Happy 4th of July from Crescent City, CA. Crescent City is the northern most city on the coast of California. We are happy to be back in California again. We had a nice walk this afternoon along the big park along the waterfront, and to the Battery Point Lighthouse. It is an country-style Fourth of July, with odd food like Ham Chowder, and a Cow Chip Bingo contest.
We made land in Astoria, Oregon on June 24th, after 22 days at sea. We needed a week to rest and recuperate. Astoria is a wonderful little town, with a deep history that includes the location of the Lewis and Clark winter fort, and being one of the first settlements in Oregon. It became a center for beaver pelts, but after 20 years, the beavers were gone, and someone realized they could make a living catching salmon. The salmon fleet was known as the butterfly fleet, because the boats had two sails, and would sail wing on wing, and looked like butterflies.
We hada slip in the Astoria Marina, right next to the bridge that crosses over to Washington State. It was also next to a major loading dock for logs being shipped to China. There was a nice waterfront trail that we walked a number of times to the eat, and go the the Farmers Market.
We rented a car and took an overnight trip up into Washington, where Megan’s grandparents lived. We had lunch at the Goose River Oyster plant. The next day we drove down to Portland to visit with Becky and Steve for lunch. But then it was back to the boat, and provisioning for the last 550 miles down the coast to San Francisco.
Megan and I left Astoria last Saturday morning at 7 a.m. when the weather opened-up, and worked our way down the Oregon coast. Conditons were mild at the start, and we motored for the first day. THe winds came up and we sdailed the second day. South of Cape Blanco, the wind picked-up to 25-30 knots, and the water got rough, with 10 foot wind waves and swells from the west that packed a lot of punch. As tempted as I was to fight our way back to San Francisco, the prudent choice was to head for Crescent City. Once we turned east, we were going parallel to the waves, and we were not able to keep our heading. We had to drop the main sail in 33 knots of wind. We did it, but the sail ripped along the leech, between the two middle battens. We motored into Crescent City, slowly, taking turns on the tiller every two hours. We got in at 5 p.m., kind of tired, and glad that we had avoided that kind of weather during the crossing from Hawaii.
We are 250 miles from San Francisco. We are looking at the weather to determine when we can leave. The rip in the sail can not be repaired with the resources available to us here, so we will have to motor much of the way. If the winds are light, we can sail with the jib. The main sail could be used if the winds are less than 15 knots and the water is smooth. It looks like we could leave tomorrow afternoon, but we will decide tomorrow. In the meantime, fireworks seem to be legal here in Crescent City, as the citizens are actively setting them off. There real show is at 9:15 p.m. I hope the fog lifts enough so we can see them.
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