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Home > Trip Log > US west coast > Neah Bay to San Francisco


Neah Bay, WA to San Francisco, CA 

Neah Bay to Crescent City, CA
7 Aug 2002, Wednesday - The wind was still when we set out from Neah Bay, and the sea was glass calm! 
Leaving Neah Bay
We checked to make sure we were on the right body of water!  This is an ocean, right?  Not even an ounce of swell!  That afternoon, Eric caught a 20-inch salmon on a lure and line that our friend Casey Clishe put together for us!  He pulled that fish in with a super-huge grin on his face!  Everyone enjoyed dinner!  The burritos and lasagna could wait! (THANKS CASEY!)

8 Aug 2002, Thursday - Again, the day brought no wind.  The swell had picked up a little as we motored south, but it was nothing special.  We were all eating and sleeping very well.  Mid-morning, while Eric and John were enjoying the last of the salmon in salmon omelettes, Angela caught a beautiful Albacore Tuna,
Fresh Albacore!
approximately 24-inches long and 20 pounds!  WOW!  We had sashimi right there and then cooked it in the oven for later.  We were amazed at the quantity of meat from this fish. After catching it, we put the lines away for a while!

That night, on Eric's night watch, the boat wake was lit up with a trail of bioluminesence.  If that wasn't beautiful enough, we were joined by about a dozen dolphins that wanted to play in our bow wake.  We all woke up to admire their playfullness!  It was pitch black out under a new moon.  The bioluminesence around the dolphins was unbelievable!!!  They were moving so fast that they looked like lit up torpedo trails darting around.  We could barely follow them with our eyes!  The phosphoresence in the boat wake was beautiful, but the dolphins stole the show, looking as if they were encompassed by a million fireflies!

During the first two days of this leg, all motoring, we kept saying that this would be great "if only we had some wind!"  Sometimes you get what you ask for!

9 Aug 2002, Friday - The wind picked up to a nice 25 knots from behind around 11:00 AM.  Fog set in and we were sailing smoothly along with the full main and jib out.  By 1:00 PM, the wind was picking up and we lowered the mainsail to the second reef.  By 5:00 PM, we pulled in the jib and put up the staysail.  We were really bucking around on the swell by then.  While in Port Townsend we saw a wooden boat named "Let 'R Buc" (which we know A's mom Val would like).  From then on, we used that phrase whenever it got rowdy out there.  Eric would come out, call Angela and John cowboys, and say it was time to reef - shucks, we'd say, "let 'r buc!"  So as not to scare the moms involved, we did actually reef conservatively.  Why beat the boat up more that necessary.
10 Aug 2002, Saturday - Angela took over watch at midnight and the wind was a good 30-35 knots.  When Eric handed off the watch, he said it seemed like the wind was dying down.  He said to wake him if we needed to shake out a reef later.  For the first 15-30 minutes after midnight, it felt that he might be right.  Well, neither of us will go into back-of-the-envelope meteorology! 

Exciting waves in 45kts.
At 1:00 AM, the wind started picking up very quickly.  John and Eric got up and we all lowered the mainsail completely and lashed it down.  We were under the little storm staysail alone.  Our estimate was that the wind was blowing about 40 knots.  Bouy reports around 20 miles offshore were reading around 45 knots.  At that point, we were approximately 60 miles offshore.

Shortly after that, we started hearing reports of boats around us calling the Coast Guard to say that they were hove-to and had limited mobility, or had set out a sea anchor.  Rouser was handling beautifully and since the wind was behind us, we decided to keep going.  We made the decision to take a tack towards shore, just in case it got worse, so that we could put in at Crescent City if we needed a rest.

During all this, we didn't know what the seas looked like at all.  We knew it was a wild ride, but Eric said it perfectly - "This will sure be interesting to see in the morning!"  And it was!  When morning broke (still no sight of the sun as were were enveloped in fog), we were surrounded by mountains of water.  The group estimate was around 18 foot waves.  Yowza!

During peak chaos, we saw a little dolphin jump through one of these towering waves and arc gracefully into the trough, only to take another run at the next wave.  What a difference perspective makes!

While we were just a few miles from Crescent City, CA, in wild wind and waves and thick fog, we received a report from the Coast Guard that the entrance to Crescent City was not only clear, but was CALM and had only 3 foot waves.  We made sure that the guy had the right port, and then kept heading in in disbelief.  When we rounded the corner around Castle Rock, the waves died down and so did the wind.  It never was calm, but it was much calmer!  We tied up in Crescent City around 4:00 PM, called our families and Bingo (John's dog), and went to bed.

We stayed in Crescent City for two nights while the weather subsided.  While there and since, we've talked to a few of the boats that were around us.  One boat measured 43 knots on his anemometer (wind gage) WHILE sailing downwind!  Another that deployed a sea anchor registered between 50 and 56 knots on his wind gage!  Too much excitement!



Crescent City to San Francisco, CA
12 Aug 2002, Monday - We left Crescent City at 7:30 AM with a forecast for NW winds 5-15 knots turning to variable 5-15.  Nobody complained since we were approaching Cape Mendocino, which was typically a windy spot anyway.  While the wind never amounted to much, it was sure a rolly ride.  There was a lot of leftover swell from the earlier gale. 

We were also still followed by the lovely fog.  We were covered in the stuff almost the entire way south.  Our favorite purchase to date is the radar!!!  Several tankers and other large boats passed us on our way south.  We talked to anyone that was going to be close on the VHF.  Most couldn't pick us up on their radar when the swell was so large - we just looked like all the other sea scatter.



Entering the Golden Gate - San Francisco Bay, CA
Champagne celebration...
Wing-on-wing under Golden Gate bridge.
14 Aug 2002, Wednesday - When we turned the corner towards the Golden Gate Bridge, we were finally able to sail.  The wind was blowing reliably from the west straight down the slot into San Francisco Bay.  We sailed under the bridge wing-on-wing at 12:28 PM, champagne in hand!  What a great feeling to have successfully arrived, our first leg behind us! 


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