Nutshell:  We have made it to Newport!   Really needed to be out of the river before Memorial Day ‘opens’ the boating season and the weather, tides, winds, and readiness seemed to finally match up.  Yea!  Left Astoria about 10:30 yesterday knowing ‘bridge to bridge is 100 miles.  Figuring we could average about 5 mph depending on wind, waves, sails or motor…  Columbia River Bar is the worst so all is timed around it but still knowing if we got here at night we would ‘pop cookies’ in the ocean till day light..  Yes we have new radar and lots of gadgets to guide us at night.  Maybe too many.  Lol  Any way got to Newport area about sun up and turned into the ‘3 mile line.’  Usually means dotted with crap traps for a mile or so before heading to the next bar.  Boy that sounds bad!  Very few traps, we crossed the bar into Yaquina Bay and anchored about 9:30 this morning.  Doug and the cats took naps.  I will sleep well tonight!

Now for those who want to read the essay….

Got to sail part of the way with some real wind.  Awesome!  However, that also showed us how much the masts creak and moan under tension.  We opened up the floor to see it ‘moving.’   Not a bad thing unless you were a cat down below listening!   It will be quieter when we support it and wedge it in before further passages.    And even when not enough wind to sail by, just having the sails up makes a smoother more comfortable ride.    

And we have this fabulous warm cockpit with huge windows to steer from using the autopilot.  About 7:30 last night Doug turned it on and we discovered much noise….  (Yes we have used before and not heard it)  Amount of waves in ocean and lack of serious winds at this point caused it to be doing much correction and thus the noise.  Surprise needs cleaned and greased!   Decided we were overtaxing it and needed to hand steer sails (outside) or motor with auto pilot (inside).    Who?  What?  Forecast made it easy.  Winds were to die at midnight so the sails had to come down in daylight.  Cindy rule.  Most things are his decision but…  he made me admiral so he could be captain so sometimes I get to pull rank.  Lol.  Seriously we agreed but it’s fun to spout. 

On the way of course we discovered many things we did well and  or enjoyed, and many things NOT!  We still have many to work on.  Reality has hit us that when we did this kind of a trip to the San Juans, we had already owned the boat “Kitty Cat” for 10 years and knew her well.  We had rebuilt most the systems and thus could efficiently repeat when the higher degree of use made it necessary again.   We had already spent many short weeks onboard with Squishy to know how she responded and liked it….  Now we have started again. All new to us all and with a 4 year old ‘kitten’  added to the family.

Maui likes to ride up top on the opening hatch and under the dodger.  Squishy prefers the vberth but raising and lowering the anchor scares her so much that she just hides in the aft berth under the cockpit, noisier in general but less extremes.  

Self tacking rigging is REALLY nice!  Could not understand why it was such a pain….  We removed all sheaves and turning blocks that we could and cleaned and replaced them.   Many will have to be replaced with new, as the years of solidified goo that prevented them from turning caused flat spots to be worn in to them.  Ugh!   Others had metals that seized them and need more work to remove them without damage.  Won’t do until the replacements are on hand… Just in case.

Right after the decision to pull the sails we decided to come down while still in daylight and ‘play’ with the radar.   It takes about 20 minutes for a fast moving ship to get from where you can first see it to where you are in danger!  We check the horizon every 10 minutes or when the radar goes off.    Still took most the night to figure it all out.   Kitty Cat did not have radar.   Spartan bobs port to starboard, L to R, lots!  And radar reads itself often.  We had not yet figured out how to support radar but knew the  first overnighter would help define.  And it did!!!   I can only see the outside ocean if kneeling on dining settee ,  sitting on stairs, or standing on stairs with head out side.  None of those positions can hit the ‘shut up’ button on the radar.  Good thing Doug is half deaf and never heard it…. All 50+ times.   Seeing what it ‘might’ be squawking about was far more important than shutting it up.  Lol

The out to ocean rock on Spartan is definitely side, whereas river is more front to back.  We learned of EVERY rattle and noise that further antagonizes our precious babies.  All on the list to fix list.   

Crabbing failed but he got enough fish to bait the crab trap.   Now he's making dinner then I will eat n sleeeeeeep.    Doug will post pics later.   Love to all