The Home Stretch

Starting to see the ocean swell as we approach Cape Flattery on Saturday evening:

I don't have any pictures or video that illustrate this well, but the first 48 hours of our transit were pretty sloppy. We had a 7-9 foot NW swell and steady 25-30 kt easterlies that refused to lay down. With the winds at 90 degrees to the swell, the seas were consistently lumpy and confused. These conditions are very tiring if they go on for too long... Our crew did a great job though, and were always ready to go when their wheel watches rolled around.

Just before midnight on our second night out found us just past the Columbia River bar in Oregon. We had set a course to bring us a little closer inshore to get out of the bigger offshore swells. About ten miles off the beach, the engine suddenly quit - just like someone turned off the key. I was sleeping in the wheelhouse (with Sue on watch) when this happened, and I was up immediately (0-60 in 2 seconds). Will also woke up and stood by the helm with Sue while I popped down to the engine room for some quick troubleshooting. It become clear pretty quickly that the issue was the fuel supply solenoid on the injection pump. This is a little plunger that opens when you turn on the ignition circuit and allows fuel to reach the injection pump. When you turn off the key (remove voltage) the engine stops. Volt meter showed no voltage at the solenoid so I rigged a quick jumper from the battery to confirm the problem. The engine fired right up 😁. It ran for about half a minute, then shut down again - this time with a stream of smoke coming from the solenoid 😕. So apparently the solenoid was cooked (and had also blown the fuse in the ignition circuit). When I had jumped 12 volts directly from the battery, it continued to fry. With the engine down again, I began to search for a quick solution. I knew that we had a spare (but slightly leaky) injection pump somewhere. It turned out to be in a hatch, under a couch, in the main cabin. after a bit of digging we found it, and I removed the solenoid from the spare pump to replace the failed one on the engine. The whole process took about an hour, and seas were good enough to lay down for us a bit while we were drifting off the beach making repairs. I've often wondered what it would be like to lose your propulsion in the ocean in the middle of the night. Guess I can check that off the list now...

This is the little bugger that stopped our engine. If we hadn't had a spare, I think I could have removed the plunger, threaded it back into the injection pump, and used the fuel supply valve at the day tank to start and stop the engine. 

Back to normal operations onboard...

Kona loved to jump into the captain's chair any chance she could. Once there, she wasn't easily moved. Even piled with five pillows she wasn't moving. Definitely provided some underway entertainment.

Wind and swell from astern- much better ride now:

Catnaps underway:

Spotting dolphins on the bow is always a treat. Once the dolphins showed up, the rest of the ride was very smooth and trouble free. They are indeed a good omen...

On our last night at sea, around sunset, just off Point Arena, we got a special treat. We noticed a whale blow in the distance. It seemed bigger and wider than the usual ones we usually see from humpbacks. Suddenly we saw a large shape in the water - looked similar but different. Moments later, it surfaced right next to the boat on our port side. Turned out to be a blue whale - which is the largest creature on earth. The proportions of it are massive - much bigger than our boat. We suddenly felt very small next to this huge creature. Looking around we saw two other blue whales in the area, though none came so close. Definitely an amazing way to end our journey.

Dawn of day six found us approaching the Marin headlands:

Point Bonita lighthouse:

Home!

So we made our transit non-stop from Port Townsend to Sausalito in about 6 days. Not too bad considering the initial slow going for the first few days. We'll have some more thoughts about our trip in a future post once we get settled in to our regular routine here at home...