Milestones

Wow. After such wonderful "Bon Voyage" parties by family and our community we took all the blessings of those who have helped us live our dream and sailed out of Port Ludlow, Wa on August 4, 2014. We stopped in Sequim for a night and then to Port Angeles. We had planned to haul out, raise the water line (again) which we did. The Boat Haven in PA was fabulous. We also encountered a few shakedown issues which we resolved with the help of Platypus Marine (thank you Jud) and to Art who spent so many hours reassuring us! At this point, Journey left us to stay behind to be with friends for the last few weeks of summer and then fly to SF to meet us.
After a longer than anticipated stay, we left for Neah Bay. Weather kept us tethered, a few days longer than we wanted building our anxiety with the knowledge that the "Big Left Turn" awaited us and was the point of no return. We met fantastic cruisers, all heading in the same direction and started to form our buddy boats. We finally got our 2 day window to head to Newport, Or. We met the challenge of spending a few nights at see without incident. We took shifts, usually I did the 8pm to 12:30 am and John took 12:30 to 4 am and so on. We had lots of fog, wind on our nose and stayed about 15 miles off shore. We felt blessed to have Sonomora (Brian, Kay and Joe) who we had not met but kept in radio contact for those days and nights. We got to finally meet once we were in Newport. We had about 5 boats that came in over the next few days in fog and wind. We then all waited the next window. Unfortunately, Hurricane Marie in the Pacific delayed us as she went up large south swells and winds that we opted to wait out. The extra time in Newport was spent touring about and working on projects. Once we got our window, we decided we would go straight to Bodega Bay, Ca. This meant 3 nights/4 days at sea. We had our buddy boats with us which made it all the more tolerable. We picked up Abbie Normal (Brad and Gay), Impulse, and Sonomora.
Staying in contact, checking in a few times a day was beyond helpful to our sanity. We all pulled in to Bodega Bay and celebrated with an exciting dinner that required us to hike through a maze to and from dinner.
By the time we pulled in to Bodega Bay, Journey was flying in. We so desperately missed her and wanted our pod to be re united. We decided to take a bus to Santa Ana, rent a car, and drive to Berkeley. We spent Labor Day weekend with our family and get caught up with our girl!
The three of us drove back to Bodega Bay and readied the boat and ourselves for the 2 day passage to SF. We left early and headed for Drakes Bay just south of Point Reyes.
Journey got indoctrinated quickly as we hit some of the worst seas of the trip during this passage. We had 10 foot seas every 10 seconds with 3-5 foot wind waves on top of that. It was not fun but we made it. In Drakes, we wound up with over 20 fishing boats taking safe harbor for the night and we quickly realized that we would not be able to navigate out of the bay, in the dark, even with radar, to make the flood/slack at the Bridge. We decided to leave later in the morning which meant we would have to deal with afternoon winds in the Bay.
With a reefed head sail, we kept 4 miles off the coast, through Bonita Channel and voila, we are under the Golden Gate Bridge and in SF Bay!!!!
We are currently at the Berkeley Marina where we are spending time with family, meeting up with friends, and relaxing before we head towards San Diego.