May 16 – May 18.

The last couple of days I’ve kind of laid low. I’ve been enjoying the hospitality of Dan and Mary Phy. Mary kept making one fantastic meal after another in between taking care of a sick friend, getting exercise and taking care of her horse. She is an active woman.

Dan and Mary Phy

Phy's house

Dan, who is normally very active as well, was operated on his knee the day after I arrived, so he spend most of his time with his right leg on a chair. Friday he felt good enough to get in the car and let me drive him around a bit. We went and looked at his almost new Montgomery 15 (M15), which has a deeper fixed keel than the stock M15. His version is built lighter, has more sail and has ballast lower than the stock boats. It’s pretty fast in comparison. The manufacturer talked him into going along with this experiential version, which can be undone if it proves unsatisfactory.

Dan's deeper keel version of M15

We browsed through Fort Bragg a little and visited his friend Jim Kirwan. Jim has a stock M15 and he and Dan have taken trips together for years, either in one or both boats. Jim is in his late seventies, but it hasn’t slowed him down much. He invited me to join him coming Sunday to go salmon fishing, weather permitting.

Dan and Jim

Jim's M15

On one of my daytrips I walked around Lake Cleone in the MacKerricher Park. It’s a small lagoon just inside some dunes and has a beautiful board walk through the marsh. One of the first birds I saw, that was new to me was an Ibis (White-Face Ibis). I was blown away by seeing such an, for me exotic bird up close. He was wading in about 6” of water poking his curved beak deep down in the water looking for food. I guess by feel, he once in a while picked up something from between roots of the plants. He had beautiful shades of red, brown and bronze on his back and one could approach him quite close to take photographs.

Ibis

Ibis and Mallard

Blue Heron

board walk

Besides Blue Herons and Egrets there was a Green Heron as well, but I couldn’t get a decent picture if him, because he was very shy. It’s a very pretty small heron, that’s actually more blue than green. I was able to get some nice shots of Blackbirds.

Blackbird

One gull had a fishhook right through his upper beak. The poor thing didn’t look happy at all. An onlooker tried to catch him to rid him from the hook, but wasn’t able to get close enough.

Gull with hook

At the beach

Another trip took me to the boat basin in town. There were some nice funky docks and buildings down there. I had a short chat with a boat builder named Howard Makela. He was second or third generation boat builder and in the past many fish boats were built in that shop. It had a railway from the water right into the building, which was pretty cool I thought.

Harbor in Ford Bragg

Howard Makela's boat shop

Tuesday May 15.

It was high tide early in the day and since Fetch was already in the water I got under way in short order. It was pretty foggy, so I made an GPS exercise out of it. I sailed down to the South Bay in a light wind. Once on the bay I tried to follow some channels with the GPS and subtle differences on the water surface confirmed the location of the shallows. As soon as I decided to head back the wind picked up. I tacked out of a narrow channel and even had to put in one reef. It was fun to quickly put in a reef during one short tack across the channel.

foggy day

pelicans on breakwater

Near the breakwaters the wind was very light, just like yesterday. Tacking back against the current in light wind proved futile, so I turned on the iron horse and went back to the ramp. I stopped by Tony, but he was out. Had a good lunch at the marina restaurant and went back on the road. I called Dan Phy, who lives in Fort Bragg, to tell him I may stay one more night in a park before I made it to his house. I helped Dan build his Scamp in the Maritime Center in Port Townsend about a year and a half ago and he had invited me to stay a few nights.

I spend some time in the redwood forests, but didn’t feel like hanging around. So I hit the road again. I got off the 101 and onto highway 1, which hugs the coast to Fort Bragg. That road is one steep curvy son of a gun! Up and down with tight hairpin turns at times. I got the hang of though and had a good time. Just as I had praised my van for doing such a marvelous job under those conditions while pulling a boat, I noticed a burning smell and the brakes felt funny. I pulled off and saw to my grief that both front wheels where spewing smoke! I felt bad, I had overdone it, my poor little van was hurting! After waiting a while I carefully started going again, this time taking it much slower.

jolly painted house along the way

I got out of the mountains and onto the coastal section and finally got phone reception again to notify Dan, who wasn’t expecting me till the next day. I got there around 8 and we emptied a bottle of wine. His wife Mary got back home a little later and we all had a nice chat before hitting the sack. I got their guest house all to myself with a real bed with sheets!

Monday May 14.

After a night in a rather sketchy RV Park I checked for wind. There was a nice mild breeze and mostly sunny skies. In the middle of the night I woke up from some movement of the trailer. I carefully opened the blinds and didn’t see anything wrong. Thoughts raced through my mind; some guy could be messing with my outboard motor and I wouldn’t see it from here.  Finally I saw the culprit; a cat had jumped on the boat! I rocked the van, which made the boat rock as well. The cat looked around confused and took off.

I launched the boat in Eureka and sailed down toward the South Bay. There is a wide channel with industrial places both sides. I noticed a boatyard on the west side with a trawler one the hard.

tug and barge

boatyard

coastguard station near the bar

Near the beginning of the breakwater I started wondering whether I should poke my head out in the ocean. The wind was less than 10 knots at this point and I’ve wanted to do this the past weeks, but the sea has been too wild. Since it was straight into the wind, I lowered sail and motored over there (I think it’s called; across the bar).

GPS showing I'm heading out across the bar

swell breaking on breakwater

head of breakwater with pelicans

Once in the open, I raised sail and sailed…. till the wind died. Swell was gliding underneath Fetch, having come a long distance and about ready to crash on the beach about a mile away. In celebration of Fetch’s first time on the ocean I made a Nutella sandwich and put it on extra thick!

celebration with Nutella

A big ship was heading in and looked like it was aiming at me for a while. After it turned into the entrance I saw it was the dredge and it went right to work dredging the channel. It didn’t take long before it was loaded to it’s waterline, after which it headed back out to dump the stuff. I motored back past him to see if I could find some wind inside.

Inside I found a nice breeze which took me right back to Eugene. I swung by Tony, in the marina, to say high and to show him Fetch. He was quite pleased and asked me to come by before I left town.

There are three channels, each with a bridge, into Arcata Bay direct north of Eugene. The southern one ends up in a slough with a fixed low bridge, so I turned around before I got stuck. I then went to the biggest channel to the north and it forks of into different arms. On the cart and GPS one can distinguish different channels on the bay, but from the boat it just looks like a vast area with some dry spots here and there and lots of stakes without apparent relation to the shallow areas. It’s really hard to guess distances. With aid of the GPS however, I was able to find and follow one arm and after a bit cross over to another one to then head back through the third and middle channel.

most northern bridge

fog coming up

This channel took me by a substantial Egret rookery. There may have been 50 of them. It was a beautiful sight to see all these Egrets fly hither and dither. They are such graceful birds. I noticed some Great Blue Herons and a Night Heron as well. There were some nice settlements on that island. I wouldn’t mind living in such a place one day. Slowly the fog had been creeping in and by the time I reached the dock it was pretty foggy.

egret rookerie

egrets on nests

nice spot

another nice spot

thick fog

the ramp must be somewhere here

tied up at last

I didn’t haul Fetch out, because I was planning to sail some more the next day. After another great meal at the Lost Coast Brewery I parked the van on some parking lot for the night, hoping I wouldn’t get bothered.

Around sunset (Sat. May 12th) I took a quick stroll to the beach. There were impressive sand-cliffs and a lot of it was sloughing off onto the beach beneath.

Sunday May 13.

Mother’s day today I reminded myself. It was foggy and there was no wind. I drove into town to see if there was any there; nope. Sailors of small boats are picky people, there is either not enough wind or there is too much. The day before seemed perfect, but I got there too late. I sat down in the Beachcomber Café with coffee and a ‘bean bowl’ and plugged in the wall to top off my laptop. A lot of wall outlets had cover plates on them, so suitable seats were sparse. A fellow Internet user informed me that café owners are cutting back on outlets, because people with their laptops sit there for hours with just one coffee. Oops! I made sure I ordered enough to be worthwhile. During blogging and emailing a guitarist came in a played some good songs, which made for a pleasant morning. I noticed a different kind of customers here than before in cafes. There may be an alternative community living here. I guess I’m getting closer to Eureka and Arcata.

Back at the harbor there was still no wind, so I stood there for a while thinking what to do. Just leaving didn’t seem right, so I decided to take out the kayak. In the trailer box, next to Fetch, I carry an inflatable kayak and a foldable bicycle (as well as a spare trailer wheel). I needed to try the kayak anyhow, because I only had it out once at home. It doesn’t have much of a fore deck, so I put on long johns to stay dry. I paddled for about 2 hours and it was nice to feel the swell under me. I got to a cliff where the swell was breaking, so I beached and took a short break. During the paddle I saw some seals, vultures and cormorants. It felt good to be out paddling.

trailer box with kayak and bicycle

After packing the kayak away I took off toward Eureka. I explored the edges of Arcata Bay and took a walk in Woodley Island Marina. I noticed more sailboats than along the Oregon coast, where there are mostly powerboats and fish boats. On one of the docks I saw a guy standing on a nice looking sailboat. I asked him if it was a Vertue by any chance and he asked me surprised how I knew that. He never meets people that know that design. I told him I worked in the boatyard in Port Townsend where there were a few of those boats. He said his boat came from there, one of 8 built by ‘Fiberglass George’. After talking for a while he mentioned Kit Africa as someone who did the original rigging on that boat. I said I worked with Kit till I left on this trip and asked him if he knew Kit.  Apparently he married Kit and his current wife! He knew him very well. Small world. Tony Carter was his name.

Tony Carter on his Vertue.

I asked him about an unusual looking steel boat at the end of the dock. He said it was designed and built for a guy, who took it out once about 25 years ago! Apparently the propulsion is in the rudder and that wasn’t working well in the swell, because the prop kept coming out of the water. The steel hull is over 100 feet long and only about 12 feet wide with steel masts supporting a junk rig. The bigger unstayed foremast had a hinge and was bolted with massive bolts to the base like a big telephone pole. The things you can do in steel. Very unusual boat indeed.

I parked in downtown and walked around. I had some excellent salad and beer in ‘Lost Coast Brewery and Café’. It felt good to be in a bit of a town again after all these ‘holes in the wall’ (sorry) along 101. I’m not much of a city guy, but in Port Townsend we are spoiled with good quality bakeries, coffee shops, food coop, restaurants etc.

Lost Coast Brewery and Cafe