Onwards to California

Although the front had passed and the wind had shifted to the West, it was not to last long. The log shows that the barometer, which had risen steadily to 1011 by 0930, had dropped like a stone by 1100, so more wind was expected. With the barometer dropping the wind shifted to the South again, and we were heading South East. Our tactics were to tack down the coast making best use of the Southeasterly and Southwesterly windshifts, heaving to when the sea state was too much for her, which tended to be around force 5-6. There was constant work to be done all over the boat, and most of the crew had been pretty sick for the first week or so. The world was grey, the sea a cold dense neverending mass of nasty intent, the clouds varying only in shade, when you could see them, and often obscured by torrential rain. In these conditions of intense wetness, in the sky, the sea, inside the boat, in your clothes, it is really no surprise that our human bodies consists of 70% water. The boat needed looking after, as did the crew, and we all tried hard to keep morale going with tea, snacks, and so on, with the occasional hot meal when somebody mustered the motivation. Front followed front, and although we had one more good blow of force 8, we slowly plodded our way south. When I saw the signs in the sky that the second blow was on its way, I had a bit of a chat with the crew about our options, realising that several were very tired and potentially not relishing the experience. We had no option to close the coast, as all the harbours between Victoria and San Francisco presented too much danger on entry for my liking, as the large onshore swell would make the shallow entrances very tricky. So our options were to keep heading South, with Cape Mendocino, where I reckoned we had a good chance of starting to break free of the Northern winter weather being 250 miles ahead, or return to Victoria, with the entrance to Juan de Fuca being about 250 miles astern. A full week to come 250 miles! Slow progress! Oz didn't give the crew much of a chance to speak up, to be honest, the prospect of returning to Canada being too appalling to him! He was up for a tropical winter with palm trees and sunshine, not douglas firs and snow! Everyone was in agreement, however, and I was happy when I cast a glance at the descending cloud level, knowing that the boys had democratically voted to keep up the pumping whilst the storms blew. Not that they really had a lot of choice, to be honest! It is true that idleness on a ship at sea is an evil disease, it is fair to say we were none of us afflicted with that!

The leaking increased as the gale blew, but not above what I thought was dangerous, and after 12 hours of being hove to, in the early, short evening, the wind shifted to the NW and eased up immediately. We changed course for the South again and started motorsailing on.

The next morning was one of jobs, All sorts of maintenance on the rig and on deck, and the engine overheating and having to be shut off for 24 hours after overheating again, and getting it fixed again. We were heading largely Southeast for the next 24 hours with a building southwesterly, and whilst surfing a wave at speed the propshaft lock released itself with an awful loud rattling noise like gunfire, vibrating right through the boat with violence; some time was spent effecting a repair and we sailed on, with towering cumulonimbus clouds bearing down on us bringing squalls of 30 kts or more, when we would bear away and shoot downwind, Oz reaching the record speed so far of 11.3kts, which he described as the boat just sitting totally flat in the water and accelerating, steady and firm, leaving no wake and powering along like that for half an hour or so! The next morning a few of the big thunderheads were around, but we shook the second reef out for the first time in several days as the wind was easing off. The next day we made more good progress with light Southwesterly and westerly winds, motorsailing with the engine slow ahead, trying to coax it along as well as possible. A big swell was running, as normal, and we had the boom preventered out on port. We snapped the preventer once, and wrenched an eyebolt out of the deck in the swells, but it was fairly easy running as we closed the shore. I was keen to get radio contact and hear a forecast, to see if we were going to be able to sail on southwards, and in the middle of the night on the 17th I heard the US forecast. More strong Southerly winds on the way! At dawn we had the California coast to port, and it seemed the prudent thing to do to head for San Francisco. We were nearly out of fuel, and had emptied our last jerry cans into the tank, and had 35kts due from the South within 48 hours. Even with our crew lacking US visas, I felt that in our condition, out of fuel, and with a gale of wind forecast, even the strict US officials would recognise the prudence in us seeking shelter in San Francisco bay, so we headed for Cape Reyes with all speed. The engine overheated again, and also sucked air as one of the tanks was dry, so we sailed on for a while while sorting the cooling system a bit better, and rebleeding the engine.Dawn broke with us hard on the wind heading towards Cape Reyes, and it really was fine sailing. Anne Marie understood our predicament and was doing all she could to get us in before the wind really picked up, and we tacked around the Cape in large seas and 25kts of wind on the nose. At this point Regis at the helm set our record for leaking in the whole trip! 230 pumps in half an hour, most of which coming through the deck-hull joint, as the boat more resembled a submarine than a yacht! Well done that man! Funny how exposure to excessive leaking for a week, and a nice sunny sail in exhilarating conditions made the problem seem quite acceptable, whereas on a dark stormy night out at sea it would have been a deeply worrying situation! Our tack inshore after rounding the Cape was magnificent, in bright sunshine, and a fantastic lift as we approached the shore, allowing us under the Golden Gate bridge in one tack. We powered around the headland and under the bridge with a feeling of great elation as we entered sheltered water for the first time in 11 days, and no small amount of joy that we, and the boat, were all in one piece! We sailed past Alcatraz island as the sun was going down, before coming to anchor just north of Treasure island, as we had been told by the officials we could not proceed to a marina until the morning. Anchor down, Paraffin light up on the forestay, and beers all round as the wind picked up and it started to rain!

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