We were planning on leaving on the 1st, but that meant that for 2 days we would have had 15knts of wind on the nose and south swell. Nothing about that sounded good to me, and my nerves started to get the better of me as the fear of the unknown sank in. We were getting ready for bed ready to leave the following morning at 5 am along with 3 other boats, I think Jon saw how I was not excited about this and right before we hit the sack we decided to stay and wait for a better weather window.  When the other boats woke up they were all shocked to still see us there. There is not much to do in Neah Bay and it is also a DRY reservation, and not only our boat but all the others in the bay were running low on their supply of liquor. Imagine, a bay full of cruising sailors all heading south, everyone of then out of booze! Jon and I sure were happy that we bought a sailing dinghy cause that was all there was to do in the bay. We did however become friends with the other boats and had happy hour on our boat, we have 14 people on Prism in the cabin and cockpit hiding from the cold 10 -15 knts of wind that was blowing outside. It was great to have other cruisers on the boat all having a good time! Such a change from the non welcoming boaters we found mostly in the San Juan Islands, with the exception of a few. The following night we all gathered aboard S/V Tregoning for a music night! Jon and I brought all our instruments and the other boats brought theirs and we jammed till our fingers bled. 

All of the people we met and the boats they were on really made Jon and I wish we were going further south along with the rest of them. But for right now, reality is in the way. 2 YEARS and we will be sailing the dream to warmer waters! 

We left Neah Bay on Wednesday September 4th at 7 am. First stop, the docks to fill up on water! 10 minutes later, we were off! we have the end of an ebb tide to carry us our to sea and past the red marker bouy that told us it was safe to make our left turn. We knew that the first 24 hours were going to be motoring, and we had planned on it so we would be hitting the outer skirts of a little system that had some good wind all the way down the coast.  We were staying on the east side of the 125 latitude line that is where all the large traffic transits about 40-50 miles off the coast.The 2 days off the Washington coast were beautiful with calm seas and warm sun, and about 28 hours into the trip we had 10 knts off our beam with a small west swell that kept our sails full for 48 hours of perfect sailing!  The Second night at sea will be one that Jon and I will never forget, as we were on a beam reach scooting along doing 6knts, we watched the sun drop below the horizon and watched the stars come out. We had no moon but the water was so alive with the bioluminescence that it was hard to see the lights of the fishing boats off in the horizon. On the first watch Jon said that there was a moment that the ocean was glowing green! It was just the most perfect night of sailing either one of us have ever had!  Then Oregon coast happened. We had 0-5knts of wind with big seas. We were so happy with the way Prism made her way down the swells with no wind to help keep her stiff. I am pretty sure that if we had been out there on our old boat Tara we would have been in the fetal position and crying our selves to sleep at night.  The down fall of the big seas and  lack of wind was the fact that the leech of our jib ripped free as it was getting beat up from being filled to having the wind knocked out  as we got picked up and dropped by the seas. And of course that happened in the middle of the night, our HUGE 130% head sail was out for the count, good thing we have a stay sail and main in somewhat good shape to help us get home. If we ever have enough wind to fill them! We got pretty used to the rocking and rolling that was Oregon waters, and we were happy to make it to California and looking forward to the wind that was forecasted around cape Mendocino. We kept a reef in the main as we hopped and waited for the 25 knts of wind that we should be coming into at any moment! Nope, it never happened. If anything the light 5 knt breeze that had us ghosting along at 3.5 knts died and then fog set in. It stayed this way for the rest of the trip. We would motor or motor sail to keep us moving. There was a slight moment of panic when we started to calculate our diesel range with the amount of tankage that was on the boat. On paper we have a 80 gallon diesel tank. We have never used more that 20 gallons ourselves and we had heard on other hc33 of the diesel pickup tube not going all the way to the bottom of the tank, effectively making the tank a 40-50 gallon tank. This had us a little worried as we creeped over the 50hrs of run time (our engine uses about a gallon and hour). Somewhere off the Oregon coast Jon topped the tank off with one of our 5 gallon jerry cans. The idea was to cross our fingers and hope we didn’t run out of diesel until we where at least 5hrs from dock. This way if we could make it that far we could use our last 5 gallons of diesel and guarantee that we would make it. This plan worked! At 2:10 AM we crossed under the heavily blanketed Golden Gate Bridge. The fog was so dense that we couldn’t even see past the lights that run along the bottom of the bridge. Thank goodness we had done this before at night and we had radar. A word on radar; it is super useful to have radar in dense fog so you can see anything with a flat surface. It is also a must to have it viewable from the cockpit. I had never had this luxury and was accustomed to have Shannon yell at me from inside the cabin of what she saw coming at us on our old boat Tara. This worked well until Alcatraz shaded the radar view of the main channel. Luckily Jon saw a super tanker at the right moment or we would have been turned into a bunch of Hans Christian bits. We got into Berkley marina 3:20 AM and had the intense feeling of being home at last. We had been at sea for a total of 139hrs 22min and 9 sec. Averaging 5.1knts and having traveled 710.4 NM. A huge sense of accomplishment overwhelmed us and we where so wired from completing the trip we ended up taking showers and hanging out to around 5 am, we then retired into our bed. That night I woke up in a panic because I thought we had both fallen asleep on watch. Shannon had to calm me down and I then fell back asleep.  

Once we were caught up on sleep we pulled down our ripped jib sail and got to work on fixing it up. Oh man is it a BOG sail! Thank goodness we had a dock to work on it, I’m sure it would have been very hard to do this while at anchor. We got it all back together and gave it a good scrubbing to get all the dirt off, it looks like a new sail…kinda 🙂

The 3rd day home we took our friends Katie and her boyfriend Xavi for their first sail! We had a blast just messing around on the bay,  with each of them taking their turn at the helm! It is so good to see good friends again now that we are back in the Bay! The following day Mom and Chris showed up, and stayed on their boat Sea Castle for the weekend and came out sailing with us as we made our way though the crowded bay to watch some of the Americas Cup Races. We now are rebooting our normal lives having been cruising for more than a month. We did just got done with a 4 day boat raftup at Treasure Islands Clipper Cove, but more of that is to come!