We blasted north from Grays Harbor (finally found the showers and head ... do NOT bother), departing just before 0400 with enough light to see the shrimp-pot buoys - no need to get the prop tangled so close to home. The northerly current was running at nearly 3kts, which though unusual, was very appreciated [...]

We finally reached Washington State at about 1243 yesterday afternoon. We crossed the Columbia River Bar, passed the separation buoy and continued on our way northwest - 340 degrees magnetic. It was a great feeling to be so close to our destination and we both welcomed each other back "home."

When the running lights start to "whisker" you know fog is closing in. Whiskering starts with the starboard sidelight (green is brighter than red); the mist makes it look just like a cat with long whiskers peering out into the dark.

Yesterday was spent motoring up from Eureka with my brother, Tim, enjoying the sunshine, the towering cumulus clouds over the Trinity Alps and the various birds, dolphin and occasional whale spout. Tim also went to Cal Maritime, but chose other paths in life. He's now a certified Cummins diesel mechanic, [...]

We're in Humboldt Bay, home of legal substances of all sorts, and we've been enjoying some alternative-lifestyle smoking adventures ... of the alternator sort. The smell of wafting electrical smoke filling a cockpit is better at getting people to their feet than Richard Simmons and a vinyl of oldies. [...]

Fort Bragg let us go softly into the night, or more precisely, the very nearly morning. A neighboring fish boat departed just ahead of us, bound for Shelter Cove which they swore would be "flat calm." I decided a fisherman's flat-calm probably doesn't exactly match First Light's version of flat-calm, [...]