Downwind Run For The Barn!

Caprice - Blog update: Sept 20

The Richmond Yacht Club charter in the San Juans was just great…seeing friends that we have missed for months, sunny days and enough wind to sail…couldn’t ask for more. We thoroughly enjoyed our guests for the week, Dan and Gerrie Peterson and Susan Hubbard. They proved to be perfect companions on this relaxing portion of our journey. We loved the ice cream, nice walks and shopping in Roche. Friday Harbor was a lot nicer than I remember, probably because it is not the middle of the summer tourist season. Provisioning in Friday Harbor is very easy because the shops are so close. We daudled around and the time quickly flew by and before we knew it, it was time to go back to Anacortes to drop our friends off and pick up our next guests from Brickyard Cove, Roy and Dione Henrickson. While in Anacortes, we saw the new Oracle trimaran…what a machine! We hope that the attorneys and judges settle so that she can compete in the America‘s Cup.

After stopping briefly at Roche Harbor again for one last ice cream, we shoved off for the last leg of our trip home. We fueled up at Port Angeles, then skirted past Neah Bay and decided to keep going because the seas and winds were so favorable. Rounding Cape Flattery was so smooth, a wonderful treat compared to our past experiences. With light winds, we headed south to Gray’s Harbor - an overnighter motoring all the way.

Westport, in Gray’s Harbor, is a charming fishing town, and summer destination for tourists. Located at the northern tip of the Cranberry Coast, Westport is proud of its 18 miles of clean sandy beaches, quiet coves, picturesque marinas and stunning rivers. The Cranberry Coast is named for its thousands of acres of cranberry bogs, stretching down to South Bend. More than 230 cranberry farms dot the Pacific Coast from British Columbia to Oregon, but more than 30 percent of those are along the shores of the Cranberry Coast alone. At this time of year, people are catching salmon right in the harbor. The berthing fees at Westport Marina were lower than we have seen anywhere in years…$13, including electricity! After eating a ton of fish during the past ten months, the prime rib dinner at the local café was a nice a treat.

So now we are headed for Newport, Oregon - another overnighter. We will meet our friends from Oregon again (remember Bill and Jill Case, who visited us in New Zealand?), then head off to Brookings, Eureka, Noyo, Bodega Bay, then the Golden Gate. Our ETA is Saturday, September 27, or Sunday, September 28. This will be our last update for the blog until we get home. Then we will write a synopsis for the final blog, culminating over 12,000 miles in 10 months. This will include our last week at sea and the good (mostly), bad and ugly (yes, there were a few) experiences, equipment comments and the boat pros and cons, culminating over 12,000 miles in 10 months.

Caprice needs a bit of TLC, so she will keep us busy for a while.

Cheers,
Dan & Carol