Shelter Cove to Bodega Bay

Shelter Cove

Town of Shelter Cove

We left Eureka at 6:30 am on Sunday, September 16^th and motored 60 miles to Shelter Cove, arriving at 6:45 pm.  The community of Shelter Cove is in an area referred to as “California’s Lost Coast” because it is isolated from Highway 101 by a 26-mile narrow and winding road.  The weather was warm and settled and the gentle swell lulled us into staying another day although we didn’t go off the boat.

Sunset at Shelter Cove

  

We did, however, pick up the biggest swarm of titanium flies so far on the trip prompting us to put the screens on the hatches and launch an all-out killing spree inside the cabin.  We enjoyed a nice sunset on our second evening there and in the morning as we left there was an interesting mist on the water.  We motored 37 miles to Fort Bragg where we tied up at a small private dock at the Carine Restaurant.               

Mist in the morning

Fort Bragg

                                                                           

Highway 101 bridge into Fort Bragg

We were looking to spend a few days in Fort Bragg to hide out from some bad weather coming along but the marina was full.  They had also lost some slips to the tsunami earlier in the year reducing the available accommodations.  The marina manager went out of his way to find us this place to tie up.

Three Hour Tour going under the bridge

Docked at the Carine Restaurant

Coast Guard Station and marina

Fort Bragg is mainly a fishing harbour with seafood markets, shops and restaurants along the banks of the Noyo River.  We were moored almost directly across from the Coast Guard station and we watched them go out on their bar checks each day (no matter what the weather) and do things like docking practice.  We confirmed that the grocery store is always uphill.

Unknown flowers

We took the dingy upriver one afternoon to see what there was to see.  I could tell that we were getting far from home because there were lots of trees, both coniferous and deciduous, and plants that I had never seen before.  There were sea lions up to a mile upriver and way up, maybe five miles, where the river had grown narrow and overhung by branches, I saw fish rising and was wishing for my fly rod.

Here’s a little video clip of the bad weather we were waiting out. 

We left Fort Bragg at 7:45 am on September 23^rd in fog and motored overnight to Spud Point Marina at Bodega Bay, arriving at 9:00 am on Saturday, September 24^th.

Bodega Bay

Blowdega Bay

Bodega Bay is another major commercial fishing center and most of the boats in the marina were trollers.  It is off the highway and is a sleepy little town with a couple of small grocery stores for the marina and RV park.  The locals call it Blowdega Bay because the wind always comes up in the afternoon.  Other than doing some laundry and walking to the store a couple of times, I can’t figure out what we did for three days.  The laundromat had a nice little exchange library where I traded out some of the books I’d read for some new ones. 

At many of the towns along the Oregon and so far, the California coast, the most beautiful pampas grass grows voluntarily at the side of the road.  Also, for some reason, dill!  I picked a branch of dill and brought it onboard only to find out later it was covered in aphids.  I gave that the heave-ho pretty quickly.  

Bodega Bay

From this picture of part of the town of Bodega Bay you can see how dry the hills are.  It hadn't rained here since April.  This was typical of the landscape for much of the coast of California.  Sort of like Kamloops.


We left Bodega Bay on Wednesday, September 28 and actually sailed most of the way to Drake`s Bay, 25 miles away where we anchored for the night.

    

  

 

Florence, Oregon to Eureka, California

Going under the Florence Bridge

We arrived in Florence on September 5th after travelling mostly in fog.  The town is five miles up the Siuslaw River past huge sand dunes.  Just before the marina is the Florence Bridge which has a clearance of somewhat less than our mast height.  To arrange to pass through to the marina you must phone the bridge keeper in Charleston (Coos Bay) about two hours before you arrive and they send someone out to raise the drawbridge.  When the bridge keeper is ready to raise the bridge he sounds a very loud siren as a warning.  The traffic on Coast Highway 101 is brought to a halt and everyone sticks their head out to see who’s coming through.  We were in Florence for six days and the bridge wasn’t opened again while we were there so it’s something of a novelty and generates great interest.  The sides of the bridge don’t open all the way so you have to line yourself up pretty carefully.  I was a little nervous about our course going in; lying on the deck ready to take a picture, it looked like we could hit.

Mark in the Hot Rod booth

The old town of Florence is down by the marina and has largely been converted to restaurant, specialty shops and coffee houses giving it a somewhat bohemian flavour.  The business section proper runs along Coast Highway 101 making it a long narrow corridor, at the far end of which were the things we needed.

On one of our walks into town we came upon the Hot Rod Grille

and thought it would be a fine place to have dinner one evening.  It turned out to be a pretty retro place with a couple of vintage cars turned into booths.  Of course Mark wanted to sit in one of them.  Here he is getting his genuine milk shake made with the old Hamilton Beach machine and served with the last part of the shake still in the metal mixing cup.  The kiddies ride had a little sign on it that restricted use to those under 60 lbs. so Mark couldn't go for a ride.                                                                                 
 

When's the last time you saw one of these?

We were planning to leave Florence on Saturday morning, September 10^th but the coast guard closed the bar and we weren’t able to leave until Sunday.  That wasn’t all bad.  There was a weekend farmer’s market near the marina and we were able to get some nice produce and fruit.  The peaches in particular were delicious.   



 There was also a pre ’72 car show that weekend.  The streets were lined with everything from Model Ts to 1972 pickups.  Several of the owners had photo albums detailing every step of their restoration project some of them starting as a rusted car body out in a field. There were about 150 cars and I think I took pictures of just about all of them.

We left Florence on Sunday and made an overnight passage to Port Orford.  Shortly after we left Florence we came upon several small pods of whales, two or three per pod.  I couldn't resist trying to get a photo.  I hung onto the side of the boat as we rolled back and forth and took video after video of the sky or the water but  I did finally manage to get this short video clip of a whale diving.  Don’t blink or you’ll miss it! 

Monday, September 12^th

Port Orford (or Port Awful as we came to call it)

Port Orford was not much more than a place to stop after travelling overnight.  It was a cold, rolly anchorage where we picked up a new swarm of titanium flies.  In the morning we had kelp on the port rudder and around the bridle and anchor chain.  While I cleared the kelp off the rudder with the boat hook, Mark cut the kelp off the bridle and accidently cut one side of the bridle in half.  “No problem”, he said.  He claimed that he wanted to learn how to splice rope.  “Wow!” I thought, “I want a front row seat for that!”  He admits that the bowline is the only know he knows although I have seen him use a half hitch on occasion.

Port Orford did have one interesting feature.  When we arrived, I could see that there were several fishing boats up in dry dock.  Later there seemed to be more boats so I watched to see if this could be so.  There were two huge cranes that I figured were used to lift boats to dry dock but it wasn’t clear how the boats got far enough from the crane to make room for more boats. 

A fishing boat being raised by the gantry

 (Almost) all was soon revealed.  As each fishing boat came bck to port it was lifted out of the water and lowered into what appeared to be an upper reservoir, hence its ability to get out of the way.  When we next had internet I looked up Port Orford and earned that the boats were not lifted into an upper reservoir but rather were put on dollies and rolled away.  I found that even stranger than my ‘upper reservoir’ theory.  The next morning as we battled kelp I watched them lower fishing boats back into the water for their day’s work. 

Port Orford

Eureka, California

From Port Awful we made another overnight trip to arrive at Eureka, CA on Wednesday, September 14^th where we stayed until the morning of September 18^th.

Eureka’s history revolves around the booming lumber industry in the late 1800’s.  The old town section of the city contains dozens of buildings protected under heritage status and beautifully restored and maintained.  As well as commercial buildings there are many Victorian homes and mansions.  The most famous of these is the spectacular Carson Mansion built in 1876 by a pioneer lumber magnate. 

The Carson Mansion

The detail of the façade looks like a collaboration by Matel and Disney had they existed at that time.  The mansion is currently owned by a private club and is not open to the public.  Across the street from the Carson mansion is the ‘Pink House’ which was a wedding gift from Carson to his son. 

We still had the problem of the cut bridle so Mark went off to the chandlery and returned with some three-strand rope for the repair.  Somewhere along the way he decided that I would be better at splicing because I knew how to macramé.  It turned out to be not that hard to do and works just fine.  Don't worry, I didn't macramé it; I got out our books and just followed the directions.

Eureka had all the amenities we needed within easy walking distance.  We shopped for groceries at a store that was like an upscale Community Foods.  They had beautiful 95% grass-fed ground sirloin so I bought a few packages for the freezer.  We found a used book store and augmented our reading library and walked all through the old sections of town so I could photograph everything.

The Pink House

Every town has its characters and here's the one we found in Eureka.  He adapted this small motorcycle to be steam driven.  In this photo he is lighting sticks of wood in the firebox but he can also use briquettes as fuel.   This model only goes about 150 to 200 feet before running out of power.  He told us of his plans to convert it to propane power with a tube-sheet fire tube boiler to extend the range.  We saw him a few times because he lives on a boat in the marina and he always had a few guys around him asking about his contraption.

Neah Bay to Newport, Oregon

Points South – Neah Bay to Newport, Oregon

Monday, August 29, 2011

Cape Flattery

We left Neah Bay at about 10:45 am planning to do our first overnight trip to Gray’s Harbor (sorry, but that’s how they spell harbour here).  Our first challenge was rounding Cape Flattery.   At any promontories of land there exists the possibility of higher than usual winds that could cause us problems.  Fortunately, we had no excitement at Cape Flattery and motored on into the night. 

Allocating watch shifts was not difficult.  Mark is an early to bed kind of guy so I took the first shift which came to be known as the sunset shift.

Tequila Sunst

  Mark got a few hours of sleep and then stood watch until I woke up before sunrise after which  he got another couple of hours sleep.  The first sunset was one of those glorious “tequila sunrise” sunsets that seems to never end.  I watched it for at least an hour.  The passage was uneventful and we pulled into Gray’s Harbor at around 1 pm the next afternoon.

 Most of the harbours along the coast of Washington, Oregon and northern California are at river mouths and fishing and sport fishing are main industries.  Long rock jetties extending out several hundred meters have been built to suppress the ocean swells and make passage in and out of the harbour safe and most of the harbours have a manned coast guard station.  The coast guard goes out a couple of times a day to assess the condition of “the bar”, the passage through the jetties and have the power to close the bar to all boats or only to boats of a certain length.  The safest time to cross the bar is just before high water slack and this became instrumental in our trip planning.  There wasn’t much point in arriving at a harbour when you couldn’t go in, hence some of the overnight trips.

Titanium Fly

Catch of the Day

We only stayed one night in Gray’s Harbor and left the next morning at the next slack tide.  Time and tide was such that we planned another overnight trip to Newport, Oregon.  As we were starting to pass through the jetties, a swarm of what would become known as titanium flies came onboard.  Titanium flies are different from regular flies.  They are more streamlined and tougher than nails.  I watched Mark wallop one seven times with the blue towel of death and then declare triumphantly “I got him”. Also, once you’ve got them, they never leave your boat so if you want to get rid of them you have to kill every single one.  We found that wetting the blue towel of death gave a satisfying and effective wallop.  The navigation ‘rules of the road’ folder was also effective but needed reinforcing along the top edge after a while. 

Entering Newport Harbor

We arrived in Newport at about 1 pm on September 1st and stayed four nights.  We need to travel an average of 16 miles per day to get to San Diego by the end of October and we were going way too fast.  We caught up on sleep, and found all the hot spots in town.  You know, the Laundromat, Safeway, the propane refill place... We walked about 3 miles to the Walmart where we got a Tracphone.  Our phone number is 541-272-4930 and you can actually call us!

Marina viewed from the bridge

 There is quite a nice aquarium, the Oregon Coast Aquarium, in Newport and I spent a pleasant afternoon there while Mark played with boat things.  As well as many displays from small to huge aquariums they had a ‘petting zoo’ section where you could touch various forms of marine life.  The docent on duty kept telling people to only run their hands along the side of the anemones and not put their finger in the animal’s mouth at the centre.  I figured he would have solved that problem a lot faster by telling people it was the animal’s anus.

White anenome

Pink anenomes

Anchovies

 

Points South

Sidney to Neah Bay

August 26, 2011

Sidney rose garden

The boat was finally ready to take south.  The navigation system was repositioned and tested exhaustively and found to work as it should.  On my last trip into Sidney I took a picture of the rose garden by the library.  I always detoured to go through it; one should, after all, stop and smell the roses.  And I missed my garden.  

After two weeks in the boatyard we were eager to get going so at 4 pm we made the trip to Sidney Spit, a whole 45 minutes away.  By the time we had dinner and cleaned up the day was over.

Last sunrise in Canada

 August 27, 2011

 As usual, Mark wanted to get an early start for the trip to Port Angeles where we would check into the US so the anchor was up at 6 am.  We motored all the way, the winds not being favourable for sailing, about half the time in fog and arrived at about 12:30 pm.    

While we were on our way I thought about the last time we crossed into the US earlier in the summer at Roche Harbor.  As we pulled up to the Customs dock, 5 big burly men in uniform, bullet-proof vests, guns and those big black lace-up boots and a drug dog came to the boat and asked us to sit in white plastic lawn chairs while they searched the boat.  We weren’t singled out for this honour; everyone else checking into the country got the royal treatment as well.  They spent about half an hour going through the boat.  We passed the dog test which was a relief.  The boat had been in charter in Florida so you never know.  It seems we did not pass the avocado test however, and were sternly spoken to and given a printed sheet with the food rules.  And they threw my avocado in the garbage right in front of me!

So, as we were travelling towards the border I took stock of what I might have on board that could cause problems.  After our disgrace in Roche Harbor I was sure that our entry would raise all sorts of red flags and we would be inspected very carefully.  We ate the last of our fruit and I threw a couple of things overboard.  The last lemon and lime I made into Lemon Squares (be sure to get Kate’s recipe for these).  As it turned out, the customs official in Port Angeles didn’t care at all what I had on the boat.  It was like we were entering a different country.  He even made an extra trip to bring our cruising permit out to us to save us a trip to their office.

We went to the local Safeway to get perishables since we had eaten or thrown overboard all we had and on the way back to the boat met up with Holly and Denis with whom we had arranged to have dinner.  We originally met Holly and Denis in the Victoria harbour when we first got the boat.  They also have a catamaran and we’ve shared a few anchorages the past few summers.  They had just returned from Hawaii with Vern and Meline as crew and we got to hear all about their trip and see their photos.

Dragon boat races at Neah Bay

August 28, 2011

We motored from Port Angeles to Neah Bay in the fog.  Travelling in the fog is cold and somewhat disconcerting.  We were able to “see” even the smallest sport fishing boat on radar but I prefer to see the other boats visually.  As we approached Neah Bay the wind really picked up and once we were anchored we felt it was too rough to travel in the dingy without getting wet so we didn’t leave the boat.  We were also anchored a long way from shore because there were dragon boat races there that weekend and we wanted to stay out of their race course.