Continuing our southbound passage adventures from my previous blog post…

West Coast Southbound Passage Leg 4: Crescent City to Eureka

September 4, 8am-6pm | 10 hours, 65 Nautical Miles

This quick day hop was our first dipping-our-toes-in-the-water passage with just the four of us, our family: Brenden, myself, Evan (11), and Kali (7). We were waiting for a weather window to get around the mighty Cape Mendocino, and we decided to move 65 miles south from Crescent City to continue waiting in Eureka. This would make the needed weather window for the cape to be essentially 12 hours shorter and we knew those 12 hours could really count for us went the time came. The weather windows for boats on the west coast southbound passage jumping from port to port this year have been few and far between, and short.

So, on Saturday 9/4/2021, we left Crescent City in a heavy fog bank. We could barely see where we were going but easily got out to deep water thanks to our instruments and being able to easily follow our incoming track from the week before. The first few hours of the trip, the fog persisted and it was fairly wet and cold up in the cockpit. Thankfully, around 1:00, we came out of the fog and found a nice sunny day! We even played a few rounds of Monopoly Deal in the cockpit as we motored along.

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As we approached the entrance to the Humboldt Bay Bar, we spotted some whales and had a great encounter as they seemed to be feeding and were quite active. The kids were very excited to see them! And we also saw a couple dolphins sort of zoom by and check us out before moving on.

We had picked a nice calm day and we didn’t have any issues entering the notoriously difficult bar. Traveling upriver for nearly an hour, we reached the Eureka Public Marina where we would end up staying for the next two weeks! We had no idea it would take that long for a weather window to come for us to round the cape, but such is life when cruising at sailboat speeds.

West Coast Southbound Passage Leg 5: Eureka to Half Moon Bay

September 17, 9:45am – September 19, 7:45am | 46 hours, 245 Nautical Miles

Finally, the time came to round Cape Mendocino. By this point, there were five boats waiting for the weather window in Eureka. One stayed behind waiting for a longer window, but four of us headed out together to get around the cape.

We had a pretty decent prediction for the first 24-hours of the trip but would need to move as quickly as possible to try to avoid an incoming front with bigger winds, waves, and rain on the second day.

The first day of that passage was just lovely! We had sunshine and lots and lots of whale sightings. There was left-over swell from the previous days’ winds, but we all did ok since we could hang out in the cockpit in the sunshine and fresh air.

Unfortunately, by Saturday morning, we had failed to keep up enough speed to outrun that incoming front and I awoke from my turn sleeping to find Brenden in the cockpit in a steady cold rain and bashing into wind and waves. The rain kept up all day long. The seal in our cabin top failed where the mast passes through to mount at the top of our keel. That failure caused utter misery for us for the last half of the journey.

Initially, we were on a port tack so the boat was leaning over to the starboard side as the wind heeled us. The leak in the cabin top allowed quite a lot of water inside and it soaked everything in a six food radius from the mast over to the starboard side of the boat.

Eventually, we had to change tacks to head back toward the shore, and this put the wind on the other side of Mosaic. We leaned to port. And all the water coming in at the mast promptly soaked everything on the port side of the boat.

Plus, during all of this, we were bashing into a 15-20 knot headwind so the boat was pounding through steep waves. Because of everything being wet, we couldn’t comfortably hang out in the middle of the boat. The middle of the boat is where the motion is the most friendly in these kinds of seas. Kali got seasick. I felt terrible knowing that the kids were not having fun. None of us were having fun. The whole day sucked. I didn’t take photos.

Finally, in the late afternoon, the wind lessened a bit and the rain slowed and eventually stopped. Sweet relief. But we were feeling pretty exhausted and knew we still had the final 18 hours or so to go, including another night of darkness. Thankfully, the waves had calmed enough that the kids were able to sleep well in their regular berths up in the front of the boat. They slept hard.

Brenden and I took our turns on watch and slept as much as we could manage in between. The moon actually came out quite brightly and the beauty of that night lifted morale enough to make it through.

As the sun rose, we made our way into Half Moon Bay and safely tied the boat in a slip at the marina. We pulled out the dehumidifier and immediately set to work trying to get things dry. Then we took a nap.

Two full days and nights at sea, around the most notorious cape on the west coast, with just the two of us and our children. We had made it.