When we left Esquimalt on the afternoon of September 18, I think we were both experiencing nearly every emotion possible – stress (so much stress!), excitement, anticipation, anxiousness, probably a little fear. This was to be our first overnight passage with just the two of us and we both wondered how we would handle the lack of sleep, worried that one or both of us would get sea-sick and of course feared bad weather or gear failure that could put us in danger.

We were so not ready, truthfully the boat was so not ready (reef lines? Oh yeah, those were in the v-berth!). We pointed out into the Strait of Juan de Fuca determined to handle whatever was thrown at us, ready for a great sail (I mean we hadn’t actually even had the mainsail up this summer – we were READY to sail!) and psyching ourselves up for the first night…. and we found NO wind… not even a bit. So we motored, for hours. Finally, as dark fell, we found the slightest bit of breeze and were able to ghost along with only the jib out, doing about 2.5 knots.

Owen took the first shift on deck and I tried quite unsuccessfully to sleep – finally I took my first shift at about 11pm – almost from the first moment, I could hear them… a little whoosh off to starboard, and then another behind me and then another to port – whales…. sleeping? A pod of whales had nearly surrounded the boat and stayed with us all night. Through the night you could hear the occasional exhale, reminding you that they were RIGHT THERE.

As the sun began to rise we would make them out, and finally, as they and we woke up, they started to move away from us, rolling on their side, “waving”, one was working off some excess energy having moved a bit closer to shore and we could see him jumping and flopping in the distance – after about a 1/2 hour of this show they moved away and we continued on – slowly!!! It was surreal to have these beasts floating along with us all night!

Finally, at about 11am on day 2, we cleared the point of Cape Flattery and were out in the Pacific Ocean – again with hardly any wind. We kept the main down (so we didn’t need to listen to it flog) and tried to coax whatever movement we could out of the little wind we had. Thankfully, as we rolled and bobbed in the swell, we discovered that the Meclazine was doing its job and neither of us got sea-sick.

The wind did finally fill in a bit, of course on the nose! (did we mention that EVERY model indicated that we would have wind only from the North for the first week or so?). Luckily the sea state had settled out a bit so that even upwind, it was not too uncomfortable. We did keep hoping for that promised northerly that would give us a sleigh ride to California.

We got into a good routine with our shifts – we gave ourselves a 3 hour sleep timer when we managed to crawl into bed – the 10 minutes or so for the person who was last sleeping to get up, dressed and on deck and the 10 minutes to get out of gear and crawl into bed were not factored in – when you crawled into bed you set the timer for 3 hours …. it meant that you might actually be on shift for 3 1/2 hours, but I think this worked best for us as it guaranteed us the chance at 3 whole hours of sleep.

We managed to eat really well most days – chicken pot pie, corn chowder, souvlaki pork chops, pasta, tacos – although cooking (and eating!) underway could sometimes prove a bit challenging – thank heavens for a gimbled stove!

Night shifts were interesting as we moved down the coast – suddenly you would see a fleet of lights on the horizon – no targets on AIS but you knew you were headed for a fishing fleet and would try to drive up or down a bit to avoid them best you can. Then there were the freighters, tankers and small cities (cruise ships). Being able to see those on AIS gave you the comfort of knowing that they were in fact usually not going to come within more than a couple of miles of you.

We did encounter one ship off the Oregon coast that had us scratching our heads – we could see the lights on the horizon but could not clearly determine what direction they were going – they were only occasionally coming up on AIS and when they did, only their AIS number would show. Being a bit concerned that he couldn’t determine if they were a threat, Owen tried several times to hail them, using their AIS number and their location, with no reply. Finally, as we got closer their AIS info filled in and we realized that they were a freighter headed for Vancouver BC, drifting 90 miles off the Oregon coastline, doing around at 2 knots in the middle of the night. Seemingly they had just turned on every light and all went to bed! You know the port situation in Vancouver is bad when they were just parking out at sea off the Oregon coast to avoid arriving too soon.

Finally, on September 23rd, the wind first died, leaving us driving in circles and then started to fill from the North. And boy did it fill – by 9:30pm the wind was 18, gusting 25 – by 2am we were seeing steady 22, gusting 30. By that time we had dropped the main and were surfing with a 2/3rd reefed headsail, doing 8 knots down the waves. It was about a 30 hour blow – we took a ton of water in the cockpit (usually on my head!) and the movement was wild and unpredictable. We could only manage about 2 hours on deck before we were frozen and could only sleep on the settee (in the middle of the chaos that had erupted when EVERYTHING came off the back of the shelves on the port side and dumped out on the floor). Our great record of well-planned and executed meals was lost to a handful of granola bars.

The wind began to die off in the early morning hours of the 25th, leaving a terrible sea state behind – possibly more uncomfortable than when it had been blowing. We were rewarded for our hard work in getting through the blow by dozens of dolphins playing in the surf around our boat, three or four at a time swimming right at the hull and then diverting off towards the bow, surfing in the giant waves that had been left behind.

It felt like we made virtually no progress that day, tacking back and forth at the whim of the wind and trying to find an angle to take the waves at that would make the boat more comfortable. As evening fell that night, so too did the fog – at times we could barely see the bow of the boat and it was so thick it felt like rain. Sometime in the middle of that night I literally spent an hour going in circles as the wind changed directions and died, picked up a bit, died again.

The morning of the 26th Owen was reviewing the weather and realized that we were headed into yet another blow, though this one we would see in the middle of the night, somewhere off the coast of Cape Mendecino (in the fog presumably) – at that point he figured that we just didn’t need to push ourselves to make San Francisco. Luckily we had preregistered with the Roam app and, with the help of the Humbolt Sector Coast Guard, we were able to deal with checking into the US via the app and email and we were able to secure a slip at the Eureka Public Marina – once we knew we could in fact go to Eureka, we made a quick detour and headed that way – finally arriving on the docks a little after 7pm that night – 8 days after we left Esquimalt.

We didn’t quite make it to our goal destination but we did make California! We proved to ourselves that we (and the boat) are capable of handling big wind, little wind and fog. We figured out what needs to be better stored. We have spent the last few days cleaning up, clearing a few things off the boat, trying to dry everything out (still not quite accomplished!).

We did manage to explore town a little bit, making it feel like we were finally getting into cruising mode – we even found our cruising trifecta (bakery, used bookstore(s) and ice cream shop).

The engine oil has been changed, we will get water on board in the morning and tomorrow (barring any big weather changes) we will head out to make San Francisco.