August 4 – 6, 2012: So much for a restful night’s sleep, the rocking from the swell kept both of us semi-awake most of the evening. I was happy just to start moving again. The weather report promised calm winds and seas … not! But at least the wind was coming out of the south (forecasted 10 kts, it really was 20 kts) and we booked on north. We decided conditions were okay enough to keep on going and skip trying to cross bars and settle at a dock for each night. By continuing thru the night cut off 3 days of daily transit; a little pain and being tired brought us a 225 mile passage to Newport, OR.

Our biggest scare was our close encounter to a humpback whale that surfaced right in front of our bow, dove and then re-surfaced off our port side only 50 ft away. We only saw the swirl of water in front of us and knew we just missed hitting a whale … then we worried about where it was around the boat. Well his sonar must have been working and we dodged a bullet.

Monday we have been resting up and sharing our Mexican travels with several vessels traveling south. It’s been nice to pass the knowledge forward especially with all the help we had gotten two years ago and our own firsthand experience.

Tomorrow we move north to Gray’s Harbor … then wait out the weather once again.

Newport, OR 44° 37.439N 124° 03.159W

August 3, 2012: Looks like our weather window is upon us so we decided on a short trip to Trinity Bay a mere 24 miles north of Eureka. We definitely had some residual wind and swell due to the high winds of the previous week. This area is very picturesque but filled with mooring buoys for the small sport fishing boats. We finally found a spot a bit out of the protection of Trinity Head but it worked out okay knowing we were just there overnight.

Trinity Bay 41° 03.092N 124° 08.444W

July 28 – Aug 2, 2012: After a great family visit and some couch time watching the Olympics we traveled back to Eureka on Hwy 101 with a side trip thru the “Avenue of the Giants”. It was a nice road trip thru scenic vineyards and the redwoods. Once back we made use of the rental car and stocked up groceries from Costco and grocery store plus topped off the propane tank. Sorry, but there is not much else to report.