This blog began in late 2006 with the planning and preparation for a circumnavigation of the world in my 39-foot sail boat Pachuca. It then covered a successful 5-year circumnavigation that ended in April 2013. The blog now covers life with Pachuca back home in Australia.

Pachuca

Pachuca
Pachuca in Port Angeles, WA USA

Wednesday, October 14, 2009

Neah Bay

Today we motored the entire way from Port Angeles to Neah Bay. The wind predictions were hopelessly inaccurate and instead of favorable E and SE winds we got winds principally from the W and SW. We used the jib for a few hours for some assistance but then the wind veered to the west I remember seeing a speed of 22 kt as I frantically rolled in the jib.

We left Port Angeles at 8 AM. We went through periods of drizzle with low visibility and at one point I switched on the radar. In the afternoon we knew that would not make Neah Bay before 7 PM so we decided to have a look at Clallam Bay as a possible anchorage. One thing that bothered me was that somebody had warned me not to stop at some place on the way to Neah Bay and the warning may have been about Clallam Bay. But with binoculars we thought that we could see calm water and decided to have a go. Unfortunately it did not work out. Brenda noticed kelp all over the place. I dropped the anchor and more kelp welled up. I thought that we were dragging, I didn't like the place, it wasn't as calm as I had hoped, so we moved on.

Fortunately as we approached Neah Bay the drizzle stopped and almost biblically the clouds parted in the west and the outline of the terrain was visible against the fading light. I identified the green and two red lights and we motored in with no dramas and dropped anchor just north of the marina in 11.4 meters of water at 7.45 PM.

----------
radio email processed by SailMail
for information see: http://www.sailmail.com

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Welcome to fall in the Pacific Northwest! Fog, switching winds and interesting "things" in the water. Have a good sail! We are sending offerings to Mother Nature...and good thoughts of course.
sm

mark jochems said...

Guess the motor works, not that I had any doubts. sekiu and clallam bay are not good if you are over 20 ft long.
Check your e-mail Bill miller finaly has your parts ready to ship. no need to reply to him, I took care of it.
Dont forget all the fun things to do in neah bay. -mark

Chris said...

Are you going to carve the pumpkins or just turn them them into heaps of pumpkin soup??????

Blog Archive

Contributors

Statistics Click Me