Landfall in California!

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 up), and we pulled in to safe harbor to avoid storms. Maybe I (Denise) built it up so big in my head that anything in comparison would feel easier. Or maybe we just got lucky. I'll take lucky any day.

As usual, I am writing in broad strokes and leaving out details. We invited our buddy Brian on this leg to share the shifts, and luckily, he keep a day-to-day log:

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Summarized Ship's Log of Brian Wagner:

We are tied up in Eureka, California and coming to terms with the pace of waiting for weather. So much of this past week after I boarded in Neah Bay has been ticking off miles and taking naps between watches. Friday afternoon Denise steered us across the bar into Humbolt Bay and here we still sit on Sunday, knowing that just south of us there is a storm blowing around Cape Mendocino, but seeing no evidence of it from the Eureka Public Marina.

At 09:34 last Sunday, Dave called out that De Novo had started the big left turn around the buoy at Cape Flattery and at 11:29 we passed the westernmost point on in the Continental United States and set a course for due south. I took my first watch shortly thereafter under gray overcast skies with little wind and a gentle sea state. We would ultimately motor through the night.

Monday morning the wind came. We had a lovely twenty to twenty-five knot northerly with sunshine and blue skies. The seas were moderate and broad-reaching out to sea, surfing down the bigger waves. It was a magical day. Morale was high.

Into the night, the sea state built and became more confused as the wind also picked up a bit, gusting to more than thirty knots, yet oddly, fully engulfed in fog. During my watch, I familiarized myself with engaging and disengaging Sammy (the windvane) as the combination of swell on the quarter and bigger puffs had De Novo wanting to round up to a beam. The whisker pole had recently broke, so providing enough power to the genoa was challenging. Adding a second and finally a third reef to depower the mainsail ultimately helped. The absence of any visibility outside the boat, with the rowdy and rolling seas, made for disorienting and sometimes spooky watches. When Denise took the helm in the morning, conditions began to calm and by my next watch we were completely becalmed, seventy miles offshore.

We motored several hours and then came into a patch of southerly wind and again we were sailing, on the wind this time, making good progress all through the night and into the following evening when the wind went away again.

Before the wind died, however, the handline I'd been dragging behind us scored a tuna. I dispatched and processed the fish on the leeward deck and then while Dave had the helm, Denise whipped up a delicious ginger and lemon treatment for some tuna steaks that she served over quinoa. It was another magical moment.

We stopped for a few hours in Crescent City where Dave changed fuel filters and cleaned the Racor filters, and we anchored for a nap in Trinidad Head so we could time the bar crossing into Eureka. Yesterday, De Novo's crew all finished a twelve-mile hike around town that included a trip to the zoo and a walk around some redwoods. We also made happy hour plans for today with the crews of sailing vessels SJ and Dawn Patrol who both just arrived to wait out the storm as well.

And now here we are, after eating fresh tuna for lunch (this time marinaded in a pineapple teriyaki sauce and served over rice), doing chores, and eagerly waiting for the weather to change so we can get back out there.

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On a high tide, we left Eureka two days later with Dawn Patrol and SJ. Seas were still a little churned from the storm, and we experienced 40 kt. true gusts both south of Mendocino Bar and inside San Francisco Bay. Other times were too calm to keep our sails full. But the good parts outweighed the hard ones: dolphins and porpoises rode our bow wave for several miles and in the distance, humpback whales breached and slapped their pectoral fins. It was spectacular.

On Thursday, September 8th, we sailed under the Golden Gate Bridge. Once safely tucked in at Alameda, Brian caught his flight back home to his family. We're thankful to him for joining us on this passage with us and to his wife Libby for making it happen. His experience and positivity helped make this leg rad.

Pictures:

Cape Flattery, the "Big Left Turn" from Washington State

Brian takes a sun shot with his sextant--not an easy task in this cloud cover

First night at sea

Orion

Brian (left) catches a tuna (right) that fed us well for 6 days.

Landfall!
Quick stop in Crescent City
Decided to leave after a few hours and wait out weather in Eureka, just one overnight away, instead.

A little friend came and chilled on my night shift between Crescent City and Eureka. Since I didn't know what he called himself, I named him Merle. We later learned from other cruisers he was a Storm Petrel.