SV Darwind

San Miguel Island On the morning of departure from Half Moon bay, I woke up not able to even see the neighboring boats a few hundred feet away, the fog was so thick, so I settled back to wait for the afternoon sun to burn off the incredibly thick mist, as it always did farther north in Alaska and Canada. However by 1 pm the fog had moved just outside the harbor but still showed no signs of abating, so I decided to up anchor and investigate how thick this fog really was and if it was worth trying to push through. However, less than half a mile outside of the breakwater Darwind and I were enveloped in a thick blinding fog, full of the sounds and occasional looming shadows of sport fishing boats, so I decided to turn back before luck ran out and we ended up on a collision course with one of these invisible hazards.   Just as we were approaching the breakwater again though, we suddenly sailed straight out of the fog bank into the bright sunlight, so I turned around again, this t

Neah Bay to Crescent City Day 1             After a mad rush of bus rides to get the repaired part for the self-steering, I was back on the boat by 4:00 pm, and after a quick pit stop at the fuel dock to fill up, Darwind was beating out the strait of Juan De Fuca in the teeth of a 25 knot breeze and a huge swell building against the favorable 3 knot current. Unfortunately only a few hours in, just as we came abreast of Cape Flattery and slicing into 10-15 foot swell, the wind died to almost nothing and I was forced to start the engine to clear the islands and rocks around the cape. As the sun went down, the massive swell made motoring a living hell, and I actually gave up and turned around four times, each time facing a counter current and a midnight arrival back in Neah Bay, so each time I turned back into the swell to push on. Eventually, after the fourth aborted U-turn, we were clear of the islands and even though the wind still hadn’t come up, I raised the