Belly of the Whale

Sausalito

After calms and storms, plenty of clouds, and lots of idle time spent reading or sleeping, Ozzie and I made it under the Golden Gate Sunday afternoon. As we entered San Francisco Bay, the sun came out, the wind picked up and the bay seemed like a playground full of windsurfers, kite-sailors, sail boats, ect.
We sailed into Sausalito under full sail on a beam reach, toerails skipping on the waves.

We had our share of adventure. We spent two nights hove-to in a gail (?). It wasn’t much—the seas weren’t breaking, ten-foot swells or so, forty-knot winds. We set the sea anchor seeing as we kept sailing forward as we were hove-to.
During the lull of the storm, the sailing was excellent; running under storm jib and trysail, trailing a wharp, long gentle swells straight off the stern, no breaking seas, only slight occasional broaches.
I’d never done any sailing like it.
Unfortunately we had several calm spells that lasted a total of nearly three days. This stretched the trip out to eleven and a half days, a bit longer than expected.

One of the real exciting points of the trip was our success with using sheet to tiller steering. We worked it out rather simply and it kept a great course in a light swell, so long as it wasn’t overpowered.
It would never jibe, seeing as we used the jib sheet to run it. This was really cool.

We did have all sorts of problems. The list is long. Somehow the solar panels quit, due to the voltage regulator, so our power was at nothing pulling in. We almost couldn’t start the engine. (Why I didn’t use the genny to charge is a different story.)
My radar reflector got partially ripped from its seizing during the gale and the next morning I had to be hoisted up the mast in 25 KNOT WINDS.
This was by far the hairiest part of the trip. I felt like one of those flags attached outside the window of some hick truck going down the interstate. It was rough.
Other than my jaunt up the mast, the only intensities were when we hove-to to reef sail.
Because we were running with the wind, we were always a little tardy in this. When turned up into a hove-to position, the boat would heal over so violently that the windows were more like aquarium glass: there would be half-a-foot of green water flowing over the deck.
I’d tie myself on a short tether and ease the main halyard and the boat would stand up tall again, no problem. But it was intense all the same.

I’ll write a more proper story later.
But suffice it to say that we made it. We are happy and whole. I really really appreciate all the care and concern. It helped us through.