The Adventures of Daydream

Susan

The first chapter left us in San Francisco Bay (Sausalito). We woke up one morning after another rolly sleep to discover that we had been planted in the same spot for three whole weeks. How did this happen? Would we be able to get our anchor back? Maybe it had sunk to China in the mud. What had we been doing for three weeks? Well here’s a quick run-down. We took the computer to San Francisco on the bus to be serviced. Wayne replaced the starting solenoid which took a couple of days what with wrong parts and all. We did the laundry twice which was a bit of a feat given that you have to carry all of your laundry on your back a couple of blocks from the dinghy to the laundromat. We did a fair amount of visiting with our boat neighbors. Some days our anchorage could have been renamed “little Canada” for all the Canadian flags flying. We went to a movie and rented one as well. We did a lot of grocery shopping at one of the world’s most expensive grocery stores. Wayne also replaced all of the fuel filters and bled the fuel lines which initiated another maintenance nightmare when one of the bleed screws broke. Wayne went hither and thither looking for a replacement but ended up having to fabricate one himself. We installed the GPS’s permanent mount and this again initiated a maintenance nightmare when our wind instruments, that are mounted beside the GPS, quit working. As you can see we were busy but it was still time to move on. Anywhere!

So finally on September 19th we filled up with fuel and water at a Sausalito marina. We did finally get our anchor back after much pulling and cleaning and once again we thank heaven for our electric windlass. We spent that night on a buoy, or shall I say buoys at Angel Island. Here you are expected to tie up to two buoys, one at the front and another at the back. Having never done this before and also having not thought very hard about it first, made us the evening’s entertainment for everyone else. At least no one fell overboard. We left early the next morning for Berkeley and an hour later anchored off the Berkeley pier which looked like a good idea at the time. Five hours later the wind had picked up considerably and the waves had arrived making us buck like a bronco horse. It was time to move on again. Unfortunately because of how shallow San Francisco Bay is, there isn’t a lot of good anchorages but there are a lot of marinas. We, of course, are too thrifty (read cheap) to stay at marinas. We finally ended up at Treasure Island which along with Yerba Buena Island makes up the center of the Oakland Bay bridge. It is a wonderfully protected harbor but it is marked as a prohibited military area on our charts. Some sailing friends had mentioned that since the military was sizing down and shutting down areas that they didn’t mind anymore if you wanted to anchor there. We stayed for a couple of days and worked on the boat. Fixing our instruments (YAHOO! We are electrical geniuses!), soundproofing the engine room, and painting some spots on the mast.

From Treasure Island we headed up toward the delta. This is the area off of San Francisco Bay where the Sacramento River enters. We had heard that it was warm there and we really wanted to go somewhere warmer. We found what we were looking for in a place called Montezuma Slough. The trip up was fast, as it was a run (with the wind behind) the whole way. We had one scare with a crazed ship that didn’t seem to know where his side of the channel was. Wayne really got a kick out of what is known here as the “Mothball Fleet”. It is an area on the chart marked as Fleet Reserve and it is just that, a whole fleet of ships waiting in reserve. They are anchored in rows of 7 or 8 ships rafted together. There must have been at least 7 rows. It was eerie to sail in amongst them. They are huge! The Slough was great but a bit on the shallow side especially at the entrance, but everywhere is shallow here. We’re getting used to it. If you would have told me a couple of months ago that I would become blasé about anchoring with only 2 or 3 feet of water under the keel and weaving through crowded shipping lanes, I would have thought you were insane. At least the bottom is mud and not rock. Anyway Montezuma was wonderful. The water is mostly fresh because of the rivers and it was HOT! We lazed about for a day in our bathing suits and even blew up the air mattress and went for a swim. After a long day in the sun we were rewarded with our first shower since leaving home where you didn’t have to conserve water. We stood on the deck in our birthday suits and had bucket showers. It was great! Unfortunately our time here was limited and we had to head back to Sausalito to pick up Wayne’s contacts (he had torn one). Of course, we paid for the downhill run on the way to the Slough with a zig zagging day full of beating on the way back. It was hard work but it was satisfying as most people just give up and motor after the 400th tack in the narrow channels with bridges and ships.

After a one night stop in Sausalito for contacts, laundry and groceries we returned to Treasure Island to prepare the boat for the trip down the coast to San Diego. One of our preparations was to spend a whole evening making tons and tons of lasagna to heat up along the way when we don’t feel like cooking.

On October 1st we headed back out under the Golden Gate Bridge bound for Monterey. That evening we had the best whale experience yet. We were treated to the sight of 3 humpback whales feeding not far from our boat. It makes you a bit nervous to have something that large swimming on a collision course with your boat but of course they didn’t swamp us or try to eat us. 

There must have been quite a school of fish food out there as there were also billions of sea birds, sharks and porpoises. Later that night on my shift, a whale surfaced and blew very close to the boat. Of course it was too dark to see much and that gave me quite a fright. Later that night we were once again inundated with fog (Note to potential cruisers: do not leave home without your radar). The radar was called on duty and we had to radio a couple of fast moving ships to be sure that they had seen us on radar and were not going to run us down (they had and they weren’t). The fog continued all night and into the morning which made arriving at Santa Cruz a bit tricky. You may be saying to yourself “weren’t these people heading for Monterey?”. Yes, we were but shortly after leaving San Francisco we discovered that the fridge/freezer was not working and had in fact not been working for a day or two and everything was fast defrosting. Also the GPS had been acting very strangely so we had been dead reckoning and using the Sat Nav.

Santa Cruz was a great place. On the evening that we arrived, they held a spectacular fireworks display to celebrate our arrival (well okay, so it happened to be the city’s anniversary). It was held on the beach right near where we were anchored and the noise was deafening. Twiggy was sure that the world was coming to an end. This display also turned our fairly quiet anchorage into a parking lot for two hundred boats. Thankfully they all left after the fireworks and returned to wherever it was that they had come from. We spent the next night on the dock (the first one since leaving Sooke) so that the refrigerator repair guy could get to us. We also took the GPS to an authorized service center and discovered that something about the satellites had changed 4 or 5 days previously that would necessitate our GPS getting its software changed. Unfortunately it had to go back to the factory for this alteration and we were assured that it would be feeling good enough to join us again in San Diego. Until then, we are rediscovering the lost art of dead reckoning and using the Sat Nav.

On the morning of the 4th we were set to leave Santa Cruz and found out that there was a tsunami warning in effect as there had been an 8 point something earthquake in Japan. It was scheduled to arrive at 4 pm that day. Tsunamis are very dangerous for boats in shallow water as they often leave whole marinas a half mile or so inland. Off we went to the deepest water that we could find by 4 pm between Santa Cruz and Monterey. Thankfully there is some of the deepest water on this coast just out from Monterey in a tremendous trench that is equivalent to the Grand Canyon in size. Unfortunately the weather gods were out to get us this day. We had 10 hours of the most “memorable” sailing that we’ve ever experienced. We had it all! The wind was from the SW which is exactly the direction we were headed. This is also the opposite direction of 99.9% of the winds along this coast. It was also a little strong for our liking (for those of you that care, we saw winds up to 37 knots on the anometer). This lively wind produced the most loathsome swell and waves that we had to beat directly into. We were sailing straight into the wind and 7 or 8 foot waves. This was really uncomfortable as we had waves on deck as high as the house-top and a fair bit of water down below (Note for potential cruisers: be sure your dorade vents seal up completely)! We’ve never been so wet! Near the end of this nightmare trip the lightning and driving rain began and this was really terrifying. Most of it seemed to be right overhead and looking hungrily for a mast to hit. We pretended to be brave but several of our instruments made frightened squealing noises whenever the lightning got too close. We finally made it to Monterey at about 9 pm and anchored in the dark. We have never been so thankful to be safely at anchor. We found out the next day that the tsunami warning was canceled during the afternoon.

We spent a couple of days in Monterey harbour. It wasn’t the most protected anchorage but it had its charms. Sea otters frolicked about the boat and wrapped themselves in kelp to catch a little shut-eye. They are soooo cute! Gigantic sea lions swam about and barked like dogs. The water was so clear we could easily see the bottom in 20 feet. This is the first really clear water we’ve seen so far. We wandered around Monterey and visited the aquarium. Of course all of the touristy stuff had to wait until we had spent hours cleaning up our sopping cockpit and interior and hung everything we own out to dry. We looked like a laundry. We also sealed up the offending leaks so that this doesn’t happen in the future.

On October 7th we left Monterey for Morro Bay which is 115 miles south. We had a wonderful trip. We’re finally getting the hang of sailing downwind. We had lovely clear weather and there were bizzillions of stars that night. We arrived the next afternoon sailing along in perfect warm (for the first time) winds. This is a lovely bay but there is limited anchorage and we were unable to find a spot to anchor for the first night so we took a mooring buoy at the yacht club. The Morro Bay Harbor Patrol went above and beyond the call of duty in helping us to find a suitable place to anchor for the rest of our stay. It’s a nice town but a bit on the touristy side. The weather has been gorgeous with temperatures in the eighties and nineties. We’ve met up again with some great people that we had met before and met plenty of people from other boats.

So the adventure begins.

Wayne

This is a description of our sailing trip from Victoria to San Francisco with a few other interesting episodes tossed in. I’ll try to leave out all of the boring parts so as not to lose your interest, but don’t get the idea that we had whales and storms all the way down.

We left Brentwood Bay on August 17th at 11:26 am. Since we were supposed to leave August 15th, we were feeling the pressure and our neighbours were starting to make jokes about another Bon Voyage party. As a result we were up early and trying to finish a few more jobs before we left. We had scraped some loose paint off of both masts the night before so we were up the mast painting at 7:00 am. With that and filling the tanks with fuel, we had no time to tidy the boat or put away the tools before leaving but we figured we could finish up on the way. Just one mile from the dock, with zero wind, we had to stop the engine so that I could work on the propeller gland. I had replaced the packing just a couple of weeks before and had gotten it so tight that the shaft was overheating. Tight is good as this packing keeps the ocean on its own side of the hull, however too tight can overheat the shaft to the point that it will distort. We worked on it for a while until we finally decided that we needed new packing material. This necessitated a stop at Canoe Cove marina which is all of 12 miles from our dock. While at the marina, we decided to get a light bulb that I had smashed while painting the mast. As the marina didn’t have one, one of the employees offered me her car to run into town to get one! We anchored at 9:30 that night near Albert Head having gone a whopping 37 miles. 

The next day we encountered very thick fog most of the way to Sooke. We arrived by 1:00 pm and decided to take the rest of the day off. 

On the 19th we left Sooke and motored the entire day to Neah Bay. Yeah! We made it to the U.S. Neah Bay is in the Juan de Fuca Strait that is notorious for wind but there wasn’t a breath of it that day. Neah Bay is the last stop before the ocean so we went to the grocery store, made some phone calls and then went back out into the bay to anchor.  Naturally the engine didn’t want to start, but we took this as a good omen, spoke nicely to it and eventually coaxed it into 5 minutes of effort. 

 The next morning we were up bright and early at 10 am. We motored out to Cape Flattery and turned left. In this part of the world, the wind is almost invariably from the north-west. That would have been perfect for us, however, this day it was from the south-west, which is exactly where we wanted to go and there was very little of it. We sailed when we could and motored when we couldn’t until about 3 am on the 21st when the wind finally became strong enough to consistently sail. Early in the morning, during the thickest rainstorm in history, Susan was visited by 40 or more porpoises. They seemed to enjoy swimming alongside the boat. Later that day we saw three ships well to the east of us and guessed that we had crossed the shipping lane and were safe to head straight south. Late in the day when we went to start the engine to cool our fridge, it chose to stage a lie-down strike. This occasioned some rather rude remarks from a certain short blonde person about the quality of the engineering staff on the cruise. After an hour’s work on the starter solenoid we were back in business, with a renewed belief in repairing things at the first sign of trouble rather that when they are irretrievably dead. 

By early on the 22nd the wind was from the west and consistently up to about 10 knots. This was the highest wind we had had since leaving the Juan de Fuca Strait. By now we had figured out the rudiments of getting the boat to steer itself with the windvane. We were starting to see boat speeds of 6 to 7 knots, which is pretty decent for our boat under any condition. Every night from the 23rd on we seemed to get more wind and bigger waves. At 5:30 am on the 23rd, we had 20 knots of wind from the north-west and big square waves about 8 feet tall. This was just about the first time that we had ever sailed downwind and we were surprised by how difficult it was. The basic problem was a lack of expertise, however, we are learning how in a big rush!  The windvane was having a hard time steering the boat and that meant extra work for us. Our boat speeds were the highest we had ever seen, averaging around 7 knots with the occasional surf off of a wave up to 8.8 knots. To top it all off, the boat was rolling from side to side through about 60 degrees. All day long the wind continued to build until by 8:30 pm we had 30 knots of it.  At this point we were down to a double-reefed mainsail and the boat was still near hull speed. The noise was really incredible! Besides the 35 MPH of wind whistling past, there were twelve foot tall waves occasionally breaking near us. The boat was going over, through and falling off of the waves several times per minute. The propeller was freewheeling and adding its own multi-toned whine to the proceedings. Every single thing that we owned was working desperately at every roll to smash its way out of the cupboards. We finally decided to take down all of the sails. Because we were going downwind, we knew that we could easily maintain speeds of 4 or 5 knots even without them. However, without sails, the motion was even worse and I figured that nothing in the cupboards would last the night. 

We decided to try putting up just the jib, but discovered that at some point our spinnaker halyard had escaped and in falling down had wrapped itself around the jib. Fortunately, we were able to free the halyard and set about half of the jib. This helped with the motion and as the sun came up on the 24th, the wind dropped to about 25 knots. During the night of the 24th, we were having trouble getting the boat to steer itself, and we were both too tired to steer, so we decided to heave to. There was 20 plus knots of wind so we used only the double reefed main. Although the boat stopped and was quite steady, each time that she turned up into the wind, we would launch off the top of a wave and slam into the trough. We could have improved the motion with a little bit of jib, but we were too tired to figure it out. We stood it for an hour or so, then put out about 1/4 of the jib and continued on. We were now averaging over 6 knots with occasional boosts up to 8 knots.

Early on the 25th we decided to stop in Eureka, California for some rest and food. We turned toward the coast and when we were about 40 miles from shore we had a small electrical fire behind our electrical panel! This gave us a bit of a scare and required more lovely maintenance work. At about 6 pm we crossed the Humbolt Bay bar and anchored in the bay.

The 26th was spent at anchor, shopping, eating and sleeping. We had a visit from the Coast Guard. They were very nice, friendly people who complimented us on our trip, our boat and welcomed us to Eureka. There were no nasty inspections or requests for documents.

On August 27th we were ready to go at the crack of noon. It was a little chilly and there was almost no wind. What there was, was from the wrong direction but we put up the sails and toughed it out until 5:30 pm. During this period, Susan discovered two uncharted rocks, which on closer inspection, turned into humpback whales. We guessed that they were 100 metres away and approximately 15 metres long. As we were down to two knots of wind and near the rather dangerous Cape Mendocino, we motored off and on until 10:30 am the next morning.  During most of the night we had the thickest fog that we’ve seen so far with less that 1/2 mile of visibility. The radar, autopilot and GPS worked overtime all night long. Susan says that she saw an orca heading north but I suspect it was a wayward rock.

Around noon on the 28th, in 5 knots of wind, we took in the jib and put up the spinnaker. Our speed went from 1 knot to 4.5. There wasn’t enough wind for the wind vane to steer but the autopilot did quite well.  The spinnaker stayed up until sundown when the wind promptly began to build until it was up to the low twenties. Our speed was back up to between 6 and 7 knots and the ride became fairly rough again. At 2:00 am on the 29th I woke up to retching noises. I found Susan paying tribute to the gods of bumpy oceans and long parties. I offered to finish her watch but she said I should go back to sleep, and she finished it herself. All day we averaged about 7 knots in 20 to 25 knots of wind. We were buzzed by a Canadian DND helicopter and several U.S. armed forces’ helicopters and planes. They looked like they were out fishing, but it was probably legitimate exercises. We decided to stop about 10 miles north of San Francisco as we didn’t want to enter in the dark. As we were heading for Drakes Bay, under full jib and double reefed main, the wind began to gust to 30 knots, bringing the boat speed to 8.8 knots. Since this is about 1/2 knot over the theoretical maximum speed of the hull, we decided that it was time to reduce sail. Finally we were anchored in the bay. Thankfully there were no waves but the wind blew at 30 knots all night long.

On the 30th we were up and on our way at the crack of 1:00 pm. The wind was only 6 knots so we put up the spinnaker to encourage it. It worked! Soon we had 17 knots of wind! Down with the spinnaker and up with the reefed main and jib. The wind went up to 25 knots and down came the main. We were sailing dead downwind and doing 7 knots heading for the Golden Gate. We had to hand steer as we didn’t want to put up a spinnaker pole. Two miles from the bridge we had 25 knots of wind and about 7 foot waves. We were in a channel that is only about 1000 feet wide and 30 feet deep. That feels awfully skinny after having 5000 miles of water on one side, 85 miles on the other and one mile below. We passed two huge ships while going under the bridge. Finally, we were in San Francisco!

Since we arrived we have had a couple of amusing experiences. We tied our dinghy up to a pier and had a long discussion about whether or not it would be crushed underneath if the tide came up. When we came back hours later, we found it dangling 6 feet up in the air. Needless to say, quite embarrassing..

Even worse, one morning we started the engine to charge the batteries and cool the fridge. After a few minutes, I went up above to look around and found that the boat was in gear and doing donuts around its anchor at top speed. Our neighbours are now all anchored a long way away, so perhaps it was a good thing.