Cape Mendocino is well respected by west coast sailors. It’s the point where a confluence of geography, weather (climate) and seabed combine to create strong winds and large waves. Our exit from Coos Bay was constrained by the weather and bar conditions, so our departure window was pretty much Friday afternoon before 8 pm. There was a strong on dock breeze in the marina, with another boat directly ahead of us and a finger pier behind us. The breeze would make the departure difficult, so we warped Rover to the perpendicular finger pier directly into the wind, and the exit was without drama. We proceeded out of Coos Bay and over the bar of the Coos River and immediately entered the stronger wind and seas of the open ocean. We needed to chase a decreasing gale down the coast and round Cape Mendocino before the next gale arrived on Sunday. We crossed the bar around 7 pm, and stood most of the crew down to rest. It was a lumpy downwind ride, and we eventually put up the stays’l to steady the boat. As the wind died on Saturday morning the stays’l came down and we set our sails in the light air downwind configuration: Poled out Genoa on one side and the Drifter on the other side with the Drifter sheet through a snatch block on the end of the boom. Big area, all in front of the mast. It worked ok for a short while, but eventually the wind decreased while the lumpy seas remained and the sails strated to flog. and we took in all sails for a motorboat ride down the coast. Frankie and I had a calm midnight watch with bioluminescence like fireflies in the water. About 11 we were in fog and turned on the foghorn. Sunday before dawn we rounded Cape Mendocino and the wind started to build again. Ben and Linda on the dawn watch saw 30 knots occasionally with building seas and swell. We tucked in towards shore and eventually got some shelter. As I write this at 1400 Sunday, we’re well around the corner, the sea is calm and we’ve only got about 4 knots of wind. It’s still foggy and our foghorn has been in use 14 hours straight.

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