Eureka CA and passage to San Francisco

We departed Newport, Oregon for Eureka CA on Monday morning, August 29th.  The original plan  had been to go strait through from Newport to San Francisco, but breaking the passage up into shorter one-nighter trips seemed like a good way to go and besides, although we were on a schedule to get to San Francisco, there are a lot of really interesting places along the CA coast and we decided we should at least stop and see one of them.

Although there was some wind and we sailed during the day on Monday, we had mostly calm conditions at night and motored most of the way from Newport, arriving in Eureka Tuesday evening after an uneventful overnight passage.  We spent Tuesday evening and Wednesday in Eureka exploring this quaint city and important CA seaport before departing for San Francisco at 1am Thursday morning.  We decided to leave at this time because of the tide situation across the river bar (you don't want to try to cross the bar on an ebb tide - when the tidal current and river outflow opposes the ocean swell - you get big, square, breaking waves at the river entrance) as well as to get South of Cape Mendocino before the forecasted 35 knot winds arrived.  We sailed most of the way Thursday and overnight Thursday night and arrived in San Francisco Friday morning.  Unlike the first two legs of the passage this leg was very windy and we sailed almost the entire way.  A high pressure center was squashing up against a low pressure trough, squeezing the isobars together and making for high winds and some very exciting sailing.  The barometer dropped a milli-bar an hour for 16 hours on Thursday as we sailed south!  We saw sustained NW winds at 40kts with gusts to 50kts and 8' wind waves on top of an 8-10' NW swell (16' waves with the occasional larger one) - perhaps the biggest weather we've seen to date with this boat.  Several times, waves broke over the stern and got us wet in the cockpit but while tense at times, things were always under control and never dangerous.  We would have some pictures here of the big waves, but they never turn out and besides, we don't want to scare the grandmothers!  RJ got seasick a few times, but recovered quickly.  The sun was out, but with that wind blowing right into the cockpit and no land masses near by, it was cold cold cold!  We were bundled four layers deep wearing gloves and ski hats and we were still cold!  But the boat handled things incredibly well and amazingly, so did we.  Melissa can now honestly say she's been in some big wind and big seas and it wasn't that big a deal!

After motoring under the Golden Gate bridge (your supposed to sail, but really, the wind died right as we rounded Point Reyes.  It was the only motoring we really did on the entire leg!) we turned north and headed to Schoonmaker Marina in Sausalito which is a great spot.  There is an Art festival going on within walking distance and lots of great bike trails and funky shops not to mention a great little beach right in the middle of the marina.   We will probably be here for 2 weeks or so before heading out again for parts further south.  

Just click on the photos for larger sizes.