Trawlering up to Oregon on Antipodes

After several months in San Francisco, we left the comfy confines of the bay and headed out into the Pacific Ocean.  While we have cruised a good portion of the coast from Cabo San Lucas to San Francisco, this next section is reputed to be the toughest.

Heading north on this coast is always a challenge.  The currents are typically southery, the swells out of the northwest, the wind the same and finally there are few safe ports or anchorages along the way. On top of that, the weather is more boisterous and heads quickly down the coast making planning difficult.  In all, a daunting task for a boat that only travels 7 knots.

We had been watching the weather for several weeks and finally found a good window to start heading north.  A good weather window is one where the winds are light and the sea swell is small ad lasts for several days.  We also hired a weather router, a person who professionally monitors the weather for folks like us and provides advice.  Bob from OMNI Weather also gave us the thumbs up to start heading north.

Heading out of the San Francisco Bay, we enjoyed the views along the way cruising under the bay bridge and past the city and Alcatraz Island.  We finally headed out under the Golden Gate Bridge and into the Pacific Ocean.

San Francisco Bay, like many entrances into the ocean, is considered a river with a bar that complicates entry and exits.  As tides rise (flood) water streams into the bay and as tides fall (ebb) water rushes out.  In some places, this movement of water is significant.  When the water leaving the bay opposes an ocean swell they fight.  This creates large confused seas that are not fun to run a boat through.

We timed our trip to arrive at the Golden Gate at slack tide, this is when the tides switch direction and the currents are minimum.  I was apparently a bit off in my calculations as we still had a good 1.5 knot current pushing us out the bay.  This current met the incoming swells and caused them to steepen up, some were 8 foot and very steep making forward progress somewhat bouncy.  None of this was dangerous to our boat, just not as comfortable as you would like, especially starting out a long voyage.

Another challenge around a river bar, and especially San Francisco, are sholes.  Rivers meet the ocean while carrying lots of sediment.  This sediment meets the ocean swells and falls to the bottom creating the bar or bars.  San Francisco's famous for a area called the Potato Patch.  We had the option of taking a narrow, but marked, channel inside the patch or going around it which was a 6-8 mile detour.  An hour on our boat.

We decided, after scanning the channel, that it was good enough for us to pass and it was.  After we cleared this channel we turned north up the coast.

Our next challenge did not take long to present itself.  We started seeing multiple areas loaded with crab pots.  We are now in the middle of the crabbing season on the west coast and crab pots can be a nasty issue for us.  The pots are dropped in somewhat shallow water (less than 500 foot depths) and are marked by a long line attached to a buoy.  The lines are the concern as we can wrap the line around our prop causing us to lose propulsion.  On a good day this is a real problem, on a bad day with heavy seas and wind it can be outright dangerous.  If the boat has no propulsion we can turn side to the swells and the boat would be rocking considerably.

We have gear on board that would allow us to straighten out the boat (a sea anchor) as well as diving equipment to help clear the lines but in all honesty I would rather miss the pots and skip the swim.

So, we decided to run far offshore for the remainder of the trip.  Since we had dead calm seas and little wind, this was an easy decision.  We didn't see another pot until our arrival into Coos Bay two days later.

Since this was a long leg, we travelled 400 miles. we needed to run the boat over two different nights. Night running is interesting in that you cannot see much outside the boat and you rely on your electronic equipment to help you see.  We use our radar, chartplotter and AIS for navigation.  Nancy and I split the time overnight with each of us watching 5 hours.  We feel this is better for us as the person off watch can get a decent sleep.   Others use 3 or 4 hour shifts but we've found this to be good.

We did see some good sunsets, sunrises as well as many whales along the way.

After 57 hours running Antipodes we made port in Coos Bay.  The bar crossing here was with a flood tide and was without incident.  The marina here in Charleston is a classic fishing port with most of the fleet fishing for salmon right out of the bay.

We have another short hop up to Newport Oregon then will head to Seattle by running another 36 hours up the coast.  After than, we will be reasonably protected from the ocean and it's fury!