The good, the bad, and the ugly. We had a bit of each on Day 2 of our trip south.

It was a beautiful first night out at sea, relatively calm, uneventful, and almost-full moon lighting our way. Morning dawned with the typical marine layer and fog on the shore which soon cleared to blue clouds, then blue skies. We were motoring about 20-30 miles offshore looking for predicted optimal winds.

By mid-morning the wind was from a more favorable direction so we sailed for an hour setting up the Monitor Wind Vane, which still needs some adjusting to work well. Then the wind died again, and back to motoring we went. Luckily the autopilot is working very well and keeping us on course as it steers for us.



We passed the southern tip of Washington and crossed the Columbia River entrance about 1700. Shortly afterwards a pod of Pacific White-sided Dolphins appeared. Five of them swam over to Due West and surfed our bow wake for almost a half hour. SO MUCH FUN to have dolphins surfing on Due West's bow. Heidi was in heaven.



During the evening John picked up several weather reports via the SSB radio, and it quickly became clear that a gale was building right in the area we were headed. A low pressure system from Hawaii was colliding with a low pressure system moving down from Alaska making for some weather we didn't want to be hanging out in. Luckily we were only about 60 nautical miles from Newport, Oregon, and decided to put in there the next day to wait out the storm.



Wind on the nose, waves, and rain picked up through the night, and by 2am we were in 4-6' crashing seas with driving rain. Fun and games...but wait there's more...you also get the spare anchor coming loose and banging on the foredeck, gunk in the fuel tank clogging up the fuel filter, and the radar/chart plotter (aka Marianne) fritzing out just when we were in close proximity to two other vessels.

Kirk and John braved the elements and went forward onto pitching bow (clipped into jack-lines) to re-secure the anchor in-between saltwater dousings. They had just made their way back down below to dry off when the engine died...



So Kirk and Mike went to work on unclogging the fuel filter while Sandy, John, and Heidi stood watch on deck, watched for fishing boats, and messing w/ Marianne to try and reset her brain. Mike and Kirk got the fuel filter unclogged and headed off-watch to bed around 0500, while the rest of the crew continued standing watch till mid-morning.

Photos courtesy of Heidi, Sandy McCrae and Mike Coleman.