First Storm of the Season in the North Pacific

The Oregon Coast. That’s the historic name for the passage from British Columbia to northern California. Its winter storms are infamous. Its safe havens are few, far apart, and can be dangerous to enter.

The standard advice to cruisers heading south is unambiguous: depart by September 15th or wait until spring.

The day after Labor Day we had surrendered Maruba to a boat yard crew, thinking they could prep and paint her in two to three weeks. The job took until late October.

Maruba was ready to go. Barbara and I were ready to go. Spring seemed a long time away.

The North Pacific hadn't turned stormy yet, and Maruba—50 feet long, 36 tons, and steel—had already crossed the Atlantic with a different crew, proving herself seaworthy. So . . .

The afternoon of Halloween we backed away from the dock at Eagle Harbor, Washington. We were setting out six weeks late.

We planned to shelter in Neah Bay, site of the Indian community at the tip of the Olympic Peninsula. We would wait for a promising forecast, cross our fingers, then scoot south.

Quick Decision, Went to Sea

As we approached the open Pacific the next morning the VHF radio was already broadcasting an encouraging three-day outlook. So instead of turning into Neah Bay we exited the Strait of Juan de Fuca, set a course to the southwest that would angle us the recommended 65 miles offshore, and departed for the tropics.

Within hours the first storm of the season caught up with us. Steep, short seas, eventually growing to 20 feet, rolled out of the North. They took Maruba dead on the stern. A heavy, deep-keeled boat, she yawed widely while pitching and rolling.

The autopilot's hydraulic pump screamed as it attempted to correct her broad swings and bring her back to a southerly course. Soon we were steering by hand so we could anticipate her gyrations and try to counter them in advance.

The engine was turning over at maximum operating rpms and the head sail, the only one we unfurled, was trying to pull her downwind by the nose.

The Golden Gate

After a wave battered five days and nights we were rewarded by one of the grandest sights of our years of cruising. We motored under the Golden Gate Bridge at dawn.

The boom of our main sail was lashed to the top of the pilot house. It had snapped in the middle. The stainless steel fitting that attached the mizzen boom to its mast had broken. That boom was also secured by lashings. Our navigation lights had been knocked out.

We made our way up the Alameda Canal to a small boat yard in Oakland. I had radioed ahead to arrange repairs.

Barbara and I were deeply tired and needed showers. We had learned to trust Maruba­. And we had learned to trust each other. We discovered that, despite our shared inexperience, each could stay calm and perform well in the face of offshore challenges.

The weather report that tempted us into the open Pacific was inaccurate. On the other hand, those that came afterward were dire. Friends in Washington reported the worst and most frequent storms in years.

If we had not departed the Strait of Juan de Fuca that November 1st we would have spent the winter in Neah Bay. Instead we visited San Diego, Cabo san Lucas, Puerto Vallarta, Acapulco, and several smaller ports.

    When the hurricane season began in June we were anchored off Playa del Coco in Costa Rica, well south of the danger zone. We stayed there six months.

The next two posts will return to that stormy passage down the Oregon Coast.

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Meeting a Big Tanker in the Dark