We made it!

Well, we are here in San Francisco after 5 days and 5 nights at sea. (we are experiencing a hardware failure which is preventing us from updating our position, we are NOT still in the middle of the ocean).

Our first big passage is over and the boat and crew handled it very well. We had favorable winds the first four days and had to motor the last 30 hours on a glassy sea! I had no idea the Pacific Ocean could be so calm!

We had front row seats for the lunar eclipse which was spectacular and lasted most of the night. The ocean is a very dark place without the moon!

As we were approaching land and the sun was rising, we were greeted by a pod of 6 dolphins that swam and played with us for about 20 minutes - it was an awesome experience! (click on the link to the right to see the video). Once they left, we were treated to a jumping show by a few seals! None of us had ever seen seals jump before, I guess it's the California way, BC seals are couch potatoes!

It was sunny and clear as we passed under the Golden Gate bridge - rare from what we hear. We are presently in Sausalito which has a very upscale strip of stores and will be hosting an arts event this weekend (lots of big name performers).

We plan to visit Alcatraz and Fishermans Wharf in the next few days and will be in the Bay area for a couple of weeks or so.

Still waiting...

Well, we are in Grays Harbour Washington still waiting for the weather off the Central Californian coast to improve. Winds at this latitude are quite favorable, however; the forcast for the approach to San Francisco shows winds of 35+ knots. Given that us girls are still a little green at this, we are choosing to wait another couple of days until the winds are a little more consistant.

Grays harbour is a sea side town consisting of mostly motels, rv parks, gift shops, fishing charter businesses and fish packers. We saw it all in an afternoon. There are several candy stores (chocolates and salt water taffy) but not a single grocery store.

Check out the link on the right side "Current Position", this will show a map or satellite image (whichever you choose) with a red dot showing exactly where we are. It updates everytime we send a position report through the ham radio.

Waiting.......

Hello all, we are in Port Angeles waiting for the low pressure system off the coast to move out of the way so the high can move in. It looks like we'll be here until Sunday before heading out to Neah Bay, oh well, at least we have internet. We spent the morning washing the boat - it looks nice and clean now. We've also been trying to sort out our weather fax reception....I think we're on the right track now. It will be important for us to be able to receive weather reports while at sea and the weather map pictures are easier to read than the text reports.

We have been doing alot of reading and playing games and the last few days have been so sunny and warm, we've been able to be in the sun. We do all of our errands on foot and are extremely thankful we brought along a collapsable dock cart for our groceries!

Gabriola and Victoria

We had a wonderful sail over to Gabriola and were pleasantly surprised to have friends join us for the crossing on a last minute whim! We spent three days visiting with friends and relaxing and playing. It was just what we needed after the pre-departure craze.

Thanks to our wonderful hosts Barry & Cynthia, we enjoyed tubing, fishing, settlers and more!

A hilight for Jay was fishing with the boys and coming home with a big ling cod which Barry "flayed" then battered and fried for all to enjoy! Watch out C-Lovers & Cockney Kings!

Another first for us city slickers was to feed the cows and to see a brand new calf just hours after it was born!




We had a wonderful visit and dinner with our friends in Victoria too, next year it's your turn! Poor Bentley sprained his ankel, but it didn't faze his sense of humour!

We're off!

Thanks to all of you who came out to visit us at the end of July, we really enjoyed a wonderful day visiting with family and friends. Those of you who were there have likely already heard this story, but I'll tell it again here, for those who weren't.

We had spent most of Friday cleaning and getting ready for our open boat, and we realized that we didn't have anything on board for breakfast or lunch. Jay and the girls took off to the grocery store while I had a shower and did laundry. I was just folding the last of the towels when a horrendous stink came wafting into the clubhouse, followed by a shriek "DIEEEESELLLL NOOOOOOOO!"

As I walked down the ramp to the boat, Jay came around the corner shaking his head to which I replied "tell me he didn't!" with a nod and a look of utter unbelief I was told the bad news. Diesel had just been sprayed in the face by a SKUNK!

It was just past midnight when Jay and Jenny headed back out to the store for tomato juice and I fired up the computer to find out how best to deal with our smelly dog. I donned the rubber gloves and fished out a bucket and some doggie shampoo. Diesel was looking very humble by this time. We saturated him in tomato juice - which he actually seemed to enjoy! Figures a dog would love to be bathed in food! We kept saying "don't shake!" but didn't quite finish the task unscathed.

Tomato juice, rinse, more tomato juice, rinse again, doggie shampoo, rinse, peroxide with baking soda, rinse, even more doggie shampoo, rinse and dry. WHEW!

We were finally ready to turn in around 1:30 am with a very confused and much better smelling canine pal. It will be a night we won't soon forget!