New Departure Date...Monday

The weather is finally improving and it looks like Monday is going to be the best we've seen offshore since we arrived here so the plan is to leave in the wee hours that morning. NOAA is prediciting a north wind of 10-15 knts, wind waves of 2 ft and NW swell at 6 ft so sounds good. In the meantime, we'll spend the next 2 days making sure everything is put away, tied down and secured so nothing will fly around inside the cabin. We'll also be plotting the course, inputting waypoints, etc. Since we are getting a later start than we'd originally planned we have decided that we're going to just go straight through to San Francisco...unless we change our minds somewhere down the coast.
While we've been waiting several Portland boats we knew have come and gone and we've had a few nice visits from friends. Rod & Debo came by the night before last and we all went to dinner at a very fun restaurant that served great food in huge proportions. Sue stopped by last night for a beer on her way to her campsite in Hammond. Yesterday Patty made another bach of chocolate chip cookies since we'd managed to eat all of the previous ones and tomorrow I'm planning to make a big pot of goulash (aka chili) to pack in single serving sized proportions that can just be heated up quickly.
Yesterday we went to the Maritime Museum and watched a movie about the treacherous Columbia River Bar. Perhaps not the best choice when that is exactly where we are going!
Michael made French Toast for breakfast so better go eat! Stay tuned...

Still Waiting

We're still in Astoria waiting for a break in the weather off shore and Monday looks like it will be the day. I was beginning to think I was just wussing out but everyone else agreed that the conditions were not sounding great. Then, last night, some friends came in on their way home from Port Angeles and when they related their trip to us this morning we were happy to have our concerns confirmed. Bill & Bob are both very experienced sailors and they said it was the worst trip down the coast they'd ever had. So we keep waiting for things to settle a bit. We keep running into friends from Portland. We keep chipping away at the projects that needed to get done. And we have gotten hooked on "Catch Phrase"!
Mary had to go home so missed her trip over the bar. She'll have to get her ocean time in Mexico...oh darn. Rod & Deborah are coming up from Seaside this evening to go to dinner with us so it will be nice to see them one more time.
All in all, nothing terribly exciting at the moment but we are definately learning patience!

Astoria

We left Cathlamet under beautiful blue sky around 1pm today and had a short 3-1/2 hr trip to Astoria where we are currently tied up on the end tie of "B" row. It is overcast right now with prediction of rain for tonight & tomorrow and we're just vegging out while we wait for Michael & Mary to arrive. After checking NOAA weather on the internet and listening to the weather robot on the VHF it appears we are going to learn to love Astoria for a while. sigh... Looks like a series of icky storms coming through so "maybe" early next week we'll see something promising. As we wait, we'll fill the time finishing projects that were not completed in Portland, sightseeing, and just "hanging about" the boat. For those who were worried...we aren't leaving until the weather looks good. For the others...we aren't leaving until the weather looks good!

We're on our way!!

We're FINALLY on our way! We had several delays due to "technical difficulties", the last of which was the new backstay was made 2+ feet too short so that had to be re-made. I spent Friday driving to Seattle to pick up the new insulators so the rigger could get the new one made. We picked that up Saturday morning and got it installed that afternoon. The rig was tuned on Sunday with Butch's help and today was the actual "departure day". I was wide awake at 4am with a panic attack and when Patty arrived at 7 she related the same experience! By the time we got everything cleaned out of the cockpit, stowed, tied up, secured, it was after 10. The only farewell party there when we pulled out was Jack - with a sad look on his face. We went to Hayden Bay to pump out and then filled up with diesel, filled the jerry cans and gas jerry cans and by about 11:30 we were going under the I-5 bridge. Wow! We made great time and by 8:30 pm we were parked in Cathlamet. It was a good trip down the River tho' we had a good amount of wind and big rollers when the tide was changing...oh...and there was a really fun squall that went through right before we turned toward Cathlamet. When we came in, Ken (from Rosebud) was on the dock to help us tie up so that was fun and we are looking forward to sharing breakfast with him & Linda tomorrow. We'll sleep late before going on down to Astoria to await the arrival of Mary & Michael. We're on our way!!!

New Toys

The last few days have been great...and very productive as we got quite a few of the new "toys" installed. Thursday we finally purchased the new (bigger) anchor and it fits perfectly and doesn't hang up like the other one did. Friday Chris got the ham radio installed and Patty changed out the old, dorky lights for pretty new brass ones. Not only do they look 100% better but they produce enough light that we'll actually be able to read! While they were doing that I was running for parts pretty much all day. Saturday Chris, Patty & I got the solar panels mounted and they look quite beautiful if I do say so myself. Makes "Faith" look like a "real" cruising boat. They still need to be wired but that is on the schedule for this week. Yesterday Chris & Michael installed 4 brand new batteries in the engine room. They aren't wired yet but once they are, we'll have two more banks to run the house so will have enough juice for all sorts of toys. A bit of history on the battery situation. Chris had installed a new bilge pump a couple months ago that malfunctioned and it appeared it had fried the current house batteries. When researching to find new ones that would actually fit in the same space we came up with 4 Rolls batteries that were smaller, lighter and would actually give us an extra bank and more power so ordered them. In the meantime we re-filled the fluid in the current batteries and attempted to charge them. Surprisingly, they charged right up and have continued to hold the charge nicely so, rather than replace them, we decided to just add the 4 new ones. "The boys" pondered on the options regarding placement, etc and from what they tell me it all went together perfectly. It's a beautiful thing. We're on our way!

Chris' Guitar

What a great time we had last night! Last week I had asked Michael if he could locate a guitar for Chris to have on the boat since he'd had to leave his behind. I wanted to give it to him as a belated birthday gift. As it turned out, Michael had one he was willing to donate in exchange for being part of the crew on Faith from San Francisco to San Diego. We were already planning to include he & Finn on that leg so this was a very generous gift! He & Finn were to arrive around 6-ish with the guitar and Mary called at 4:30 wanting to come down to the boat for dinner so a party was in the works. When the gift arrived, Chris was very surprised and even shed a few tears of joy. Earlier in the day, Jimmy had stopped by and mentioned that he'd like to get together with Chris sometime to play guitars so I gave him a call and he rushed right down. Sue was staying on her boat and came over to join us and now the party was in full swing. The 3 guys played guitars (and spoons...who'da guessed?) and sang, we all laughed, talked, drank beer & wine, threw some meat on the BBQ and the party rolled on. These are the spontaneous fun times with friends I am really going to miss. But...I am sure there'll be no shortage of gatherings while we are cruising!