A pair of dolphins accompany us as we leave Lopez for the straits of Juan de Fuca in the Salish sea, Pacific ocean bound. It’s an easy trip initially; calm, smooth. We are a bit nervous but fueled with excitement and adrenaline.
By degrees, it turns into a long, hard passage for us with a super steep learning curve. Our watches are 6 hours on, 6 hours off. The seas after we reach the Pacific are big and choppy, the winds are all over the place and we mostly motor. We don’t get much sleep and discover that we should have taken our sea sickness meds before we set off on passage. Stuff falls all over the cabin (see the photo below!) and we don’t do a great job preparing food that we can eat. Ramen noodles and bars take top place on the menu.
We do really well and make some mistakes, (eg Raising our main in 20+ k and rough seas). At our furthest point we are 88 miles offshore. We motorsail for 2 1/2 days with the Genoa and then raise the main and sail for a day. We are nervous about gybing because the seas are big and the boat is yawing 10 degrees with the wind already on our quarter.
So much for weather prediction- winds are consistently 30% higher than predicted so we have 20-30 knots for much of the passage but also 30-35 knots with occasional gusts of 40+ for a full shift for Izzy and I. Big sustained winds bring big seas. We experiment with inventing rating systems for wave sizes. Being a mostly female crew we settle on “cup” sizes eg. “D” cups and double D’s.
We get more familiar with the art of arriving “on time” In this case, we want to time our arrival for after sunrise as it looks like we will be arriving in the dark and we aren’t ready for that even with our radar.
We have a double reef in the main, no head sail and are still doing 7-8 k. Paul says “we can’t get the bloody thing to slow down”. Island Packets are hardly known for speed.
The engine is amazing – no hiccups. She (Miranda) was rewarded after we arrive with fresh oil and a dusting. She will have her own blog on this site, coming soon! as she has been the recipient of so much loving and at times agonizing attention: The Miranda Notebooks: Travels with our Yanmar marine diesel. We have nicknamed our dinghy tender “Stevie” after Miranda’s sidekick (a favorite British comedian, Miranda Hart)
The night skies when we can see them, are beautiful. The sunrises are beautiful. The temperatures at night get our attention. Now we have wet our feet and our spirits are Good. We are on our way.
Sailing Tomten 