Newport OR to Crescent City CA

After ten days in Newport, we were excited to finally see a sliver of a weather window appear that would allow us to make a small jump further south. And this time, we wouldn’t be traveling alone.

Over the course of time we were tied up to the guest docks in the Newport marina, boat after boat arrived and joined us— all piling up in Newport due to the roadblock of gales around Cape Blanco to the south.

Once the only sailboat on the dock, we were now alongside 10 other boats— some heading north, but most heading south to Mexico, just like us. Our ample shared downtime allowed for lots of mingling, meeting, chatting, and getting to know each other. Some in the group were as new as we were, some had been living aboard and sailing around the world for 18 years, and some were somewhere in between.

It was comforting to have so many other brains to chat routing and weather with, and a nice vote of confidence to have everyone agree on the time to move. When the weather window finally cleared and we were ready to venture off shore again, we were traveling in a caravan with 5 boats, all following the same course on the same timeline, to the same destination: Crescent City, California.

We pushed off the dock at 2:30pm at slack tide— patiently waiting all morning for the visible tidal rips at the marina’s entrance to slow, and for the water levels to rise enough that we would be certain we wouldn’t run aground on our way out. It turns out that parts of this marina run shockingly shallow at low tide: some boats on our guest dock even found themselves aground in the early mornings (!) , and we heard stories from locals about running aground IN the marina. So high slack water was our window to get out, and when it arrived, we leapt.

The Newport channel & bar, as viewed from the bridge.

Making our way out of the channel was much calmer than our ride in, since we had far less current, and there was substantially less boat traffic, as we were leaving midday on a Tuesday. With one boat from our group ahead of us, we knew that big swell was coming just on the other side of the bar: their mast was rocking and rolling side to side as they took the swell on the beam. And a few minutes later, so were we.

After quite a while of meandering thoughts and concerns about getting out of the treacherous marina, channel and notorious sandbar, we were finally back out on the water. We could relax! But not for long.

Traveling west with a northwest swell meant that we were taking the waves right on the beam, and as we moved further from shore, they grew in size and shrank in their period — meaning they were tightly packed and getting moderately steep. It was nothing like the entrance to the Straight of San de Fuca that we saw last time (we climbed 20 foot swells then!) , but it was juuust enough to incite another round of queasiness and a touch of unease as every so often a larger than usual set would pass through, aggressively rolling us quite a bit.

After a nice, huge, barf from Penny in the cockpit that required a hose down of cushions and dogs from our stern shower and a change of pants for me, it was my turn next, going a few rounds of barfing overboard while Mike took watch.

It wasn’t long before the sun was on its way down and we had turned due south, sails filled with a steady 15 kt breeze that carried us over the swell as the sun took its exit from its pink and gold skies, and a deep orange moon began to rise to the east.

On our first leg (and first passage, ever), we had no moon at all— barely able to even distinguish the horizon amid the dense darkness all around, charging ahead blindly through the night. But now we had the gift of moonlight, blazing a path across the sea, illuminating via and her surroundings.

Mike and I were sitting in our chairs on the stern admiring the moon when we both jumped, startled by a splash from right beside us. Dolphins! A small pod of 5 dolphins danced around us, and even swam right beneath our transom in our wake, their shape and movement under water entirely aglow. Were they illuminated by bioluminescence or was it the moonlight? Was this question even real life?!

They vanished as quickly as they arrived, and so did the wind. With the engine back on and the mainsail up, we motored our way through the night.

The sunrise brought with it slightly smoother seas, and for the very first time in our very limited passage experience, we had a daybreak with NO fog! This of course, meant no moisture, which meant that it actually almost felt of warmth— thought we still had multiple layers on (5), including our foul weather gear. But sunshine, right away? What a treat!

I was also treated to the gift of no real sea sickness that morning— feeling well enough to even eat some food, and move around the boat a bit. On one of my returns to my chair, however, I noticed something off about our stern arch. One of the support rods had freed itself from its T joint and instead of falling right into the ocean, had somehow miraculously landed just on the edge of a nearby wire, making the whole unit sit just off enough that we noticed it had broken.

All of the sideways rocking had taken its toll on the under-built arch, and it had wiggled itself free. Mike jury rigged a temporary fix, lashing both sides of the arch together so they wouldn’t fall out of place again. That was a close call, and we’re lucky we caught it when we did and we didn’t lose our solar panel that is connected to the rod that broke free.

A few hours later I noticed our first reef line dangling free near the mast: the shackle was never properly seized, and it too, had worked itself free from the incessant rocking. After this fix, we opted to drop the main and instead raise the staysail, as it could handle the variable wind and the rocking and rolling better than the main that would slap and slam as we got pushed around by choppy swell in little to no wind.

And then the radar was next. The signal cut out and we were no longer getting data on our chart plotter. We’d had this happen before and knew what caused it: under rolly conditions, the gimbaled radar unit on the mast would get its wire runs pinched or caught as it would make giant swings side to side, cutting the connection to our monitors down below. The fix here required a trip up the mast to free the snagged wiring, so we knew we’d just have to go without it for the remainder of the trip.

We enjoyed the sunshine all day, and still had eyes on one of our buddy boats who was just a mile or two behind us. They radioed over to say hi and check in, and we shared our greivances about struggling to steady the boat in the tightly packed swell, and our now defunct radar. A sea lion appeared and played in our wake like a dolphin, chasing after us and watching us closely.

The land got closer as we approached Cape Blanco, its mountains cast a dusty shade of blue as the sun began its descent to the west. Suddenly my eye was drawn to a massive explosion of white way ahead on the horizon— an enormous splash!! That could only mean one thing: WHALES!

Within minutes we began to see spouts all around us: one over there, a couple together over here, a few way out there. We watched in awe as a small pod passed right beside us, playfully turning and waving their huge fins as they charged by, their powerful exhales thundering out into the sunset. It was magical.

Before the sun had made its departure for the day, we decided to rig the pole. We had a gentle 15 kts behind us again and could sail, so Mike made his way forward to set our pole to port and we traveled under headsail alone for hours.

After moonrise we had cleared Blanco, and the winds and seas picked up. With a sustained true wind of 19, then 22, then 26 knots, and gusts hitting 29 and 30, our speed rose as we charged through sharp swell. With each gust would come an enormous side to side roll— we would be aggressively pitched from 25 degrees to port to 25 degrees to starboard in a second, and then back again. Contents of our cabinets and lockers down below would crash and clunk, and both dogs became visibly afraid— we hadn’t ever been in rolls like this before, and no one was enjoying it.

We reefed the headsail in an effort to steady the rolls and slow ourselves down: we needed to maintain a relatively slow speed to ensure we would make landfall in Crescent City in daylight hours. With only a scrap of sail out, our rolling was improved slightly, but still sent us in a dramatic swing from side to to side every couple minutes that required serious bracing in order to not be thrown about.

It was an uncomfortable night for us all until the wind left in an instant, dropping from the high 20s down to 7 kts immediately. Mike went forward on the calmer waters and took down the pole, we raised the staysail and motored our way onward.

A fishing boat just barely visible, no more than 100 feet away from us.

As we began our approach into Crescent City, the clear bright night skies faded behind a wall of fog. And as the sun rose it became evident just how much fog we were in, with visibly barely beyond 100 feet. It was COLD, everything was soaked through, and we still had no radar.

Our buddy boat behind us radio’ed over again. “We’re thinking of you guys with no radar, and wanted to see if you wanted to follow us in.” “YES that would be amazing, thank you!”, I replied, grateful to be making this leg with fellow sailors, and appreciative of their offer. I slowed to a crawl and watched their AIS target move around us, and I set our speed and heading to match theirs, about a half mile behind.

The radio chat picked up as the handful of other boats we left with were all now moving through the fog and making their approach. Another boat had issues with their chart plotter, some were sharing of passing obstacles like crab pots and fishing boats. We all were communicating with each other as we moved slowly through the pea soup, filing in behind each other in a line, making our way into the Crescent City Harbor.

I woke Mike and he sat on the bow with a horn, as our buddy boat radioed over to warn of us a fishing boat within visible distance to port — meaning it was less than 150 feet away. And soon enough, after a few minutes, the blanket of white broke just enough to form a dark shape off our port: a boat a stone’s throw from us, sitting silently in the still air, fishing as we motored by.

The sounds of the fog horns on the Crescent City buoys got louder as we approached land— both of us with eyes peeled, looking for more scraps of shapes to appear out of the fog. In an instant our first buoy was in front of us— we followed it until the second appeared, and then looked fiercely for the beginning of the channel that is marked by a giant rock raising clear out of the sea.

It too, appeared from nowhere, barely visible just a couple hundred feet away. We continued our way into the bay, with Mike watching closely on his chart and me now on the bow with the horn, slowly moving through the thickest fog we’d ever seen, all to the eerie sounds of the single fog horn and the quieter bells of the channel marking buoys.

And with a few more (blind) turns, we had arrived at the marina. We saw a few of the boats we knew already tied up, waving at us from the dock. We made our way to our assigned slip and tied up at around 9am, and then immediately fell asleep.

Would either of us call this leg enjoyable? Mmmm… not really. Neither of these passages have been fun, and we are still hopeful that this is not representative of all passages, and instead a feature of this particular stretch of water. My body still aches from the constant bracing, even developing some bruises on my arms from the perpetual pressing agains the back of the chair. One sailor in our group mentioned that the passage to the South Pacific is easier in most ways than this passage down the coast. It has been trying, difficult, and greatly uncomfortable, but we’re trucking along.

With one of the 3 big capes behind us, we are happy to have made it to California, and are eager to be able to get around Mendocino at our next weather window (what some refer to as the Cape Horn of the Pacific) — which at this point looks as if it will be another week, as gale after gale are slated to blow out beyond the breakwater here.

But for now, we are nestled in, NOT rocking (phew!), and in good company here with so many fellow sailors, and will continue to rest up (and do some repairs) as we prepare for leg 3, and inch our way closer to the benign waters of Southern California.