Oregon Offshore Update 2

It is Friday at about 3 pm. Things are still moving slowly here on Turnagain. The wind is back, though only at 4-6kts right now, and with it spirits are high. We have been "crossing tacks" with Cool Change, while Velocity and Thirsty are in the mix as well. Ion attempted to do their disappearing trick over night, but we found them (well out to sea from our position).

The crew is getting on very well here with everyone jumping to participate in chores and tasks onboard. Onboard systems are working well, and we are running the watermaker as i write this. We have still no bites on the lures, but have not tried the Kit-Kat wrapper. I am sure we will shortly.

With the light winds, many small tasks are getting completed on the boat and there will be more blogs to follow.

T

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dinner time on Turnagain

The crew enjoying a quiet evening racing!! ;)

Not Quite Volvo but....

Crossing at 12.5 knots.... Ops wrong decimal point. 1.25kts and Cool Change crosses in front of Turnagain.

Oregon Offshore - Where is the wind?

After an excellent start the the race with 12-20kts from the north west, we made great time up the course. Then...... We sailed into a bit of a hole and drifted for many hours. The crew searched the boat high and low for bad luck items (upside down cans, and Bananas). We ate the remaining banana!!! In the 5 hours after that feast, we have had 1-2kts from the east veering to 1-3kts NorthWest.

The weather people are telling us the NW winds should be building to 8-10kts as the day goes on.

As documented in the photo, the Turnagain fishing derby has been in full swing with no bites recorded yet. More updates shortly.

light winds out of the straight

Leaving Victoria early on Saturday May 2, we had very light winds for the entire straight. This meant motoring all the way to Duntze Rk. We saw some grey whales which Catherine fully documented ;)

As we rounded Duntze, the westerly started to fill in and we put out the sails. The rest of the sail down was perfect with winds ranging from 12-25kts from the W-NW.

More updates to follow.

It is awesome to be back offshore again. :D

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Thanksgiving on the Boat!!

Friday Oct 10, the family loaded up and headed for Elliotte Bay. It was the EB work party on Saturday and potluck thanksgiving dinner on Sunday. The work party turn out was one of the largest I have attended to date with 14 boats and willing crews. Many many tasks were completed. Sunday morning I was hoping to dive Alexandra island. While preparing my gear, I noticed what appeared to be Rumrunner tied at Alexandra. I headed over in the dinghy to confirm and found Gord getting ready to dive. We made arrangements to buddy dive in 15 minutes. I hurried back, three the gear into the dinghy and donned my dry suit. Within 20 minutes we were submerging below the surface going "to look for Wolf Eels". During the decent, I found a large octo den and attempted to get some video of the octo with my gopro camera, but quickly found that my light had flooded. Gord snapped some pictures with his DSLR camera and we were off swimming to where the wolf eels were reported to be. Within 5 minutes, Gord was pointing out a lone male under a large rock.  I spent a few minutes observing this make and then swam on to the next rock were Gord was taking pictures of another male eel. This male was partnered with a female who was around the other side of the rock. We spent a few minutes watching the two of them and then decided to swim on. Being the first cold water dive in years for me, I was going through air much quicker than I had planned.  I called a turn around to Gord and waived bye.  I surfaced most of the way back to the boat. A GREAT DIVE. I dove two more dives over the rest of the weekend, finding many octo and going back to visit the eels on one of the dives to find them out swimming around.  

The boat was performing well for our family base and everyone had a great weekend.