Sail Cutthroat

14 July 2009

Out to Sea…again

“Maybe we should pull some more sail out…it’s back in the thirties”

We’ll get to that comment later…

Friday, 10 July 2009

I was happy to get back on my night watches again. Twelve to three – that’s my favorite time on the boat. It’s serene, nobody wants anything, and most evenings it is peaceful with time to reflect on whatever. We had a beautiful day exiting the Strait of Juan de Fuca. Clear blue skies, flat seas and no wind.

While that may sound funny to many of you knowing that we’re on a sailboat, the alternative weather scenario in leaving the Strait is 30 knots on the nose…I hate that! Rounding Tatoosch Island the fog came in but once we rounded the winds came up and we off and running south towards the Oregon coast. The fog is hanging on with us so the old fog horn is doing its thing…protecting us from imminent danger.

The winds continued to blow at a nice 20 – 25 knots thru the evening from astern making for a great sail. But alas, by morning light (about 4 AM at this latitude) it was gone and we didn’t see it again for several days. So we motored from just south of the Columbia River Basin through mid-day Monday. Maintaining good constant speed and getting a strong push from the currents, we hit the Columbia River entrance as predicted with rain most of the day. As the swells remained big and the tide was ebbing, the Coast Guard closed the bar to small vessels, but by the time we arrived the weather subsided, the tide changed to the flood and the advisory was lifted. We had already made our weather decision and continued to head south passing this entrance by. Everyone was ready to get to San Francisco now. As the wind now subsided and the swells calmed down Saturday and Sunday were pretty similar except for the currents reversing themselves and no longer working in our favor slowing our speed over ground (SOG) to the low 6’s. We are continuing to maintain a satisfactory pace and with the conditions so very favorable to a pleasant journey, it only makes sense to press on. By the time we are outside Newport, it’s the middle of the night and the current is ebbing – so that’s a no-go unless we just hover outside the entrance – not going to happen. I was never very good a hovering! Got to keep moving!

Sunday, 12 July 2009

Everyone got a good night sleep last night, and Charlie and Kathryne are feeling more at ease and becoming viable crew members again. There is a certain adjustment to being out in the ocean all night when you are alerted by every unusual noise and the thrashing of the ship seems intolerable as you try to find sleep. It definitely takes some getting used to. By Sunday morning, they were back to the sarcastic humor (Charlie) and giggles (Kathryne). They took over the watch after dinner and stayed up with Roger until I came on watch at midnight.

Sunday morning the big Dell computer we were using for Nobeltec, WxWorks and the Sat Phone went to the “blue screen.” That’s never a good thing. Looks like the Nobeltec install file somehow became corrupted. Fortunately, this is all backed up on another laptop so we just switched out computers. Much of the marine software has conflicts running on Microsoft Vista (as do most of us), so I needed to keep both computers running to see/use all the components that keep us connected. While this isn’t a problem and after all the reason we keep redundant systems, the day was slightly more complicated by the fact that I found a void in the Raymarine chip software that works on our chartplotter. Apparently my west coast chip is an older version and only goes as far north as Cape Mendicino. I didn’t realize that when I bought all the adjacent chips last year, that the old and the new didn’t quite match up leaving out most of southern Oregon and northern California – bummer! This was another compelling reason not to venture into some of the Oregon river bars that seem to all come with multiple warning signals. All of the Coast Guard radio reports that we heard encourage skippers to review their emergency procedures before proceeding through the bar and strongly suggest that all crew members don their life jackets – sounds too much like reading cigarette and alcohol warning labels. THIS MAY BE HAZARDOUS TO YOUR HEALTH! Enough for me…too much stress just to look at Oregon rocks (they look like all the others anyway), and the “green” people who can’t seem to balance a budget. Besides, their unemployment rate is so high, we’d probably have to fend off homeless borders. Screw Oregon! Except of course for our good Oregon friends, Dave and Cyn…others????

Monday, 13 July 2009

Winds continue to be light and far than predicted or reported on the NOAA weather data we receive. We’ll see how the day progresses as we approach Cape Mendicino where it’s calling for 25+ knots and those steep, short seas that make for a very uncomfortable ride. I’ve been prepping Charlie and Kathryne for a potentially rough Monday night…which it may well be. After our first night out, Friday…Charlie and Kathryne want to ensure that brother Rob makes the trip with us from San Francisco to San Diego. They are adamant that he also experience rough weather at sea…I don’t think there’s any brotherly love coming out of this statement either. Their intent sounded pretty evil actually. Imagine that – wanting to share what they think is a miserable experience with their unsuspecting brother.

They just thought Friday night was as bad as it gets until we got to Cape Mendicino. That’s when the fun really began. This particular area is known to have extreme weather conditions most of the time. Bruce warned us of it and encouraged us to have a fallback plan. I’m a big believer in the Plan B concept, so we had several places we could duck into if the weather predictions got really bad. All was going well with the weather and the predictions wouldn’t have led us to believe it would be especially bad, but what we experienced did come somewhat as a surprise both in the timing and the intensity. As we made the slight bend around Cape Mendicino the winds freshened to something we could actually sail in, again with the winds behind us. The seas started to build with the increasing winds that went from under 10 to 22-25 within a few minutes. We had the head sail flying (remember the tear in the mainsail) and we were cruising at about 8.5 knots. Then the gusts started to cap 30, and within another few minutes stayed in the 30’s and building. It was about then that we started the discussion of reducing the jib down to a smaller profile (which we quickly did – and fortunately it can all be done from the safety of the cockpit). And then we were in the 40’s…where would this end? Just as we thought it couldn’t go any higher…higher it would go. The winds finally settled into the low to mid forties with the highest gust we saw register come in at 48.5 (that’s over 50 mph for those of you still wondering what a knot was equal to). The seas were running a good 10 feet by now and the wind was literally whipping the tops off the waves. While the 10 foot swells were coming directly astern, the wind waves were off the starboard quarter, and the current was pushing around 3 knots directly from the beam. What does this all mean? It was very bumpy and uncomfortable! It stayed this way for the next several hours. It looked surreal with the sheer cliffs of Cape Mendicino in the distance and these roiling seas all around us. Cutthroat was really in her element surfing at well over 10 knots many times! She felt secure, incredibly strong and very much at home with these rugged surroundings – probably more so than at least 3 of the 5 occupants aboard. At one point I looked below and there were Charlie and Kathryne huddled up on the sofa with uncertain looks registering on their little faces and conned in their life jackets. All I could think of was their mother, Anna’s face if I caused injury to her babies. Actually, I think they were just hungry – so I fixed dinner – meatloaf and mashed potatoes – muy yummy. It was one of those times to use one of the already prepared dinners…good thinking!

Just as quickly as these winds came – they went. By 9 PM we were well beyond the Cape and both the seas and winds settled down to something far more reasonable. Before long, we were back to less than 10 kts of wind albeit the seas were still rather chunky. We finally pulled in the genoa and continued along under power again. Bob, Kathryne and Charlie celebrated with large bowls of ice cream and gooey chocolate cookies. As a finale to the evening, a whale spout was spotted by our own Eagle Eye, Kathryne (aka Sparkie). We tracked the spout for sometime until our new companion bid us a fond farewell with his huge tail waving goodbye before he dove deep – not to be seen again by the crew of the Cutthroat. Quite the treat for us all!

Tuesday was quite uneventful as we continued our trek towards San Francisco Bay. The winds remained very light and the seas flattened out. The sun was out and it was warm providing us with a beautiful backdrop into San Francisco Bay. Catching the afternoon flood tide in through Bonita Channel, we were greeted with a drop dead gorgeous view of the Golden Gate Bridge and the city’s beautiful skyline. What an entrance! It couldn’t have been more picturesque. As soon as we sailed under the bridge, the wind gods turned on the faucet again and it was immediately blowing 25 knots again. Very strange!

We are now securely attached to the dock at Fisherman’s Wharf at Pier 39 downtown – right next to the Sea Lion dock. Yes, they are noisy…and yes they smell! We had to shoo one off the dock when we arrived, but fortunately they have stayed on their own dock since our arrival. I think they have access keys to the marina and just go pretty much where they want to. There is a constant supply of visitors standing on the Pier watching them – I remember doing just that in years past. When we checked in to the Marina Office, we were provided a set of ear plugs per crew member – how special and thoughtful of the marina staff! Could have used a nose plug even more!

There’s lots to do here – especially for the kids…entertainment abounds! Bob flew out this morning so we are back to our little family foursome. We’ll be here for at least a week and have rented a car for the weekend to explore and hopefully catch up with some old friends from our Sacramento days.

We’ll let you know the next phase of this odyssey as soon as we figure it out. Not sure how long we’ll stay here or where exactly we are headed next – except for south! Until then, we love hearing back from all of you and appreciate your comments.

Elise and Roger, Charlie, and Kathryne

s/v Cutthroat