On to Bodego Bay

Doug spent Friday and Saturday sleeping and drinking lots of water to flush his system.  We decided he likely had something bad when we had lunch out Wednesday.  Sunday he felt good and we wanted to go but decided thinking was not totally clear and a little concerned if relapse.  So plan was for Monday morning,  right after a few surprise customer situations, then some maintenance since the flag halyard holding the radar reflector up broke on the way in to Eureka, then stopped at city docks to walk to grocery store....  made it out at 3:00.  Destined for Bodega, again. 

We always check the weather before we leave and many times on the way.  They update marine conditions only 4X per day unless there is a real time buoy cam in the vicinity.  Forecasters still had winds backwards and a bit slower than reality through out the  trip.  Ended up getting to sail about 1/2 the distance with wind on the rear making up to 7.5 knots but certainly not our average.  Sometimes by choice.... 

We had to go pretty far out around Cape Mendocino and between there and Pt Arena it dips in so most of that 100 miles we had little to no signal.  We rolled with all that pretty well until we realized Doug really had to have better signal.  So left turn and came towards shore.

Anyways the real surprise came during Pt Arena to Pt Reyes was supposed to have small craft warnings 3pm today to 9 tomorrow.  Oops they were wrong about that too...  15-25 with gust to 30 yesterday afternoon...  would be our guess.  I messed up our wind meter during some of that maintenance.  Oops!  Anyways first we took in a reef and tried to re-seat a batten that was trying to escape.  Finally decide to pull it and put in cabin to NOT trip over was safer.  

Went back up to change and further reduce sails later and decided maybe not going forward to do that!  Just drop it.  Discovered another escaping batten which we tried to just rescue and pull but lost to the ocean while dropping the sail.  So we then discussed...  Remembering that Freedoms are well thought of and advertized to sail in storms under 'bare poles.'  So sails are tied tight around the booms.  Two masts probably 10 & 12 inch diameter became our 'bare poles.'  With varied gusts and chop and skidding in and out of waves we traveled between 1.5 to 7.8 nm per hour under bare poles!  No engine.  That was new for us.  Early morning wind died and chop was beating us up so Doug started the engine and all was loud but better.

Noisy and bouncy as all get out.  Cats truly hated us!  Kept telling them and myself I knew we were safe!  Boat is fine and can handle this.  It's just not fun at the moment.  To them that might have been an eternity. 


Doug and I take turns manning the boat and either sleeping or trying to.  lol  He drops instantly and sleeps through everything.  I hear everything and analyze it all!   Ready to drop until it is my turn to sleep then wide awake.  GRRRR  No sleep for me.  I become a walking zombie.   : (  We have decided my biggest job is to man the boat enough so he can get enough sleep to be really rested and truly comfortable doing most the thinking maneuvers.

Fortunately, I can handle routine watches almost in my sleep with the plethora of electronics on board and scanning the horizon regularly.  Supposed to be every 20 minutes as that is how long it takes the ship speed to meet us once we can see each other.  My nervous nilly concept, even before the fog says every 10 or sooner is better.  lol.

We are anchored in Bodega Bay so Maui Boy can walk the deck all he wants and not the docks which lead him to other peoples boats and wayyyy to much trouble.  Fortunately we totally prefer anchors to docks anyway.  So does Squishy!

Learning Curves:

NOAH while is National is run by sections and each reports differently.  Oregon and Washington are pretty much the same.  California is NOT!  In fact each zone of California is different when it comes to marine weather info.  We are not only learning way more than we expected to know there but also about why forecasters are wrong so extremely and so often.  Sort of has become a survival skill.  This has required us to study El Nino, La Nina, and Santa Anna winds.

We also learned there is a buoy report you can call on your phone....  so for all our sailing friends 1-888-701-8992 you need to know the 5 digit buoy number.  It is a computerized voice and some are easier to understand than others.  Fortunately you can keep them repeating till you get it.  You can also ask for details or get current weather report for that area, as long as you have cell phone coverage.  Which we did not more often than not on this trip....

When listening to weather on the marine radio you have to listen really hard to understand.  We prefer to get on computers, if we have wifi coverage.  But they also refer to landmarks or cities....  Doug excels at geography while I do not, but even he has to really be on his toes for the details outside Oregon and Washington, his home states.  I just use a map liberally.    Yes a cheap, plastic, weatherproof street map.

 And last but not least when Coast Guard reports conditions , vessel assist, or just about anything else on the radio...  listen fast cause they talk fast.  If we don't know the local landmarks we have no idea what affects us or not.  Latitude and Longitude are rattled faster than we can write even if pen and paper are already in our hands. We are learning faster than we ever knew! 

All is good for aging brains... Right????
Love to all