West Coast slide Astoria to SF

[Charlie]

Here’s the plan.

As many of you know I purchased my boat, Ohana, in Vancouver, Canada almost two years ago. I live in California. I kept Ohana at a friend’s house on Vancouver Island for a year. We enjoyed cruising the San Juan’s, The Gulf Islands, The Sunshine Coast, Desolation Sound, and one of our highlights was docking directly in front of the Empress Hotel on July 4th. From there we went to the Sceptre Rally at Pender Island. Goregous. After that we sailed to Port Townsend and on to Astoria where Ohana stade staid (sp) on the hard thru the 100 mph winds of December. Leaving the area was very hard on my heart. I see the WA, Canada , and inside passage as one of the most beautiful cruising grounds in the world. I would like to stay there for a few more years. The admiral wanted to get to warmer waters so Ohana started heading south.

After two weeks of work she’s sitting at the dock waiting to go. The next stage of our trip is from Astoria to SF Bay. I’ve assembled a pretty good crew. Ex Navy Pilot Dave, J24 Racer Dan and the addition to the crew is the Master of an American President Line ship and Cal Maritime Academy grad Chris. I hope to pick his brain on navigating skills. Especially radar. I’ve been watching the weather and so far it looks pretty good for the departure date. Alittle up wind work and then a downwind slide. We are all driving up in my Van (5/12) and then doing chores and provisioning (5/13) and hope to leave on Wed (5/14). It’s about 570 nm. We haven’t decided whether or not we are going to stop along the way yet. There are some nice places but sometimes the towns are many miles away from the harbor entrance. We’ll see how much fun we are having sailing and then make our decision from there. Staying an extra day in Astoria is another option. The wind will clock more to the North (according to the forecast) by waiting a day but a nice light SW wind is something that I enjoy and Ohana sails really well in those conditions. So you’ll still have Charlie to kick around (but not Chuck). I’ll be off on a little adventure for a few days.

[imagine2frolic]

BEST WISHES with getting home safely, and having the time of your life. Where will you keep Ohana when you arrive to the Bay Area? I always enjoyed the Berkeley Marina, and Emery Cove Yacht Harbor. After a vigorous sail on the bay it is great to go downwind, and shake off the chill. I kept Frolic at ECYH for 15 of the 17 years I owned her. Diane, the harbormaster, is always great help, and accomodating. Once again BEST WISHES!!!!!!!!!!!

[Charlie]

Thanks I2F:

I'm thinking of going to Richmond village Marina (or something like that) It is close to KKMI. I'll only be inSF for the summer then we'll head down the coast. BTW I was wondering what kind of shop you had in SF.

[David M]

That's great Charlie...sounds like you have a well seasoned crew. Looking forward to the rendezvous and meeting everyone.

David

[imagine2frolic]

In San Francisco I owned a muffler shop. As well I did the same in Oakland. Now in Jax Florida I recently opened another. With plans to build the business, sell, and sail to the Philippines. I use to work in Mill Valley at a muffler shop. We bent some tubing for Monitor windvanes there.

[Charlie]

Originally Posted by David M

That's great Charlie...sounds like you have a well seasoned crew. Looking forward to the rendezvous and meeting everyone.

David

Hi David,

Pretty good crew except for that Cal Maritime Grad Just kidding. Looking forward to learning from him in the navigation area. Especially radar navigation. Looking forward to the rendevous too. Sounds like some people are really interested in it.

Originally Posted by imagine2frolic

In San Francisco I owned a muffler shop. As well I did the same in Oakland. Now in Jax Florida I recently opened another. With plans to build the business, sell, and sail to the Philippines. I use to work in Mill Valley at a muffler shop. We bent some tubing for Monitor windvanes there.

I2F:
Nice to have both business skills and a trade. Good luck with it. Hope you aren't land bound for too long.

[clausont]

Charlie - Sounds great! Wish we could tag along
We (myself and my family) will be at our boat in Winchester Bay, OR on Thurs, fri and sat (15th, 16th and 17th). I will be working on the boat Thursday morning, but hopefully will be out sailing Thursday afternoon and Friday. Not sure yet if we will cross the bar or just sail inside the bay on those days. I expect that you will likely be too far offshore on the passage for us to meet up, but if you happen to come in, give us a call on the radio (Chailena).
BTW - we have found that the services in Winchester bay are not bad considering how small it is.
Tim

[Charlie]

I'll hail you if we come buy at a reasonable hour. The crew has not decided whether ornot they want to stop anywhere. I'll look and see exactly where winchester Bay is.

[Dr. Moreau]

Have a safe and enjoyable passage Charlie. I hear cruising down the West Coast, like you are, can be tough if the weather acts up.

See you at the rendevous.

[Charlie]

Hello All:

Back from my West Coast Slide. Spent two days working on the boat rather than the one I had anticipated. Went well though. Crew was very helpful and managed to finish a number of projects. Just prior to leaving there was a little excitement when the clutch cable broke just as we were motoring over to the fuel dock. we managed to turn the engine off and roll right into a berth with just a little bit of excitement. A soft landing even. Well that postponed us while I replaced the cable with the help of Captain Chris. From there it was non eventful until we motored out to the Columbia River Bar. There was a little bit of wind blowing from the East as we motored toward Cape Disappointment. We saw breakers on the reef next to the channel and I figured we better get lunch put away. Well the bar was living up to its reputation. I'm guessing that the swell was around 15' When you were at the bottom of it all you could see was wave and it looked to be 15' to 20' down when you got to the top of a wave. The anenometer giving apparent wind said 25 to 30 knots and we were motoring at 7 knots or so. I was really impressed with Ohana. She held on nicely didn't pound and just rode up and down on the swell. After passing buoy #2 we set the sails and it was a rolly night as we sailed down wind. We sailed for about 24 hours when the wind shifted to the south and died. The seas were still confused so we motored. I had only had a chance to clean one fuel tank and the other one plugged a filter something horrible. Our range was cut in half. After changing the filter we changed to the clean tank. With the wind so light and the seas so confused we decided to motor. At Eureka we took a measure of the fuel and decided to head in to Humbolt Bay. Fuel dock was closed and we only had 10 gallons of jeri cans. Luckily a friend was in town taking cloasses so he drove me the four trips it took to fill the clean tank and refill the jeriicans. It would have been a pain on foot.

From there I found that the boat was consuming alot more fuel than it had in the past. Anyway I ran the tank dry again. I'm getting pretty good at priming the engine. We sailed for about four or five hours and then put one jerican in the tank and motored from Point Bonita Under the GG Bridge and thru Raccoon Straits with a nice flood tide hitting 10.9 knots over the ground. Ohana is now parked in Richmond CA. This weekend we plan on going out to have a leasurely day sail. Depending on tide we may check out the site for the SF Bay Rendevous -- China Camp.

I don't know about the crew. We ran out of bottled water before we ran out of beer.

[imagine2frolic]

Charlie,

How about some information on the trip, and good to see you online again........pics????

[Charlie]

I2F:

Have to wait till the crew distributes pix. It really was an uneventful trip. Eureka was lovely. It was an unusual weather pattern and there was no fog. Nice people in the harbor and the entrance bar was flat calm. I did learn alot about the radar from Captain Chris. We stayed a min of 5 miles off shore and at one time were 50 miles off (around Newport I think it was. Only saw about three ships and a half dozen fishing boats. Saw a couple of pilot whales within 40' of the boat.

What really stands out about the trip was the harmony of the crew. Everyone pitched in with the cooking, the driving, the cleaning, the watches etc. No horror stories just some nice moonlit sails , sunny sails, and foggy sails.

[clausont]

Sounds like you had a great sail down the coast! It was probably good that you didn't try to stop in at Winchester bay as it was closed to 40' and less most of the three days that we were there. The bar was pretty rough and I didn't hear more than one or two boats try the bar the whole time. The coast guard turned most of the others back.

[David M]

Originally Posted by Charlie

Hi David,

Pretty good crew except for that Cal Maritime Grad Just kidding.

Yeah, you never know about those guys. What year did Chris graduate? Just wondering if I knew him from back then.

[Solstice]

Congratulations on your safe and uneventful (except for clogged fuel filter, the Columbia River bar, broken clutch cable) passage. We bought our Sceptre in Seattle, sailed her to San Francisco and then back north and again back south. That's three times past the Oregon/Northern California coast, and all three times we had big winds and big seas for at least a day of the trip. Solstice handled well, though, and we always felt safe.

We know two other Sceptres in San Francisco Bay: Pacific Wind and Welcome Passage, both in Marin. If you see them out there, please say hello for us. The three of us met on the 2007 Baja Ha-Ha.