After we left Coos Bay the winds were light, but the sea state was confused, causing Lorien to roll around side to side and up and down. Our friend Andy was the first one sea sick, which was saying something because he had never really been sea sick before. I am prone to seasickness, so I take an OTC medicine (Bonine) whenever we go on passages, but even through the meds I also began feeling a little nauseous. Lance was the only one feeling fine.
By afternoon, the winds and sea started picking up. For around 20 hours, we had sustained 25 knots of wind, with frequent gusts over 35 knots, and 8 to 10 foot seas (we looked after the fact, and the historical buoy data from the area noted 15 foot waves at times – yikes!). The height of it occurred overnight while Andy was on shift. Lance came up to help with the sails and the steering. We have an autopilot, but the wind and sea state were more than it could handle, so Lance and Andy took turns hand steering for awhile. By morning things had calmed down and we were able to sail downwind wing on wing for the remainder of our trip. The temperature stayed chilly and the fog along the shore never left us for the entire trip until after we passed under the Golden Gate Bridge.
428 nautical miles and 72.5 hours after we left Coos Bay, we anchored in Aquatic Park on September 5th. Aquatic Park is located right by Ghirardelli square and is a popular spot for local swimmers. If your boat is 40 feet and under (+1 for smaller boats!), you are able to request a permit to anchor in the park for up to 5 days for around $10 per night, and included in the fee was admission to visit the boats on exhibit at the historic Hyde Street Pier. It’s quite the deal considering how expensive the rest of this city is! We spent some time resting and hanging up all our damp clothes and blankets before heading into town for some wandering. For the next two days before Andy left, we did some of the common tourist things like a trolley car ride, visited Lombard Street, ate some chowder in a sourdough bread bowl, walked along the wharf, and visited the boats at Hyde street pier. During this time our new friends on Favignana showed up and we got to hang out with them again for a bit too, meet Margot’s sister, and end up having an epic sushi night!
We sailed across the bay and anchored in Sausalito as we had plans to meet up with some of Lance’s family that live in the area. We were picked up by his Aunt Donna and Uncle Jim and drove to Santa Rosa to his cousin Carolyn’s house for a lunch and visit with her family. During this visit Lance was also lucky enough to get to meet his great Aunt Joy for the first time, which I was filled in on how her and her late husband had a sailboat in the bay area and enjoyed some of their own sailing adventures.
We were getting ready to leave to go to our next stop along the coast, but as we were pulling up our anchor, our windlass died. With the availability of shops in the area, we decided it was best to try to fix it before moving on. After looking at it and eventually taking it in to a service shop, it was toast, so we ordered a new one and waited around for another week until it arrived. During this time, we had two unexpected, but welcome, friend visits. The first was our friends Sam and Dawn; with their dog Piper (You’ll remember Dawn, she crewed with us from Washington to Coos Bay). They were driving through on a road trip and spent the night aboard Lorien before heading back on their journey. The second was our friend Jimmy, a pilot friend of ours who happened to be on a San Jose overnight for work. We had breakfast at Fred’s Place restaurant and checked out Kirby Beach before he had to go back.
With our new windlass installed and both Lance and I feeling like we were ready to move on, we left San Francisco bay September 22nd for a 27 nautical mile day passage to Half Moon Bay. When we got there, we slipped into the marina and the next day met up again with Lance’s Aunt Donna and Uncle Jim to show them the boat and go out to lunch. After being here, I would have thought Half Moon Bay would be known for the amount of pelicans around, but really it’s most famous for its big wave surf spot at Maverick’s beach. In the winter months, waves can grow as high as 25 feet, but the bigger ones will be higher than 50 feet! I think once we are done with our trip, going to see a big wave day would be cool to witness now that we’ve been here when it’s settled.
All in all, we’ve been having a great time so far, and have been impressed with our boat and how she’s handling the west coast. We’ll be excited once we can start shedding our winter layers for shorts and flip flops though!
looks like so much fun!!!