Sailing De Novo

Sailing under the Golden Gate Bridge Hello everyone, Life is good aboard De Novo. The "Big Left Turn" at Juan de Fuca Strait finally happened, and after years of anticipation and hard work, we're celebrating.  The Oregon and Washington coasts can provide extraordinarily challenging conditions; in fact, several cruisers who've crossed the Pacific warned us this leg would be among the hardest. The horror stories are out there: boats lose their steering; sails rip; sailors grow seasick and weak. So naturally, we were nervous. But with nerves comes preparation. Lots of preparation. Oh lordy did we prepare. Or in Brian and Lauren's words on SV Griffin, we "frontloaded the hard." Because honestly, this leg felt good. Sure we saw some high winds and confused seas, but De Novo and her crew handled it. Shockingly, we didn't get seasick. We had only relatively minor breakages (a functional part of our whisker pole broke and our fuel gauge sending unit packed u