avionbianca   Blog for s/v Avion

As we have slowly returned to life in the SF Bay Area, many people have been interested to hear our story.  For example, we made a presentation recently to the Island Yacht Club in Alameda.  In preparing for this presentation, we realized that we could not just point users to the blog, as it is organized in reverse chronological order (most recent at the top).  The blog is a great format for telling a story about an adventure in real-time, but after the adventure is over, the material is hard to access.

To address this issue, we have sorted through our pictures and pulled together a sample of them organized by the islands we visited. I have just published a new page titled, Hawaiian Islands. https://avionbianca.com/hawaiian-islands/ We are working on another page of picture and videos of sea life, including fish, turtles and dolphins and whales.  I will also make a new post with a quick summary of our trip.

The goal is to make our adventure accessible for the people who are just hearing our story for the first time.  Those of you who have been following us over the past year might also appreciate seeing some pictures again, so take a few minutes.

We came back under the Golden Gate in the fog last Friday, July 7th. After sailing intensely for most of six weeks, it has taken us a week to decompress and get our land legs back.  I am finally getting around to writing a post on the blog to make it official.

The fog was so thick when approaching the Golden Gate Bridge, it was not visible from  Point Bonita.  The Golden Gate Bridge was our finish line, and we wanted the pleasure of seeing the bridge in it full glory as we crossed the line. We could hear the fog horn blowing. We  slowly approached the North Tower. We were lucky and caught a flooding, in-bound current, so the water was smooth.  We started to see the outlines of the North Tower as the fog dissolved.  As we crossed underneath, we could see sections of the bridge.  The experience was something like this sequence of pictures.

We felt a wonderfully rich mixture of emotions as the Bay slowly revealed itself.  We had finally come full circle in our Pacific Cup adventure that started almost exactly one year ago.  We were happy to return to such a beautiful place, but it seemed small after all the time on the open ocean. Angel Island, Alcatraz and The City were each under their own layers of fog; as we moved deeper into the bay, they each emerged.  We were excited to be back, but sad that the adventure was over.  We felt the inner satisfaction of having completed something big, the humble knowledge of how hard we had worked to get back, and the confidence of knowing we did it. We were still happy with each other as a couple.  We were tired, but not exhausted. We had kind of recovered from the 22 day crossing during our stop-overs in Astoria and Crescent City, but we were still sleep-deprived.  We had been motor sailing for 48 hours, down from Crescent City, doing 3-on/3-off shifts. We were ready to be back.  Ready to get to our new slip in Marina Village Yacht Harbor in Alameda.  Ready to start living on land again.

At 12:30 PM, we tied-up to the new slip, N-16 at Gate 9. Megan was pleased that we were only 30 minutes later than she had estimated. We checked in with the Harbor Master, got gate keys, and immediately took showers.  David and Angie came to greet us around 2:30 with cherries, salsa and cold beer. David and Angie had brought Avion back in 2014, so they knew what we had done, how hard we had worked. We told stories and caught-up with each others lives.  They offered to give us a ride to the Afterguard Sailing Academy in Oakland, where my Subaru was waiting patiently. After getting the keys and starting the Subaru, we walked over to Quinn’s for dinner.

We have kept a low profile over the past week. Each day, we did something significant to reclaim the boat, our vehicles and stuff.  On Saturday, I took several loads of stuff off the boat to storage. On Sunday, I broke down the infrastructure for the Jerry Cans, put the extra diesel in the tank, and put 10 Jerry Cans in storage.  Good thing the drought is over, as Avion needed several days of deep cleaning to get the salt off. She now feels clean and comfortable again.  She is in pretty good shape, overall. I made a list of projects that will need attention before we can sail outside the bay again, but none of these will prevent us from sailing in the Bay.

In parallel, we have slowly engaged with family and friends, one or two a day. On Sunday, we found Megan’s brother Robert and took him to lunch. We then wandered around a flee market at Jack London Square. On Tuesday, we had pizza with Hal and Laurie, who had monitored our progress during the crossing and provided critical  land-based communications support. Wednesday I ran into Tony outside the UPS store; he wants to sail to Hawaii.  Thursday evening we went to Factions Microbewery for beer with my cousin, Nancy Bahem and old friend, Jon Fowkes.  There is a lot of catching up to do after being away for a year, and we just scratched the surface. Factions is on the eastern point of Alameda, and has a great view of the City in the distance.

On Thursday, I got the BMW back from Chris at German Autoworks. After sitting for a year, all it needed was a new battery, on oil change and new windshield washers. Yesterday, I finally got over to the Encinal Yacht Club and went swimming. I stayed for a beer and dinner. I was welcomed back by several members, and had deep conversation about what it takes to prepare a boat for the Pacific Cup with an old sailing friend who is thinking about signing up for the race in 2018.  I also saw Kame, Sally and Amy Richards, of Pineapple Sails, who were curious and asked lots of questions about our trip.  They agreed that doing the Pacific Cup and staying had been a good way to spend a year.

There are many more people to see and things to do.  Megan has been working on cleaning-up her boat, The Alley Cat, with the expectation that we will start to sail her around the Bay for fun, over to Pier 1 and 1/2 for oysters, and in the Wednesday night Estuary races. I am still taking naps and we are sleeping deeply for 12  hours overnight, but finally, just today, I woke-up refreshed and ready to go. It is now time to start taking some long walks, go hiking, play some tennis, swim, work up a sweat.  The question “What’s next?” keeps coming up.  We are not there yet, but we know we want to continue to sailing together.  So, the adventure continues.  Stay tuned…

Hi Rick:

Daily position report from Avion on 7/06/2017.

Time: 10:42 AM

Position:
Lat: 39′ 37.833″ N
Lon: 124′ 14.095″ W

Conditions:
TWS: 17.0
TWD: 312′
Sea: NW swells of 2 ft., tight, wind waves of 1 foot
Sky: fog bank to east, partly sunny

Boat:
Status: Motoring
Boat Speed: 5.1
SOG: 6.1, geting a push from current
COG: 150′
Sails: waiting to use #4 Jib

Notes:
–Cleared Cape Mendocino overnight. Conditions were calm.
–Staying closer to coast to stay in lighter winds.
–Pt. Arena is next waypoint. Wind should pick up To the south, to 20 knots. Will consider putting up Jib then.
–If too much wind (25 knots), will adjust course.
–ETA to Marina Village Yacht Harbor, Gate 9, slip N-16 is Friday, 12-noon.
–Golden Gate, here we come…

Tom and Megan
s/v Avion

We left Crescent City at 13:00, bound for San Francisco. We are taking advantage of unusually mild winds to get started. The winds are from the south at 6.3 knots, so we ar motoring. We have enough fuel to motor the whole way if necessary. 

Tomorrow morning, the winds should be 15 to 20 knots from the NW again, so after we pass Cape Mendocino, we might put up the jib. 

For now, we are glad to be underway. We have been gone almost exactly 1 year. Looking forward to crossing under the Golden Gate again sometime late on July 7th.

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.

After

+We made it. Sitting at the fuel dock now. Safe and wet. It is hot here. Feels good. Time for showers, or maybe the Atomic Hotel room is ready…

We are now on the final leg of our trip back to the “mainland”. We are heading for the Columbia River Basin in Oregon. Why are you going there, you might ask. We departed for San Francisco.
The answer is this is what the weather allowed us to do. We were delayed at the start of the trip by the lack of wind north of Hawaii, and we were diverted at the finish by a gale force event with heavy winds and seas. I think it s wise to avoid the heavy weather, since we had the information and opportunity to make a choice.

We almost got to Latitude 46 before turning eat this morning. As we have sailed north, the air has become colder. After 10 months in Hawaii, the cold air feels very cold. We have the good Musto and Gill foulies and lots of layers of clothing, so we can go up and sail at night for 3 hours; but hands and feet are very cold at the end of it. Even Jimmy is wearing socks and gloves.

We have worked our way north about 600 miles off the Oregon coast. There is not a lot out here. We saw a dead whale three days ago. I saw it an thought is was a boa, but as we got closer, i seemed like it was rather low in the water. It was also bright white, and not shaped like a boat. From the top of a wave, e got a better view and it looked a sail boat laying on it’s side, with it’s mast in the water; maybe it had lost it’s keel. But then, it suddenly was clear that it was a very large, dead whale. It was bloated, and birds all over it. The large flipper off to he side is what looked like a sail. Passing by, we were glad to be up wind.

Two days ago a very large pod of maybe 300 Dolphins came up from behind and passed us. A group of about 20 came over and played with Avion. They shot back and forth in from of the bow, catching some kind of pressure and shooting up on the other side. Four or five Dolphins swan right next to the bow in a line, and would go up and down, repeatedly. They clearly were having fun, and we caught their energy. Free ranging animals saying hello to humans. A gift.

We have been monitoring fuel, water and food, and being reasonable about use. But I have no meter on the propane tank. Megan was feeling like it might run out anytime, however, so I cooked up the last of our stuffed chicken, 4 cups of rice in the pressure cooker, and some corm, intending to have left-overs. Well, this morning, when Megan got up for the 3:00 am shift, the propane for a pot of coffee would not come on. The propane is gone. Since it is now light at that time of day, we all woke up and discussed this event. It is not the worse thing to go wrong; it means not more hot water or hot food. But we have the left-overs, snacks and crackers, some cabbage (for a cole slaw), peanut butter, end Ensures. We can make it for 3 days.

The boat is sailing east with vigor at 6 to 7 knots in 15 knots of wind. We are heading for the Astoria Marina. They have fuel, bathrooms and showers. We will get Jimmy to the Amrack train so he can go back to Alameda and work. Megan and I will rest and reprovision Avion, nd depart again in 3 to days. We will wait for a good weather window. After this trip, and 3 day sail down the coast to SF seems like nothing. But, stay tuned…

Friends who have made the passage from Hawaii to San Francisco told me that the last 500 miles of the trip are the hardest. This seems to be true in our case as well. Our weather and routing advisor alerted us to the fact that there is a gale force weather event predicted for northern California for next week, right around the time we had planned to arrive.

Update

Position at 02:00 PM:
Lat: 37′ 21.00
Lon: 145′ 40.000

Conditions:
Wind: 225 knot ave.
Seas: rough, 8-19 ft., high wind choppy

Boatspeed: 7.1 plus
Heading: 080 degrees ave.

Fuel: 50 gallons, x 2.6 hrs per gallon, x 4 knots = about 500 mileS Water: 40 gallons

Notes:
–We turned the corner and headed east at 08:30 yesterday morning. Old salts refer to this as a symbolic “halfway” mark. We still have more than a 1,000 miles to sail, but it feels very good to be heading east, and we are well positioned for our run to San Francisco.
–We have plenty of wind now along Latitude 38, just below a low pressure system to the north.
–We changed watches to 2 hours on, as the driving is rather intense. Two on, four off.
–We are running along at more than 7 knots with a strong and consistent 25 to 27 knot southwest wind in a broad reach.

Tom, Megan ad Jimmy
s/v Avion

Hello:

Summary:
Today has been a beautifully calm and quiet day out in the middle of the ocean. THe water is glassy like a lake in New England. We are in a wind hole, and we decided to embrace it. We motor-sailed under the main overnight, and then shut down the motor around 10am. After some breakfast, we proceeded to make two important repairs (see below for details). We were visited by exhaling humpback whales and a large pod of dolphins jumping in all directions, as the passed by the boat. Jimmy had the watch from 3 to 6pm, so Megan and I took naps and relaxed to the gentle swells rolling in from the north west.
Megan cooked chicken for dinner. We will soon start the engine to head north 80 miles to Latitude 38. From there,we will finally turn east, and by Tuwsdaty evening will be positioned to catch the south west wind on a broad reach.

Position on 6/12 around 19:30:
Lat: 36′ 39.000
Lon: 49′ 29.000

Conditions:
TWS: 3.2 to 4.3
Seas: Calm

Boat:
Heading: 003′
Boatspeed: 1.4 Knots
–Tonight we have about 80 miles to get to our next waypoint APO6 at Lat38/Lon149’45. Wind from the southwest is predicted sometime Tuesday evening and all day Wednesday.
–The next waypoint after this is APO7 at Lat39/Lon132’50, about 350 miles to the east. From this point, we will have 928 miles to go to San Francisco, due east.

Notes on Repairs:
–After some breakfast, we proceed to repair a 18″ rip in the leech of the main sail, between battens 3 and 4. We applied wide sail tape around the outer edge, over both sides, and sowed on both sides of the tear, along the leech. It should hold in heav wid.
–Megan went up the mast to investigate the break in the starboard runner attachment. It cannot be repaired. So, she took the starboard spinnaker halyard and redirected it through the upper shrouds, so we could run it directly to the stern of the boat. I connected it to the original running back and checkstay 3-way junction, and back to the stern pulley, with a piece of spectra. This is now a fully functional repair of the running back. So we can tack as needed in heavy weather and not worry about the mast.

It now looks like we will need about 19 to 20 days to complete this trip. This is a return delivery, not a race, so time is not important as long as we have enough fuel. We still have about 650 nautical miles of fuel capacity, so we will be okay. We still have plenty of food and water. All we need now is wind. Wind means free miles.

Tom and Megan
s/v Avion