Another Long Night

Brookings, Oregon, USA

We left Newport at 9:30AM, right on schedule.  The bar was open and unrestricted and we motored through without incident.  Always looks worse than it is.  Notice that the local wildlife seems to enjoy the cozy platforms mankind is nice enough to supply.  Maybe they were just there to wave goodbye to us.

For the first few hours, the winds stayed away and we just motored along, in what were pretty good conditions - 7 to 8 foot swells at about 11 seconds (or so they tell us).  The usual rocking and rolling motion got to Susanne after about two hours, and she was down for the count.  She was able to handle her watch during the daylight but, come nightfall, she retired to the cabin for the duration.

In the early afternoon, the NW winds came up. Not enough for us to sail and maintain the speed I wanted, so we motor-sailed (used the sail to augment the engine - great fuel economy) until about 5 PM.  Then the winds strengthened some more and I was able to kill the engine and sail quite comfortably at about 5.5 to 6 knots for close to 5 hours, with only the genoa again.

In the night, the winds stayed pretty steady, but were coming from directly behind, making it necessary to gybe back and forth between about 6 and 12 miles off shore.  Eventually I was finding it hard to manage pulling the sail in and out (I am so out of shape), and elected to reef it in some and use the engine to continue motor-sailing for the remainder of the night and early morning.  When I use the engine, I can usually stay a little closer to directly down wind, making for less gybing.  To gybe this boat, with only the genoa, requires that I roll it in completely, turn the boat, then roll it out again on the other side - otherwise the sail gets hung up on the staysail stay.  At night, after the moon went down, it was very dark and I could not see the foresail at all to know if it was in or out, which does not make it any easier (see the attached picture to get an idea of what my view looks like at night).  Actually, I could probably have sailed all night without losing too much time, if I was just not so tired.  We may have to rethink these passages a bit.

In the early morning, the wind shifted to SW for about a half hour, then completely died.  I rolled in the sail and we motored the rest of the way to Brookings, where we arrived about 1:30 PM., good timing for crossing the Chetco River bar, which was also open and unrestricted when we arrived.

As we approached the bar, I found that we were actually arriving around maximum flood and, as we approached the actual narrow entrance, while the boat's speed through the water was about 4 knots, we were making closer to 10 or 11 knots with the current.  Knowing what I do about narrow passages and strong current (learned from years of sailing in the inside passage waters), I panicked and aborted the entry, heading out to sea again.  Once I was clear of the 40 or 50 fishing boats hanging around the bay, I called the Coast Guard to get some advice.  They seemed to think there was no current over the bar at all - what we were experiencing was just some tidal surges.  So, we turned around again and headed in.  Turned out to be a piece of cake - no current between the jetties at all.  You learn something every day.

As we were entering the bar, we got a call from the Coast Guard taking a bunch of information about us and the boat and wanting to know when we were last boarded and inspected by the Coast Guard - Never!.  Needless to say, as soon as we were docked at the transient dock (right next to the Coast Guard station), we were boarded and inspected.  We expected this would happen at some point, and now we have our little gold star to say we are OK.

So here we are in the town of Brookings, the most southerly port in Oregon, enjoying some very nice weather - at least 10 degrees (F) warmer than Newport.  So far this seems like a very nice laid-back fishing community.  As you can see, the transient dock is really busy - I have counted as many as 3 boats here at a time.  I guess this is not on the regular cruising itinerary for most recreational boaters, at least not this late in the season.

Here are some of the more frequent dock users.

We will stay here for a couple of nights, to rest up and such, before continuing on our way south.  Hopefully we can make some shorter hops from here on down the coast.  BTW, this was our longest passage to date, about 170 miles, making for a total of about 540 miles from Nanaimo so far - almost half the distance to San Diego.

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