29 hours at sea (Day 6) Sunday July 29, 2007

7am
As we round the corner just outside the bay I saw my first whale! I have always really wanted to see one and supposedly this is a great time for whale activity. I noticed it blowing water out of its spout first and then caught one of its fins. Then as it cruised fairly close to shore I saw it blow again and then flip its tail in the air. Its body looked grey and sort of like a sea serpent. Crazy.

9am
We are finally around Cape Flattery and officially out of the straight of Juan de Fuca. Yay. We had amazingly good weather on our passage out and were happy that.

10:30 am
I forgot to unhook the gimbaled stove so it could swing freely with the movement of the boat. So we hit a wave and the percolator with all the left over coffee and coffee grounds went flying all over the inside of the cabin. Sweet! Cleaning that up took me awhile and made me not so happy

11am
There has been practically no wind today but really big seas. This is a bad combination because when the wind is blowing the sails full it keeps the boat at a steady angle instead letting us flip flop around. This made me mildly nauseous. I didn’t feel like doing anything except lay there in the sun and watch the waves come and go. I am doing a little reading but mostly just lounging.

12:30pm
We decide to put up the staysail to see if that will make us go any faster. So I climbed up front and put it up.

3pm
Still don’t feel that great still not much wind. Decided to get off my lazy butt and let out the fishing line. Didn’t catch anything. Bummer.

5pm
I finally have cell phone coverage so I call James but no answer. Destruction Island is coming up just off the coast; we can go around or between it and the shore. My Dad decides to go in between.

8pm
We are finally passing by Destruction Island and the laptop that we use for navigation shuts down. I realize that the battery is dead and the inverter is not working to charge it. This leads my Dad to freak out because now we have to guess exactly how far we need to be from the island and the shore. We soon figure out that the inverter isn’t working because the main batteries for the boat aren’t holding a charge even though we have been running our engine all day. This really makes my Dad freak out. He knew the batteries were getting old and had tried to get new ones before I came but had no luck. They had been working great up to this point but were obviously useless now. This meant that we couldn’t run anything that required power and we definitely would not be turning off the engine for any reason for fear it would not be able to start again. We turned off the autopilot (steers the boat), instruments, refrigerator, lights, GPS everything just to conserve power. And the computer with all the maps on it was already dead so it was shut down as well. What that translates to is now we don’t know where we are, where the land is and we have to steer the boat by hand for the rest of the trip in the dark with no lights. PERFECT! Now I was freaking out and so was James when I called him back that night.

9:30pm-12:30am
Just out here steering the boat, while my Dad tries to sleep. The wind has come up, which is good but this also makes the seas larger. Our plan is to head SSW mostly South but a little out to sea. We know the coast curves in toward the East a little but we don’t want to take any chances of hitting land or any underwater obstructions in the middle of the night. My dad gets up every so often to check on me and to turn on the GPS (the only piece of electrical equipment we are willing to use) to get our location. Luckily the moon came up and is shining brightly over where the Washington coast is. At around 10:30 I see a dorsal fin zig zagging back and forth next to the boat visible by the moonlight. I assume it was a dolphin. Then a bunch of fish jump out of the water as if being chased. I was witnessing some sort of feeding frenzy. Gave me the eerie feeling I was not alone in these waters…

3am-4am
It is my turn to be on watch again. It is freezing out here!!! I am wearing a beanie, long underwear, a fleece, jacket, two pairs of gloves, two pairs of socks and I am dying! Sitting still while steering the boat doesn’t exactly generate much body heat, which isn’t much help. To avoid using my head lamp to watch the compass I am using the moon and two stars as a gage to keep the boat going in the right direction. Time goes by so slowly as I long not for sleep but to just be warm again!!

5am-6am
We are switching watches every hour because it is too cold not to. It is still really, really, really cold out here. I don’t even want to know what it is like in the winter. The boat continues to get thrown around by the large seas and wind is still blowing strong. At 6am I watch the sun finally rise and feel relieved that we made it through the night without any major problems. At least now we can see.

7am – 8am
I am feeling a little bit more rested as I come on watch this time. Dad says we need to tack and head practically due east because we were so far away from land now. Even though the sun is out it is still COLD.

8:30 am
Dad suggests we use the autopilot now. And I ask him why? What about the batteries? He replies, “I just thought of something”. Apparently there is a silver button that is always on so that the batteries charge when the engine is on. It had been off. He turned it on and behold…..the batteries begin to take a charge!!! So I decide that one day I might forgive him for this oversight. The entire time there was nothing really wrong with the batteries and we could have used the autopilot to steer the boat all night long. Ha!

10am
We are finally getting close to Grays Harbor and are using the computer and books to navigate the tricky entrance. Most harbors on the northwest coast are where rivers run into the sea. Sandbars develop at the mouths of these harbors where tides and the weather create strong currents and large seas. It was a long way into the harbor and a little stressful as we must stay on a tight course between the sand bars and rock jetties. The conditions seem favorable for passing into the harbor, I take this as a sign our luck is definitely changing.

11am
We made it!! We are now safely tied to the dock in Westport, WA. Yippee!!