Leaving Morro Bay

Hi everyone!

We've had a relaxed 10 days, getting back in the swing of cruising, seeing old friends and meeting new ones. Heading to the sunshine.

It's really great that we have so much less stress than our first time down the coast. We're enjoying this a lot more and worrying a lot less.

We also posted some pictures of the start of our cruise at http://raptordance.com

If you've been following along with our position reports via the "Position Reporter" link on our website or directly at
http://www.winlink.org/positions/PosReportsDetail.aspx?callsign=WB6JAO You'll see that we've been progressing down the coast and are now in Morro Bay. Our latest position is the blue balloon. Be sure to click on it then zoom in with the "+" button and click the "Satellite" button for a view from space.

We Anchored in Half Moon Bay until Labor Day, the 4th, which was also our 8th wedding anniversary. Over the weekend we were joined by Jim and Sheila Goetsch on the Valiant 42 "Aurora" and Ed and Cornelia Gould on the Valiant 42 "A Cappella". Our friends Kim and Trish Casey on "Cheers" anchored not far away. We all had a lovely dinner Friday night at the local brew pub before things started getting crazy on Saturday.

It was an interesting sight with 3 Valiants rafted in a row. At one point a lady started taking lots of pictures of our boats. It turns out that she was from Scanmar - the company that makes Monitor wind vanes. Since all three of us have them it was an interesting picture. I'm sure we'll probably end up in one of their brochures in the future.

Saturday, was a literal boat parade with the majority of the boats arriving. There were literally hundreds of boats moored in Half Moon Bay, with 5 yacht clubs having major parties, BBQs, Pot Lucks, etc. Everyone had a great time.

We've started meeting many more cruising couples heading down the Mexico. Many will also be doing the Baja Ha-ha rally see http://www.baja-haha.com/ We'll talk more about some of the folks we meet along the way as we spend more time with them.

After most folks left on the 8th, we pulled into a slip in the Marina. Bruce Bongar, Karen Friday - of "Berkut" the Waterline 46 and Gordon and Vlasta Hanson of the Valiant 40 "Far Country" joined us for a great fish lunch in Princeton Seafood right in the Marina.

We left Half Moon Bay on Tuesday, the 5th at 630 AM on the 63 nautical mile trip to Monterey. It was totally uneventful, with little or no wind until we started crossing Monterey Bay. Then we benefited from a 15 knot tailwind that sped us along. We arrived in Monterey around 300 PM, in time for the Tuesday farmers' market.

On Wednesday, we re-visited the Monterey Bay Aquarium. This is one of the best aquaria in the world. They have a new juvenile Great White Shark in their open ocean tank. The only one in captivity. see http://www.montereybayaquarium.org/

On Thursday, we hiked up the hill to the Whole Foods and cleaned them out of Scharffen Berger 70% Cocoa Chocolate see http://www.scharffenberger.com/ This is our favorite and we now have a good stash in our chocolate locker. After lunching at Abalonetti Seafood Trattoria we retired to the boat to tidy up and retire early for the next leg of our trip.

We got up at midnight, Friday morning Sept 8th and left at 1220 PM on our 104 nautical mile leg to Morro Bay. It was a little lumpy with light winds until we passed Pt. Sur, then the seas calmed with just a 6 foot swell. As usual, what little wind we had was on the nose until we rounded Point Piedras Blancas, then the wind shifted to a close reach. We arrived in Morro Bay at 4 PM and tied up at the Morro Bay Yacht Club.

When we arrived, the dock was full, so we were asked to raft up to another boat. The owner of the boat stuck here head out of the hatch and said "They can't raft here" with a gleam in her eye. It turned out that we rafted next to Sarah and Daryl Erickson - our ex-neighbors from 2004 in Paradise Village in Alameda!

Since the club was having races on Saturday and Sunday and they have a small dock, we had to move to a mooring on Saturday morning.

That night we dined at the home of our friends John and Kay Semon of the Beneteau 473 "Semonship", who we met and befriended on the 2004 Ha-ha. We had a lovely dinner of BBQed Salmon. On Saturday, they joined us on Raptor Dance for a dinner of Roasted Herb Crusted Pork Tenderloin and our first game of "Mexican Train" dominoes on this cruise.

Here in Morro Bay we also met the folks on the Peterson 46 "Liberty" Carl and Yvette Nichols and their sons Joel 12 and Kyle 11. They're from Friday Harbor, WA. They're going to join us today for a BBQ lunch on Raptor Dance along with Chris and Robyn Parker from the Island Packet 35 "Robyn's Nest".

Carl and Yvette were kind enough to let us use their dingy, so we didn't have to get ours out. After the BBQ, we'll wind down and get ready to leave again at midnight tonight (Monday morning, Sept 11th) for Santa Barbara.

You may recall that in 2004, we were dreading this section of the coast as our next leg takes us around Point Conception, "The Cape Horn of the Pacific Coast". It turns out that there are lot's of "Cape Horn's of ""X""" around. Just like the rapids in the Northwest - with due diligence and care, proper planning and due respect given to the weather, these rounding can delightfully boring. Our Valiant is a sea worthy boat that is capable of handling almost anything, so with our cautious nature, we have much less concern than in 2004.

That's the news from Raptor Dance!

Warmest Regards,
Bill and Mary

Pillar Point Harbor - Half Moon Bay

Hello everyone -

Well, we did it. We cast off at 945 AM yesterday, Thursday, August 31, 2006 and set off for Pillar Point Harbor at Half Moon Bay.

As is always the case, boat chores were left unfinished on the list - we may get to them on our way...... or not. We've still got some minor items undone from our departure in 2004 ;-}

We had a little wind during our passage - on the nose, so we motored. Opposing swells from our beam made the ride lumpy so we were both nibbling a bit of crystallized ginger. Interestingly, when we left in 2004, this was also the only leg of our voyage where we felt a little off.

We arrived at Pillar Point Harbor around 330 PM and stopped a the fuel dock to top off. This harbor has the lowest fuel prices on the coast by at least 50 cents a gallon.

We then proceeded to anchor, not happy with our first spot (too close to some mooring buoys) we moved and found a lovely spot with no other boats or buoys within at least 150 feet of our position at the end of 100 feet of chain (i.e. the nearest boat is at least 250 feet from our anchor).

We have a Bushnell Yardage Pro 1000 LASER range finder that we use to keep track of other boats, rocks, buoys, etc. at anchor. This is a handy gadget used primarily by golfers to measure the distance to the pin. Unlike marine accessories, this item was pretty inexpensive, just over $100.

That will change in the next few days though as lots of other boats arrive for the holiday weekend. At least 4 Yacht Clubs are coming in and lots of others as well for the Half Moon Bay Yacht Club BBQ. We'll report back on the festivities later.

We've already seen our first set of friends arrive, Dan and Eileen Ulum on their Valiant 42 Naussica pulled in just as we were sitting down to dinner (we had Beef Zinfandel with pasta and broccoli). We didn't know they were going to be here so it was a very pleasant surprise.

There are also two other boats here flying this year's Baja Ha-ha burgee, so we'll go say hi once we get the dingy out later this morning.

Pillar Point Harbor is just as we remember it before. The huge anchorage is very calm and quiet - except for the "HOOOO.............HOOOO............" of the entrance horn (Bill says he feels like Horton the Elephant) and the occasional sound of the gulls. When anchoring here, we made sure to be upwind of the major gull nesting spots on the breakwater as downwind you get bad aroma.

You can see the satellite picture of this harbor is great detail by going to the "Position Reporter" link on our website http://raptordance.com - clicking on our latest position, the "Satellite" button and zooming in (the "+" button).

It was overcast late yesterday afternoon. This morning it's foggy and looks like a great misty picture. We should get some sun later today.

We've got the heater on this morning and are wearing socks! But we're heading South!

We hope you all are well and will enjoy this wonderful holiday (in the US) weekend.

Warmest Regards to all,
Bill and Mary

Almost Ready to Go!

Hi Everyone -

It's been over a month since you last heard from us as we've been totally consumed with all the work needed to resume cruising. In an effort to bring you up to date we've summarized what we've been doing and our plans. This posting is a bit long - so skip over the parts that you may find uninteresting.

Some new folks have joined our mailing list since we left the Pacific Northwest, so I just want to remind everyone that we love to hear from you all! Please however, don't forward messages to us or use attachments.

Just send us what you have typed! Also, please don't "reply" to these messages unless you delete our original message from your email. It's much better just to type and send us a new message.

CRUISING DESTINATIONS:

Our tentative cruising outline is, and will remain, cast in Jello - we're trying not to have a "schedule" to keep. However, we would like to visit with those of you who live along our route, so let us know if you are nearby any of our destinations and let's get together!

You can always see our latest position (updated at least daily - when we move) by following the "Find our Current Position on Position Reporter" link on our website at http://raptordance.com

We're planning to cast off on Thursday, Aug 31. We may spend Thursday and Friday in South Beach in San Francisco, but that's still undecided, we may just go straight to Half Moon Bay.

We will spend Labor Day Weekend in Half Moon Bay. Three Yacht Clubs (Oakland YC, Sausalito YC and Berkeley YC) are cruising down the coast for a BBQ at the Half Moon Bay Yacht Club, we have lot's of friends who belong to these clubs and it will be a great time for us to visit with everyone.

On Monday, Sept 4th, down the coast we'll go to Monterey Harbor. This is one of our favorite stops on the Central Coast. They have a great Farmers' Market on Tuesdays and we're members of the wonderful Monterey Bay Aquarium, so we'll be sure to check out any new exhibits.

Around Sept 7th or 8th, we'll continue on to Morro Bay where we'll visit with our friends, John and Kay Semon of the Beneteau 473, "Semonship".

Continuing on, We'll head to Santa Barbara for a few days. The Northern Channel Islands and either Ventura or Channel Island Marina to visit with Len and Norma Brownlow of the Olsen 40, "Hangover" and Don and Joan Anderson of the Valiant 47, "Summer Passage" - but more famously - the fantastic volunteer weather forecaster for Mexico, Central America and Pacific cruisers.

Then it's on to Marina del Rey and the Southern Channel Islands. We'll visit with our family and spend some time at the Islands.

We're planning on arriving in San Diego on October 16th, in time to finish getting ready for Mexico. If we can arrange it, we'll get our Retirement FM-3 Mexico Visas in San Diego (otherwise we'll get them in Puerto Vallarta). We'll also visit with family, visit the Zoo and enjoy San Diego.

On October 21st, we'll drive up to Upland for Bill's 40th Chaffey High School Reunion.

On October 29th, the Baja Ha-ha activities start and at 11:00 AM on the 30th, we'll cross the Ha-ha starting line, and on to Mexico. We'll stop briefly in Turtle Bay, Bahia Santa Maria and Cabo San Lucas, then on to Paradise Village, Nuevo Vallarta where we'll arrive around the 15th of November.

Once we get Raptor Dance snug and settled in to Paradise Village, we'll return to spend the holidays with our family before continuing on with our cruise.

CHORES COMPLETED (non-sailors, skip over the geeky details):

This has been a very busy (and $) time for us. Here's a partial list of what we've been up to (and why we haven't had a lot of time to visit friends, socialize, etc.).

New Roof - Our vacation house roof was worn out. Since we won't be home in the rainy season and we wanted to avoid problems, we re-roofed and added ventilation so the new roof will last longer. We used Home Depot to do the roof as we really liked their warranty and we think they'll be around to honor it. They did a great job on the roof but just need to fix the poor gutter install before we leave.

Solar Panels - We had a framework fabricated above our Bimini and added two 130 Watt Kyrocera solar panels and a Blue Sky Energy 2000E MPPT charge controller. These are working very well so far. Since they've been installed we haven't had to run our battery charger at all! We'll see how they do cruising. KKMI did the metal work and West Marine/Maritime Electronics in Point Richmond did the installation. We obtained the panels and controller from Hotwire Enterprises http://www.svhotwire.com

Rig maintenance and upgrade - We had our Leisurefurl in boom mail sail furler serviced and we added a Dutchman 750 Boom Brake to replace the Valiant Preventer System. The preventer system caused undue wear on the gooseneck bearing when the sail back winded. Consultation with the top riggers and our sailing coach led to the conclusion that we should convert over to the boom brake to minimize rig wear and potential damage in an accidental jibe. JP Boatworks in Sausalito did the Leisurefurl work and Glenn Hanson in Alameda installed the Boom Brake

Canvas Work - Mary spent many hours on the sewing machine creating fantastic new covers for our mainsail, life raft, jerry cans and hatches. She also whipped up pirate shirts to augment our costumes (for the many costume parties along the way), made some additional storage sacks and altered many of our clothes as we've lost a lot of weight.

New Inverter/Charger - Our Statpower Inverter (old unit sold on eBay) and Pro Mariner battery charger (which died coming down from the Washington in June) were replaced with a new Magnum Energy MS2812 pure sine wave inverter/charger.

Sails - Our sails were serviced by Quantum Sails. They also added chafe patches to the main, mended some minor tears and replaced the webbing at the heads of our Genoa and Staysail with new, stronger, more robust Spectra webbing (so we won't have a repeat of the failure we had at the Banderas Bay Regatta in 2004).

Deck work - we changed our life raft cradle from the Valiant model to the standard Switlik cradle (our liferaft is a Switlik SAR-6), It was too difficult to get the life raft in and out of the Valiant cradle and we didn't want to have to rely on adrenaline to get it out of the cradle if we needed to launch it. We also mounted new pad eyes on deck to tie down our 3 Jerry cans. For the last 2 years we had them tied down with webbing running from the mast to the life raft cradle and these new pad eyes make for a much more tidy installation. Putting in new deck fixtures is lots of work as we needed to remove the cabin head liner to access the underside of the deck, seal the holes and bed everything properly. We did all this ourselves.

Skills improvement - We went out with a sailing coach, Roy Haslup of J-World San Francisco, to improve some of our techniques. We practiced safety maneuvers, such as the "Quick Stop" Man Overboard procedure (which is much easier than it sounds from the written descriptions of it) and spend quite a bit of time practicing jibing the spinnaker. We previously (and will still mostly) jib by putting the spinnaker back in its sock, moving it to the other side and re-deploying it.

Misc. Tasks - We also had our Outboard and main engine serviced, the bottom cleaned, had our B&G wind instruments fixed, worked on the electronics wiring, replaced the hard drive on our laptop and restored all the software, worked on the boat detailing and did a myriad of other small tasks.

Whew! It's been a lot of work, but now we're ready to head off!

Regards,
Bill and Mary

Since our Return...

Hi everyone!

When we last reported on June 12th, we were 58 miles out anticipating an 8 PM arrival. At that time the weather was foggy with a few mile visibility.

As we approached the Golden Gate, the skies cleared. The bridge was glorious in the early evening sun as we reentered San Francisco Bay after an almost 2 year absence.

We found our old slip at Mariner Square in Alameda waiting for us and we docked at 8:30 pm (we had an ebb tide in the bay slowing us down). Gosh, things have changed at Mariner Square.

We left to move to Marina Village in 2003 in the midst of seismic retrofitting of the Alameda tunnels that run under the marina. Everything was torn up. It was still like that when we left the bay in September 2004.

Now, almost everything was rebuilt and upgraded. There's a waterfront park that's quite nice, a Sr. living residence and a boat dry storage building. The Marina office has nice shower, restroom and laundry facilities. The only area that hasn't been completed is the old foundation of Larry and Della's Restaurant, near Chevy's, that burned down in 2002. I think that they're still haggling with permits over this rebuild.

We cleaned up the boat that night and said our good-bye's to Bob and Jerry who headed off. The next day we returned to our vacation home in Sonoma and started coordinating all the work to be done on Raptor Dance while we're in the bay.

Since then, We've been busy with lots of chores:

We've given the boat a thorough cleaning. This was quite involved as we had a lot of rust particles on deck from a fishing boat that was undergoing a lot of grinding up wind from where we were docked. We still have some detailing left to do. We're doing this job ourselves as the folks we previously used quoted us $900+ for the job.

We also polished all the stainless using the wonderful "Miracle Cloth" that was recommended in a recent edition of Practical Sailor. It made the job much easier.

We had our dead battery charger and modified sine wave inverter replaced with a new Magnum Energy MS2812 pure sine wave Inverter/Charger. This was a tough project as the old units had to be removed and the new put in their place on the far side of the engine room. Alan Mcdonell from Boat Guys in Alameda spend two days wrestling the units in and out. I really like this unit as it already provides noticeably better results (e.g. less radio interference, it runs the microwave at full power, it has a bigger charger, etc.).

Yesterday we motored to Point Richmond and back to drop off our 4 sails at Quantum Sails for service. They're 6 years old and need a thorough going over.

We still have more chores to do and I'll report on those later.

We hope to get all this stuff done so we can have some fun days sailing on the bay before we leave to head South towards the end of August.

Mary and I want to wish you all a happy 4th of July weekend (US folks), Canada Day (North of the boarder) or just a happy summer weekend (everyone else in the Northern Hemisphere)!

Regards,
Bill and Mary

ETA Mariner Square, Alameda - 8 PM

Hi Everyone!

If you've been watching our progress on Position Reporter (see our homepage http://raptordance.com or go directly there via http://www.winlink.org/positions/PosReportsDetail.aspx?callsign=WB6JAO ), you're aware that we're making much better time than we anticipated from Crescent City.

We're now just off Bodega Bay (where Alfred Hitchcock shot his movie "The Birds" - no sign though of Tippie Hedron!) and we've been making between 7.8 and 8.0 knots.

We should be entering the Golden Gate around 6:30 PM tonight, Monday, June 12th and we should be at our temporary home at Mariner Square Marina in Alameda around 8:00 PM.

Thanks to the hospitality of Bill Joos at Valiant West, we'll be in the same slip we used to occupy before we moved to Marina Village (during the seismic retrofit of the Alameda Tunnels), a year before we left on our voyage in September 2004.

We'll be there for the next month or two until we resume cruising by heading down to Southern California and then back to Mexico. Right now we're scheduled to arrive in Paradise Village in Nuevo Villarta, Nayarit, Mexico approximately November 15th.

During the trip south, we've accumulated a number of maintenance items and will be attending to those while we're in the Bay. Also, this coming weekend is the Summer Sailstice and we're planning to participate.

It's been a VERY quiet trip (except for the engine), so far, from Crescent City. Off Cape Mendocino, one of the most feared spots on the Pacific Coast south of Alaska, we did raise the main - but didn't have enough wind to turn off the engine ;-{

All in all, we've been a motor boat on this leg. Right now is flat calm with nary a ripple on the seas, in light fog, with variable visibility (right now it's about 1 mile).

Except for tweaking the autopilot to say on course and watching for other traffic on the Radar, the Automatic Ship Identification (AIS) system and visually there's not much to do. So Jerry's standing watch, Bob is finishing up his book, "The Da Vinci Code", Mary's tiding up and I'm typing you all this message.

According to the GPS and Chart Plotter, we're 58 miles and 7 hours 45 minutes from the slip.

That's the news from Raptor Dance!

Regards,
Bill, Mary, Bob and Jerry

Departed Crescent City - We're once again on our way

Hi Everyone!

We cast off the dock lines this morning at 645AM and left Crescent City Harbor. We left on a rising tide as the harbor is shallow and we didn't want to get stuck for long if we ran aground. As it was we saw water as shallow at 8 feet on our way out - that's only 1' 9" more than the depth of the keel!

Once out of the harbor, we raised the main and guess what... The wind's on our nose again! The forecast is for 10 to 15 knot North West winds, which would be behind us - but right now the winds are about 4 knots from the South West! At least it's not slowing us down much as we motor sail down the coast.

We should pass Cape Mendocino somewhere between 6:30 and 7:00 this evening. Cape Mendocino can be pretty rough, but the forecast is for benign conditions as we pass. Right now we're heading South West but will turn South East after rounding the cape.

We should arrive at the Golden Gate sometime late Monday night. We're attempting to get there during the flood tide. At 2 AM Tuesday morning the tide turns to ebb and we would have to fight a current on our nose of 6 knots if we arrive later than that.

More on our progress later.

All in all, we had a relaxing time in Crescent City after we got all our boat chores done. There are some nice seafood restaurants in the Harbor, the best being "The Chart Room". Note, this is not part of a chain of restaurants, it's a local place. "The Grotto" restaurant was also pretty good, but the best dish was the Crab Louis at the Chart Room.

Other than boat chores, walking about, eating and visiting the Internet Coffee House, we watched a few movies. Moby Dick with Gregory Peck our choice for Friday night and last night we watched Perfect Storm (I would have preferred Captain Ron!).

That's the news from Raptor Dance.

Regards to all,
Bill, Mary, Bob and Jerry

Weather Window looks good for a Sunday Morning Departure from Crescent City

Hi Everyone!

It looks like the winds are lightening and we have a favorable weather window starting tomorrow morning, Sunday the 11th. We'll leave here probably around 8 AM on a raising tide and are anticipating passing through the Golden Gate very early Tuesday morning.

We've been busy here in Crescent City waiting for our weather window to continue South.

When we were out bouncing around a few maintenance items came up. The most fun was the furling line on our main sail.

We were double reefed, heading on a deep broad reach and had the boom held in place firm with our preventer. Coming down one wave the main was back winded in 30 knots of wind - good thing we had the preventer on or we would have accidentally jibed. The furling line was taking the pressure and the stopper stripped the Dacron cover from the Spectra core. This kept the stopper from holding the line so enough of the sail unrolled to drape the main across the stays. I had to go forward, engage the furling ratchet on the Leisurefurl's drum, insert a winch handle and manually re-furl the main. Of course, I was clipped on with a harness to our Jacklines. This cleaned things up. No big deal, but exciting at the time.

When we got into Crescent City we replaced the line with a replacement. We basically have enough spare line on board to replace all the running rigging at least once.

Did I mention that the head also was clogged? Fortunately it was the overboard thru hull that clogged, so we could still use the head into the holding tank. So when we got in I used our "Blast it Out" (http://www.blastitout.com ) to clear it. I also replaced the Joker valve, which probably contributed to the problem.

Also, the battery charger died, but we're able to charge the batteries off the engine alternator. Just to keep things topped off, I bought a small charger at the local Crescent City marine chandlery and hooked it into one of the auxiliary power sockets on board (these sockets used to be called cigarette lighter outlets).

We have a new charger and inverter from Magnum Energy awaiting installation when we return to SF Bay. We also got word that our Solar Panels that we ordered at the boat show are in and ready to be shipped to us. So this should help us when we continue our cruising in August.

All is well on board and our next report will be at sea. Keep an eye on our position reporter to follow our progress.

Regards to all,
Bill, Mary, Bob and Jerry

Crescent City CA

Hi Everyone!

We're safe and sound in Crescent City waiting for the winds to lift before we continue on.

We arrived at 4 AM Thursday morning. The winds were building and we decided not to push too hard. The winds were already up to 30 knots and forecast to have gusts over 40. Seas were building too!

Anyway, Crescent City is a lovely little town with a pleasant marina mostly with fishing boats. There's a great chandlery near by for any items we need. Town is a short mile walk away.

We're in "The Coffee Corner" right now having our espresso's (Bob) , cappuccinos (Bill and Mary) and Raspberry smoothy (Jerry). And, of course, using their wireless Internet connection. Since it's a mile walk, this will probably be the only time we're on while here.

The Weather is forecast to lighten Sunday, if so, we're resume our voyage. We're about a 40 hour sail from the Golden Gate - so just under 2 days to go, once we cast off.

That's the news from Crescent City.

Regards,
Bill, Mary, Bob and Jerry

Off the Brandon OR (South of Coos Bay) - Past the Halfway mark

Hello Everyone!

We past the half way mark this morning at about 10 AM. We motor sailed all night as the we were sailing dead downwind and the wind strength wasn't sufficient to get much speed sailing.

This morning, at about the half way mark, the wind picked up a bit and we're now sailing "wing on wing". This configuration is when we have the main on one side of the boat (starboard in this case) and the Jib on the other side (Port). To hold the Jib stable, we're using our Spinnaker Pole attached to the jib sheet.

After a great 4 hour sail the first day, we've pretty much been motoring almost the whole time. Our sail right now is a welcome respite.

With 16 knots of wind, we're making between 7.5 and 8 knots of speed over the ground (as measured by the GPS - the nearest ground is about 6000 feet straight down!).

All is well on Raptor Dance: Jerry and Mary are doing dishes, I'm (Bill) typing this note on the computer and Bob is keeping watch.

We rotate watches every three hours with 1 person on each. This is great as you have 3 on and 9 off - ample time to sleep, read, whatever.

Commanders Weather says we might see more boisterous conditions off Cape Mendocino, but nothing major and no where near what the boat and crew can't easily handle. so far the winds and seas have been substantially lower than forecast and we're hopeful that that trend will continue.

We've been seeing loads of hump back whales and dolphins the last few days. They're always welcome visitors.

That's the news from Raptor Dance!

Warmest Regards,
Bill, Mary, Bob and Jerry

Oregon Coast - Looking for wind.

Hi everyone,

Yesterday after our long slog out the Straights of Juan de Fuca, we turned the corner at Tatoosh Island at 3:30 PM.

Finally the wind was not dead on our nose. We raised sails at 4:00 PM and by 4:30 we had the Monitor wind vane hooked up a steering the boat. Under sail the boat quieted down and just moved! Using no electricity or other technology (the Monitor is a totally mechanical steering "computer"), we were on course, happily zipping along at over 8 knots.

We were on a close reach until 6PM when we turned to port (left) again and headed South to parallel the coast. Our speed was in the 7 knot range with a really nice ride while we had dinner (Garlic and Thyme Roast Chicken, Asparagus with a Balsamic Glaze and a Brown and Wild Rice Pilaf).

Around sunset the wind died - to less than 12 knots (from behind making our apparent wind less than 6 knots) - with 4 foot swells - so we furled the Jib and Staysail and motor sailed with the main up.

We still had enough wind to push us along and maintain 8 knots until this morning when the wind died further. Right now (9 AM PDT, Tuesday June 6th) we're off the Oregon Coast - 40 miles due west of the Columbia River Bar - and we only have 2 knots of wind.

More wind is forecast and we hope to get more sailing in.

It's great having Bob and Jerry along as it means that Mary and I can get lots more sleep than we did on our long passages in Mexico. We're doing 3 hour shifts, so everyone is on 3 and off 9 - plenty of time for sleep!

It's time to fire up the Genset, cool down the fridge and desalinate some more water. We'll report further later today.

Be sure and check out our position reports, we've been filing 3 or 4 per day - see the "And Find our Current Position on Position Reporter" link on our website or go directly to:
http://www.winlink.org/positions/PosReportsDetail.aspx?callsign=WB6JAO

That's the news from here!

Warmest Regards,
Bill, Mary, Bob and Jerry