Stuck in Neah Bay
27 September 2011 | Neah Bay, WA
Kevin
Well this is the first post on our new blog. We will try to keep this updated as much as possible. We left Bellingham last Wednesday and spent a very calm day motoring through the San Juan Islands and into The Strait of Juan de Fuca to our first stop at Sequim Bay. It was dark by the time we arrived so we broke our first cruising rule of not going into an unfamiliar anchorage in the dark, but Bonnie did a good job of steering us safely into the bay as I watched out for obstacles in our path. The night was calm and we got a good nights sleep. The next day we headed up the Strait of Juan de Fuca to our next destination at Neah Bay. It was another very calm day with almost no wind so we ended up motoring the whole way. Unfortunately we again found ourselves entering an unfamiliar anchorage at dark so we had to break the rule again! Motoring in the dark has given us a crash course on how to use our new GPS. On Friday the wind was starting to pick up and was in the 20 to 30 knot range blowing from the south west and east. The forecast called for winds to decrease on Saturday but then a new system was going to be coming in on Monday that was supposed to bring in 30 to 40 knot winds. We did not really want to be stuck in Neah Bay until Monday so we decided to leave and head down to our next stop which was Newport Oregon. By the time we had all our preperations done to leave it was 6:30pm, two and a half hours past the time we wanted to head out. It was almost dark as we motored out the mouth of the bay. We had put a reef in the main in preperation for some strong winds. Once out of the bay we turned left and had an exciting sail sometimes hitting as high as 9 knots out to the sea bouy where we were to take the big left and head south. But Mother nature had other ideas and as soon as we turned left we felt the full force of the southerly winds on our bow. With 20 knot winds coming from the south and a 12 foot swell with 3 foot waves coming from the west it was a very uncomfortable. Our speed dropped to almost nothing, we were rolling around alot and we could not keep wind in our sails. We decided we did not want to spend the next two days in these conditions so we reluctantly turned around and headed back into the bay. Again we broke the rule and ended up anchoring in the dark. At least this time we were some what familiar with the anchorage. So here we sit waiting for the wind to change direction. We explored Neah Bay, found a patch of blackberries and Bonnie made a wonderful blackberry cobbler. Bonnie has had the chance to learn some more about our GPS and has been able to input all the waypoints to Newport. She also installed our new toilet paper holder which was very important because who knows what terrible things might befall us if we are out in the middle of the ocean in a blow and can not find the toilet paper!! I found out my chain stripper on my manual windlass did not work properly so after 3 times of pulling 200 feet of chain and a 45 pound anchor up off the ocean floor I decided I needed to do something about it. So I spent a day fabricating a new one and it works much better. We have a good weather window starting tomorrow which is Wednesday and is supposed to last until Sunday so we are planning on leaving between 3:00 and 4:00 in the morning so we can arrive in Newport on Friday afternoon. That is all for now. Next post will be in Newport if we can find wi-fi somewhere. Take care everybody.