Racing the Weather and Unexplained Phenomena
27 September 2013
Mike
We crossed the border into California waters this morning and are now between Crescent City and Eureka, still hoping to outdistance the storm that has been breathing down our necks the past few days. We are motoring in calm seas and wind with more of the same forcast for tonight and tomorrow. If we do outrun the storm we should arrive in San Francisco with the flood tide on Sunday evening or the next tide on Monday. If we get caught out we will have to heave-to in relatively mild, yet contrary winds and carry on Monday, arriving either late Monday or Tuesday.
We have not seen any whales all day, which is fine with us as we feel we have had our fill. We did have another interesting incident the other day, though, that had us thinking of veangefull whales and UFO's. We were motorsailing along when we heard a loud "bang!" and the boat gave a big shudder. I glanced at the speedometer and saw we had slowed to 2 knots from 6. We took the engine out of gear and ran outside, fearing the worst. We saw no logs or whales but as we checked the rudders and daggerboards we noticed that the boat was now moving directly backwards at about 2 knots. The first thought that crossed my mind, of course, was that we were caught by Klingons in a tractor beam and were being dragged back to the mothership for probing. This proved not to be the case, yet confusion reigned until Annette pointed out that the main was backwinded. It was nothing more than a sudden 90 degree wind shift and, being a cat, the boat was happy to simply stop and then take off backwards. Solitude has it's rewards, and one of them is that there are no witnesses when things get weird.
It has been fun, as we move slowly down the coast, to see many of the cruise ships that we shared Glacier Bay and the Inside Passage with as they sail past on their way to their winter range in the Caribbean. We always invite them over for beer and popcorn, but they seem to be in a hurry and appear content simply carry on.