ESCAPE FROM NEWPORT

Early this morning Truce and I dropped down the Yaquina River from Toledo to Newport on the ebb tide.  Upon arrival at Newport I found the Coastguard had closed the Yaquina River the bar to vessels less than forty feet length.  As Truce is thirty-six feet long we couldn’t depart Newport.  Very frustrating, the weather outside is good and I want to make distance to the south.  Doubly frustrating, my French friends in their larger boat were allow to cross the bar and sailed at ten in the morning.

There is no option to wait until conditions improve.  I topped up fuel from the fuel dock and hung onto the dock waiting.  Finally, just after noon the Coastguard opened the bar to vessels more than 20 feet and I made my escape.

Once outside the bar I cracked on all sail and was soon romping south at six and a half knots.  Two hours later the wind died and I was motoring in a sloppy sea, rockin and rolling.  In the early evening a NW breeze came in and I can just manage to sail under the jib – about three knots.  There is not enough wind to keep the sail full in the seaway so we are crashing and banging along – but moving south.  The Oregon coast is slowly slipping away to port and we are getting closer to San Francisco.

Before dark this evening I am trying to get offshore beyond the hundred-meter line.  This whole place is infested with crab traps and buoys in the shallow coastal waters.  Outside the hundred-meter line I am hoping it’s too deep for traps and I can relax.

These uncomfortable light wind conditions are forecast for the next twenty-four hours, then a strong northerly wind sets in which should take us all the way under the Golden Gate bridge.