Journal 4

August 20, ‘05

Foggy and cool. Old Town Eureka is very similar to Victoria’s downtown (James Bay Area), Victorian style homes and commercial building seemed to be the choice of builders. It’s a quaint town, with some unique shops. Not many of the stores are open, and those that are, are not busy. We found one of the local internet cafes and for $2. for the day were able to get some of our overdue email messages, picked up and responded to.
We were invited to have Danish burgers with Veleda this evening.

August 21, ‘05

Foggy and cool. Walked to town and found a store, though called a grocery store, sells mainly what was described by one of the customers as synthetic food. After reading the labels of a number of different packages, I had to concur. It was an interesting adventure. We know there are other grocery stores in town so we’ll try for one of them tomorrow.

What started as a rather dismal day has turned out to be sunny and provided us with a glorious sunset! Interesting how watching the sunset over the pulp mill spewing particulate in the environment can be so … breathtaking.

August 22, ‘05

Foggy and cool. We have big plans seek out the “grocery” store. We walk a lot when we are in port; don’t know if that is why both Dick and I have lost weight or if the energy we’re using to keep warm or upright, while sailing is the impetus. However, whatever the cause the effect has Dick hiking up his jeans and proudly demonstrating the two notch impact on his belt.
There is a resident grey whale in the bay and we were entertained for about an hour this evening as she/he breached and blew about 300 yards from where we are docked. I’m not sure how this huge mammal can be comfortable in this shallow bay; remember this is where we were grounded. There are also, pelicans, harbour seals, and numerous other birds, including herons. There is even a white heron, which I’ve never seen before.
Another glorious sunset!
And, dare I not forget to mention that Eureka has Barbershop chorus, that meets on Monday nights from 7-10:00. So, yes Dick climbed aboard the bike (provided at no cost from the marina) held together with duct tape, yes duct tape and some wire and peddled his butt up the hill for a couple hours of fellowship and singing. I knew he wouldn’t be able to quit cold turkey. He sure loves to sing!

August 23, ‘05

Sunshine, no wind (indicated by the smoke stacks of the pulp mill) and maybe a shorts kind of day. My elusive dream of an endless summer.
We walked into town and on the way we found the local Chamber of Commerce and will be able to access their internet “tomorrow”. We continued on from there to our next stop, one of the two of the shopping malls in Eureka. This mall has a Sears store (if you’ve seen one shopping mall you could probably say you’ve seen them all) and Dick was able to buy “more tools”. He’s a happy man. Did you know that screw drivers, and most other tools, don’t float? and even if they are craftsman you have to return them to cash in on the guarantee.
Found the second shopping mall that had a grocery store, WINCO, and a Longs drugs. Longs is very similar to the London Drugs in that they sell everything with one exception Longs also sells liquor. When we walked through WINCO I couldn’t help but think that Hartley (Dick’s cousin in Wpg.) and Barb (Dick’s sister in law in Brandon) would enjoy this grocery store. Hartley, they have everything here! and Barb, gourmet cooking ingredients I’ve only read about. It was amazing. When we cashed out, yes cashed out, as they don’t accept any other form of payment. No credit, no debit, just cash. We were told that was one of the ways they were able to keep costs down. We ended up taking a cab home, as we once again we bought more than our poor knap sack could handle (something to do with the purchase of 1.75l of Canadian Club for $13.95) or our bodies.
Dick has come down with an ugly head cold and has spent most the rest of the day sleeping. I’m glad it’s a cold as he has been really out of sorts (grumpy, cotton headed, and not doing any boat chores for the past week). I was concerned maybe his blood pressure medication was out of whack!
We’ve met a bunch of cruisers and they all have interesting and varied stories of the different ports and passages. And, what I’ve learned is to listen to everything they say, and then we make my own decision about what and where we’ll go and do next. Mostly, we listen intently to the weather reports; I listen to my gut, talk about it, and then decide whether to go or to stay.

August 24, ‘05

Another pewter morning, an expression I learned from Ruth (a good friend from Wpg.) who describes the weather as being pewter as opposed to being dull and grey. A much more positive way to describe my surroundings and helps keep me from getting in a funk about the weather!
Dick is also pewter again today. Sleeping mostly, not eating a whole lot, and coughing just to remind me he’s here!
I cleaned Blue’s decks today, took the muriatic acid to the rust spots and scrubbed her shiny, bare footed (no shorts) in the sunshine!
My turn to peddle my butt up to my new favorite shopping market WINCO and pick up a few things we didn’t have room for yesterday. We’re planning an overnighter and I wanted to get some extra snack type foods for the trip tomorrow if Dick is going to be well enough. He seems a little bit better! I lighter shade of grey.
Stopped in at the Chamber of Commerce and could have got a job there if I would have wanted/needed one. They are short staffed. The people we have met on this trip have been incredibly generous. Sue at the Chamber, gave me her computer to use for however long I needed/wanted, as the public use computer that was supposed to be hooked up the day previous had not been. I think she felt badly that I had peddled my butt up there to use it on her say so that it would be ready. Whatever her reason I was grateful to be able to get some of my email messages and respond to a few. I do miss the convenience of anytime access to a computer and the internet.

August 25, ‘05

We left Eureka after spending 6 days waiting for the right weather window. Mid morning we caught the slack tide making the crossing of the bar uneventful. Headed out to the infamous Cape Mendocino. It was a long haul around the cape (which the locals call the Cape Horn of the North) the wind was light 5-15 kts. out of the SSE, the swell only 4 feet, little wind wave, and 1300 rpm on Suzie we were barely able to get Blue up to 3 kts. It was a rough 27 miles and 8 hours. And, even in all this mess, there’s a sea lion out here playing in the surf.
They (who ever they are) say that there is only one more tough day on the passage to Mexico before we are into smooth sailing with sunshine and heat! So, I’m looking forward to getting past Pt. Conception and out of the fog and foulies.
By early evening the ocean flattened out and was calm, we motored through the night. It was clear and there were even more stars visible than when we overnighted in Oregon. I was surprised by that, with California’s population hovering somewhere around 60 million people I had ass/u/med that the coastline would be littered with communities, not so, it was dark. I watched the moon rise over the mountains, it was a spectacular sight. We maintained our 2 hour shifts, however when it came to Dick’s shift the fog had rolled in and not a star was visible, not even Veleda or the 2 other vessels off our stern. We kept watch on them on radar. These night shifts get lonely when it is dark and foggy. The only company is this little birds that chirp at you all night and then in the early morning come and visit, maybe they are on deck in the night however, it’s not until morning they come into the cockpit and visit. I had one little guy, finch/canary sitting on the toe of my rubber boat looking at me. Then he was on the tiller, I have pictures but they don’t suggest how close these little guys are to you.

August 26, ‘05

We arrived in Ft. Bragg, and had planned to stay however, upon our arrival it was evident that we were not going to be an option. Every marina, restaurant, bay was full of sport and commercial fish boats. There was some kind of fishing ‘derby ??? going on. We fuelled up and then side tied to a kind fisherman in big blue steel fishing boat that allowed us a couple of hours of much needed sleep, rest and food before we pushed off and headed to Bodega Bay that included another overnighter. Have I mentioned I don’t like night sailing? Well fortunately there are only a few more required overnighters. As this one almost did me in. One of my worst fears was realized early into my 8-10 shift. It was foggy already and so navigation was only by radar. As I watched the radar intently I observed Veleda about 1 mile ahead of us passing a vessel and thought they were really close but the vessels didn’t appear to be moving so I wasn’t too concerned though I was going to call Jens on the VHF and ask what the guy was doing. I didn’t and as I continued watching I could see visually by his lights that it was a fish boat and was approaching us about 5 degrees off our port. Still watching him and the radar I was just questioning in my mind, I wonder what this guy is doing when he turned directly into our path. I screamed for Dick, who was down below sound asleep, I had simultaneously yanked the auto pilot off its mount and turned as hard and fast as Blue could sail us away from him. He was so close I could see what the hand on deck was wearing. The funny (I say now) thing is I don’t think the guy ever knew that we were there. I know he didn’t hear me scream over the roar of his engines, but why he didn’t see us after lying idle for so long. I can’t even begin to guess. After I settled down and Dick put me back together I was relieved from my shift, early. Thinking back I don’t know what I could have done differently at that time, in the future I will be certain to give any vessel a wider berth. Yup! It was scary, probably the craziest 10 min. of my life and fortunately I/we have the opportunity to talk about it and plan for the next time. I’m grateful everyday to creator/god/higher power for my life and what I’m able to do, so no I won’t take unnecessary chances and I will continue to live my life without being squashed by my fears.
Our little buddies (actually they aren’t the same ones) joined us again at day light Dick had one sitting on his harness and his gloves. They are very cute! I’m sure they are convinced that Dick is “Big Bird” as his foulies and gloves are yellow. Seriously, I wonder why they hang around the boat 6-12 miles off shore? It doesn’t seem to matter if we’re sailing or motor sailing they just hang out with us all night long, singing their little hearts out. Then when we get within a mile of shore they’re gone! These guys I named the bandit gang, as they had little black masks on where the little guys the day before were about the same size and were all yellow.

August 27, ‘05

Arrived in Bodega Bay early a.m. The entrance was a lot like Ilwacko, a long narrow channel, really well marked, with a safe harbour. Where it’s different is you can’t walk to town so once you have fuelled up, showered, done laundry, visited the local café (no internet) you’ve seen Spud Point. The only way to get to town is either the bus that runs once daily, or rent a car. As it looks like our weather window has been closed for a few days I think we’ll be looking at renting a car for a day.
Dick was so kind as to share his cold with me, so it’s my turn to spend most the day in a drug induced state and sleeping.

August 28, 05

Pewter! We were going to go, but decided not to after talking to the locals at the fuel dock and checking the weather again. Spent the day doing very little except catching up on chores and little maintenance jobs. Weather window looks like it will be closed for a couple days so we will go inland and see the sights and summer tomorrow.