Neah Bay-Northern California

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 sails and cut the engine, letting the current and the light breeze push Darwind south and west at one or two knots, while I settled into the 15 minute catnap schedule that I used on the Sitka-Prince Rupert run.

Day 2-3

            Early the next morning, the wind came back at 15-20 knots from the North, where it would remain for the next three days, with only minor fluctuations in strength and direction. The next few days passed fairly uneventfully, with a few dolphins, a few distant whale sightings and some incredible phosphorescence and starts under the new moon. However, by the third night I was starting to feel the effects of almost no sleep, and in fact at one point I slept through my alarm and woke up with several fishing boats within a couple of miles and had to stay awake for the next four hours to get out of the cluster. At that point I decided that trying to get all the way to San Francisco, another 500 miles at that point, was impractical and dangerous, so I jibed and began angling in towards the coast and Crescent City, California, the first port with an easy entrance and no treacherous river bar.

Day 4

            The next day, the sun was out as I reached in towards land, around the dramatically named dragon reef and an impressive lighthouse standing on a tiny rock 5 miles offshore, until at 7pm, as the sun was setting I dropped the hook into a soft mud bottom inside a long protecting breakwater, and almost immediately fell into one of the best nights of sleep in my life.

            The next day, I packed a day bag and headed inland, where after five miles I entered the redwood forest and spent the rest of the day wandering along dirt roads that looked like bear trials compared to the giants they wound through, diving deep into the heart of the woods on narrow trails or bushwhacking, climbing where possible as high as I dared and still not even making it the tiniest fraction of the way to the canopy, and a large amount of time simply sitting in awe of the unbelievable presence and power of nature that pervaded this forest. I have always loved spending time in the forests around Seldovia and Anchorage, and the old spruces covered in moss have always rooted me to reality and calmed me when I was the most stressed. And here those trees of my childhood seemed like saplings, and as many times taller as these trees were, they seemed also to magnify the essence and calm of their smaller cousins.

            Anyway, after 15 miles of awed wandering and hiking and exploring, by the time I turned back towards the coast two months of almost no strenuous physical activity were taking their toll on my feet, legs, and cardio, so by the time I staggered back to the dinghy I was reduced to taking a rest every hundred yards. Needless to say the next few days were spent in recovery, both from the lack of sleep sailing then the hike, and to top it off I met and become fast friends with a Canadian sailboat also on their way down the coast, who recognized the pink boat from when I was anchored outside of Vancouver, and who had to meet the crazy person sailing her. And so thanks to the unique color of Darwind’s hull I was actually able to have somewhat of a birthday celebration with friends. (Although because of a favorable wind for departure on my actual birthday it was actually the night before)

           

Bodega Bay

            After the unpleasant experience of almost no sleep for four nights in a row, I decided to make the next hop considerably shorter, planning for one or possibly two nights down to Fort Bragg, there to weather a nasty north gale that was forecast in a few days. However, after a day of sailing it became apparent that my calculations were a bit off, and it turned out that I would be arriving in the middle of the night rather than dawn, and would have to heave to or sail back and forth outside the narrow bar for six or more hours the light and tide to become favorable. I was already considering sailing on, when that evening the wind that was expected to blow up to 25-30 knots rose to 35-40, forcing me to reduce sail until Darwind was running under bare poles, with the only sail bundle on the boom pushing her along at five knots! Luckily, it didn’t last long enough to raise a dangerous sea, but it was enough to make me want to stay well clear of the rock-bound coast until I could be sure of a wide, sheltered bay where a safe entrance could be made at any time of the day or night.

            The first available port to fit these criteria was Bodega bay another hundred or so miles down the coast, but it was as protected as easy to enter as the chart suggested, and I made the first after-dark arrival of the trip in the wide, crescent bay with its white sand beach. Here for the first time I was presented with truly different scenery: bare, brown hills, sandstone cliffs and a white sand beach under a hot sun replacing tall, evergreen-coated mountains, grey granite crags, and rocky coastlines.

            After a day of rest at anchor in the outer bay I moved into the dock in the inner bay for the night at the peak of the gale and in order to take a much-needed shower and do the laundry, then moved back out for the final day of the gale when I realized how little of the gale which raged just a few miles offshore was actually felt along the coast. Finally, when the weather forecasts gave the all clear, I raised the anchor for the short sail past San Francisco to Half Moon Bay.

Half Moon Bay

            The trip to half moon bay started under a hot sun with no wind, and the engine roaring as we rolled south on the large glassy swells left by the recent gale. However, soon the Golden gate bridge came into sight in the distance to the east, and throughout the day I spotted dozens or even hundreds of whales all around the boat, from a few hundred yards to the horizon. Eventually, an afternoon breeze picked up and I was able to cut the engine and sail the rest of the way to Half-Moon bay, arriving just after dark, but without problems avoiding the well-lit reef and entering the large harbor behind the protective breakwater.

            Here, I needed to refill my stock of denatured alcohol fuel for the stove, which had run out in Bodega Bay and charge the batteries which had become dangerously low, so in the morning I moved in to the dock and plugged in, then set out on the bus to the hardware store a few minutes down the road. However, after scouring the shelves, and consulting with several employees, I discovered that in fact the sale of denatured alcohol had been banned from the state of California only a few months ago! After some frantic research and calls, I finally found a West Marine store just outside for San Francisco which had some, so I hopped on a bus for a two-hour ride into the city which I had intentionally sailed passed only a few hours ago. Luckily I managed to find the fuel, as well as a couple of other things I needed at West Marine, although as always at those stores they were incredibly overpriced. And after some extreme exhaustion, dusty and sweating from the heat and a much delayed rush hour bus ride back to the boat, I managed to get off the dock without paying a cent since I hadn’t stayed the night, and was back on the hook and fast asleep, now well-stocked with stove fuel and ready to go, by sunset.