the boat in the channel, trying to avoid crashing in some of the steeper waves, and avoiding a Coast Guard vessel, a pilot boat, and a huge dredger stationed right in the middle of the channel.  The steep waves were heavily augmented with strong ebb boosted by the Yaquina river flow.  I was mighty happy that Alex was onboard – it would have been really edgy had I been on the boat by myself.

Once inside the harbor and under the bridge, we sighed with relief and docked at the run-down Newport Marina to unwind, clean up and register with the marina.

Rounding Tatoosh Island off of Cape Flattery

Neah Bay

This little adventure was quite a sudden change from the relative boring routine of cruising down the coasts of Washington and Oregon. We had left Friday Harbor super early in the morning in Sept 29, bypassing Port Angeles and timing the tides to make it in one day all the way to Neah Bay, Washington’s most westerly harbor at the end of the Juan de Fuca Straits.  We ended up anchoring in the well-protected harbor, grabbed fuel in the morning and rounded Tatoosh Island off of Cape Flattery, heading south with a light following wind.

Looking south Tatoosh Island and beyond

This trip was Alex’s first long trip with overnight watches. It was my first on Blue Bossa, since Washington, British Columbia, and Alaska all have harbors, bays and coves all close to each other. South of Juan de Fuca down to San Francisco have very few places of refuge and most of those have dangerous entrances in bad conditions.  Plus, since Alex is a working guy, he only had 10 days to make this trip. So there was little time for exploring. 

Rugged Cape Flattery

One of the things that Alex discovered is how slow long-distance boat travel is.  It’s hard to imagine that BB only does about 170 miles a day under power. Jeeze! It only takes 2 days to leisurely drive from San Francisco to Seattle. Despite that, it didn’t take long to get into a 4 hours on/4 hours off watch routine, learning to watch the radar/AIS for the many vessels off shore, keeping track of where we were and recording it, learning where the comfortable bunks in seas were (one of my projects is to install canvas leeboards in the main cabin bunks, which we certainly needed), checking the weather station, etc. It all soon became routine.

After rounding Cape Flattery and doing an overnighter, I decided to stop at Newport to top off with more fuel so that we wouldn’t have to get fuel until we got to HMB.  Little did we know the wind would come up hard enough that we would spend a couple of nights in Newport waiting for the wind to come down enough to head out. During that time, we explored the modest town of Newport, even visiting the famous Rogue Beer Brewery, close to the harbor. 

Newport bridge - Hwy 101

We left Oct 4rth to a lumpy sea, but relatively quiet winds, bouncing along - long days and longer nights.  Often we had 10 knot winds going against us, along with a slight current.  It didn’t stop until, after 2 days, we rounded Cape Mendocino and the conditions quieted down to glassy conditions and the current was actually going with us.  We finally got to Pillar Point Marina early Oct 7, on a Sunday…just in time for Alex to go back to work.  Sorry, Alex!

The new electronics network on BB worked great; the best part was the AIS function of the system, where you can see all registered vessels and identify them and see where they were bound to.  With this function, it’s hard to miss big ships.  It’s the little ones you got to keep an eye out, as well as logs, etc. floating around.

yeah, yeah - I'm OK....

Cape Mendocino

Quiet after Cape Mendocino

California friends greeting us

Princeton in front of Pillar Point Marina

Pillar Point Harbor, looking south

Pillar Point - Mavericks to the right

So after living here now for almost 5 months, I have mixed feelings about Pillar Point Harbor.  The good: it’s a very protected harbor, protected by the large reef that extends south from Pillar Point, then by the large breakwater surrounding the harbor, and then with the small breakwater within: it’s hard to tell if there’s a huge swell as there is virtually no surge in the harbor.  It certainly has no worries for tsunamis that directly affected Crescent City and Santa Cruz last year. Pillar Point is generally quiet, it’s got great hiking areas to explore, and there is surf, although I haven’t taken advantage of it yet. It’s nice to kayak in the harbor, although I haven’t gone outside the outer breakwater yet. The marina complex is cabled, so I can get internet and TV in my boat, making it seem almost like a house (the problem is, I hate Comcast – their customer service really sucks).  There are a plethora of restaurants in and around the harbor. When it’s not raining, which hasn’t been often, it has been sunny and clean, with no hint of smog.  I know that when summer comes around, the fog will be a negative factor. Pillar Point is close to the bay area so I can drive there for concerts or gigs, and the drive to Santa Cruz is close enough for commuting to gigs and usually pretty pleasant and scenic, with lots of places to stop and hike around.

Nice right, just north of Mavericks

Mavericks

The bad: every now and then, the fishing fleet come by and unload their catch and there is lots of noise. The bathrooms and showers are run down. I understand that the San Mateo harbor authority is going to build a new facility, but I have yet to see any evidence of that. When the weather is good, tourists from the bay area overrun the place.  Hwy 1 is a 2-lane road, so the traffic gets pretty intense during certain times of the day. Rent for the slip is expensive; liveaboards get charged $350 extra/month on top of the normal rent.  So far, I’ve been lucky and they haven’t charged me that yet, and I’m not about to remind them.  When I decide to take the boat out, the wind is either non-existing or strong and there are no places to sail to unless it’s to the bay area or to Santa Cruz, both long distances.  So taking guests out on day sails are not all that great. For that, the bay area or Santa Cruz would be nicer, but it’s also a lot more crowded.

So far, the goods have outweighed the bads, so I’ve been relatively happy here. I’ve opened a PO Box in El Granada, a community close by and have settled in.  I’ve been playing music at least 3-4 times a week in Santa Cruz so commute expenses are getting up there.  But I’ve been enjoying myself and have even earned a bit of money.

Paddleboarder on left just north of Mavericks

There are lots of projects I have yet to do on the boat, but I’ve been procrastinating.  I’m hoping I’ll get to it in late spring or early summer.

So that’s it for a while, unless I do a trip on BB to the bay area, which I’m hoping to do this summer.  I would like to visit the delta as well as other places in SF bay, plus I need to do a haul-out.  I’m going to hang out here for at least a year to see how playing music goes.  If it doesn’t go, I’ll be writing lots of blogs about BB heading south to Mexico and beyond.

From Friday Harbor to Newport

View from the post office in El Granada

Blue Bossa has a blue next door neighbor!

Exploring the outside harbor with a kayak

Newport to HMB

Low tide with kayaks ready

Sorry for how long it took for me to write this blog!

Seattle/Seabeck/San Juan Islands

Pulling the mast

Replacing transducers

Hood Canal Bridge - coming and leaving

Pleasant Harbor and the Cole's place across the canal

9/27 - Friday Harbor

I’m sitting here in Friday Harbor writing this blog. Except for one day, it’s been sunny and warm since I left Seattle, and in Seattle it was perfect weather too.  I can’t believe how nice this weather has been.  The people here in the North West can’t believe it either...lots of fires are becoming an increasing danger here on San Juan Island. They had a nasty fire on the west side, but was put out pretty quick. It’s funny when I look at the weather report in Ketchikan, rain, rain - here in Washington, sunny, sunny.

Blue Bossa in front of the Cole's house (to the left)

Party at the Cole's!

Blue Bossa from the Cole's house

Bill's Magic BBQ touch

I hope that the weather stays like this for the next 10 or so days, as my son Alex will be here tomorrow and the next day we leave to head south to California, about an 850 mile trip. There are lots of opportunities for winter weather to try to show its hand, since Fall is trying to bust in, but so far only showing shorter days and cooler nights. I don’t relish pounding into a rainy south-easterly on my way down.

Friday Harbor is pretty much how I left it a year and a half ago. Some shops have changed, dock fees have gone up, but otherwise same ol’. I’ve been in touch with some of the musicians and have sat in on a San Juan Quintet gig at Rumor Mill, and practiced and played with the big band “One More Time”, and will play tomorrow night at the Rumor Mill with them.  Playing in a big band is a remarkably disciplined feat: as one of the members mentioned: playing in a big band is like driving a locomotive on a railroad track vrs driving a sports car on the salt flats which is akin to me playing in a piano trio.

Last month, I finished up getting the boat overhauled with the help of Yacht Masters. I mentioned in my last blog what I did to the boat.  I’m still in sticker shock and will likely stay that way for the rest of the year. The boat performs very well, though I have still to try out my new solent jib. The auto pilot is super quiet and steers as straight as an arrow (my old autopilot was nicknamed “Snake-Way Sam”) and takes less electricity. The Simrad system works really well and is nicely user intuitive. Radar is super clear - fog is much less stressful.

Bill & Cathy - Bill was the ferry operator

Matthiew (on the right) and friend

Cathy & Bill

Cathy & the Captain

 September found me leaving Seattle and heading to Pleasant Harbor, located in the Hood Canal. The Hood Canal bridge is an obstacle that was interesting to pass through. The highest part of the bridge (east side) is 52’, and that’s almost exactly what my mast height is. Luckily it was a minus tide, so I backed up slowly, watching the top of my mast and made it clear enough.  But I decided when I went out, that I would call the bridge and have them open the gates for me (it’s a floating bridge in the middle of the canal), which meant that I would have to get them an hour to comply, since the operators have to drive from an office to work the bridge.

I checked into Pleasant Harbor, which is, indeed, pleasant. It’s basically a resort, with swimming pool, little pizza store, and some other cool things.

The next day, I went across the canal to tie up in front of my friends Bill, Cathy and Matthew Coles’ house.  They had finished remodeling (aka: teardown) their home overlooking the canal and the Olympic Mountains a couple of years ago.  I don’t think you could get a more scenic

Hood Canal Bridge letting me out

A kayak crasher

New electronics

Sucia Island

On one of the Sucia islands

Interesting sandstone

view from any house that I know. They put a lot of time, energy and money into their home and it shows. Their next door neighbor had a bullet-proof mooring buoy on the canal, which I was able to use, going back and forward using the dinghy (without engine), and then using his clothesline rig that he had set-up.

The two nights I spent there was a great visit, with a fun dinner party first night with some of their friends, then we had a nice sail on Blue Bossa the next day, with another fine dinner afterwards on Labor Day. The sail was especially nice because we actually had a good wind, so sailing with main and 150 jib was a lot of fun. Mathiew, Bill and Kathy’s son, brought a friend along and both had a great time exploring the boat and enjoying the sail.

Tuesday after Labor Day, I sailed through the hood canal, timing the tidal currents nicely, and arriving at Friday Harbor at almost nightfall.  For the next 3 weeks, I revisited some of the places I’ve been before (South Bay/San Juan Isl, Roche Harbor, Reid Harbor on Stuart Island, Anacortes).

A couple of places were new that I visited. Just south of Anacortes is a place called Skyline Marina in Flounder Bay, a mostly retired community with a goodly amount of boats in a land-locked marina.  I had my Yanmar serviced there. The other first-time place was Sucia Island. Sucia Island is a unique horse-shoe shaped set of islands that is a full-on state park, much like Stuart Island This was a full-on park, with mooring buoys ($12/nite), lots of clearly marked and kept-up paths which I explored. I stayed there 3 nights.

During this whole time, I never once used my dinghy.  I was always using the kayak, since the weather was nice the whole time, even if the water was at a cool 51 degrees. One very quiet night while I was reading a book in bed, I heard a noise that I couldn’t identify towards the stern of the boat. I got up, had the flashlight and pointed it to the stern of the boat.  The noise sounded like it was outside, so I looked over the stern and saw a seal perched comfortably on top of my kayak, which was tied up to the stern of Blue Bossa.  I just had to take a picture. When I got up in the morning, the seal was gone.

The first part of September was unbelievably crowded with boats, but has been getting less so as the month has gone by. The first time I was here, I was lucky to get a slip, and worked diligently not to run into any other boats. There were also a lot more shops open during this time than what I remember from the winter spent here, especially ice cream shops.

So - stay tuned for my last adventure with Alex going down the west coast of Washington, Oregon and California. After that, I’ll be staying somewhere in central California (probably Half-Moon Bay) for probably a year.  Depending on what happens during that time will determine when I take the boat further south, with continuing Blue Bossa Blogs.