Day 15, September 2, 2007

I woke up at 1:00 a.m. and knew that Scott needed to get some sleep. He decided to go downstairs and sleep in the master suite where he slept a good 3 hours. It was so boring and uneventful in the night. You can’t see anything out there except for the navigation lights of the other boats. You spend most of the time staring at the two monitors. One monitor is the radar screen showing red dots where ever there are boats. The other screen with the Fleer on it acts as an infrared camera. It sees stuff in the dark. Most of the time you only saw birds flying by, and the waves. Really boring. I snacked on cheerios to keep myself awake, and talked a little bit to Susan with Paloma to keep the trip a bit more interesting. Occasionally the infrared screen would go all white with the fog. That was a bit unnerving. I wasn’t sure at first if it was working or not, but decided it had to be white because of the fog. After Scott took the helm at 4:00 in the morning, I jumped back in bed and slept another 4 hours. The anti-nausea patches really made me sleep well!

Since Scott and I knew that our destination in Coos Bay was coming soon, we got a bit more energized, and happy to touch land again. Scott went down to take a wonderful shower, and he came back up feeling like a new man. That’s when he decided to be silly and go out on the deck with just a towel for a “wind bath”. I was laughing so hard cuz his towel was flapping in the wind, and when he turned around he had toothpaste running sideways across his cheek. People get a little nutty when you’re out at sea for a while. Imagine if we took that trip to Hawaii….21 days at sea, non-stop. I’d go nuts.
Later on in the afternoon Scott went down for his routine engine room check and noticed a small diesel fuel leak. It wasn’t bad, but it concerned him quite a bit since many times these things can get worse. So he cleaned up the spilled fuel and wrapped the leaking area with diesel wipes. Then he called his buddy Captain Mike Maurice who has been transporting boats all over the world for many decades. Mike’s advice was to not deal with it now while we’re still underway, but to take care of it in Coos Bay. While we were making our way to shore for the next few more hours, our 3rd companion boat Wayward Wind decided to keep steaming ahead to Eureka, California. They had the luxury of two extra friends along, so their night shifts weren’t as bad as ours. But Susan, Jonathan and I needed a break from the rocking and rolling, and even tho’ the guys wanted to keep going, we convinced them that it would be a very bad idea. Mutiny could occur, and they weren’t willing to push it, thank goodness.
We finally make it into Coos Bay and arrive at the transient dock which was full of local people crabbing off the docks. The docks were a mess – full of bait guts, seaweed and yuk. Flies were everywhere, and it smelled pretty bad.

The people were so nice though – the salt of the earth kind of people. Jonathan, Scott and Susan went up to shore and met a salty man with a big scruffy beard (typical old fisherman) who was cleaning his catch at a makeshift sink. He chatted nicely with the kids but then forgot himself and slipped out a few cuss words now and then. He gave Jonathan the lens of a fish’s eye, and Jonathan took it back to the boat and put it in a cup of salt water. He was pleased with his souvenier, but his father (and eye surgeon) didn’t want to have anything to do with it. Susan bought some fresh albacore tuna right there off the dock and invited us for dinner. She barbequed it with soysauce, honey and cilantro (I think….maybe mustard in there as well). It was a delicious dinner followed by a red wine called Paloma which was the name that inspired Susan and Patrick to call their boat Paloma. It means “dove” in Spanish.

We decided to travel further south one more day before a week of bad weather was setting in, so we planned to leave the next morning to go to Brookings, Oregon. It sounded like a nicer town to get “stuck” in for a few days.

-Admiral Marian

As Marian mentioned above, I did get a bit crazy and go on the bow in a towel. I had just taken a shower and said to Marian “I’m the King of the World” when the image of Jack and Rose on the bow of the Titanic came into my mind. For some reason I then decided I needed a picture of me on the bow of my boat. I asked Marian to get the camera and struck a few poses at the bow. They are immortalized in digital media for everyone to enjoy.
Anyway after that craziness we prepared to dock in Coos Bay. I had the Douglass guide for the west coast and they related an experience pulling into Coos Bay where they had to tell all the crab fishermen on the transient dock to clear their lines. They related that the locals simply waved back at them and refused to move their pots until the last possible moment. So, as I pulled into a position to dock the boat I hollered to the line of crabbers: “There are two 40 foot boats that need to tie up right where you’re fishing, please move your lines”. No one moved a muscle. So, I did a 180 degree turn and headed right at the dock. I made it completely obvious to them that we were coming in, then they finally got up and started to pull in their traps. We tied up to the dock and within 2 minutes there were crab pots and lines surrounding the boat. I asked the crabbers to please be careful pulling in their pots and they obliged willingly. I then went to capture the lines for Patrick and Susan as they repeated the process with Paloma.
I felt really bad because I’d spent some time telling Susan and Marian how nice Coos Bay was. We had vacationed there a few years ago and found it a pleasant town. The problem was we were at the commercial docks rather than the town docks a few miles up the river. Susan and Marian suggested we limit our stay to one night, and head for Brookings in the morning. Patrick and I couldn’t have agreed more. Oh, I was able to lower the fuel level in the supply manifold, so during the time we were in Coos Bay we stopped leaking fuel, which was important as I was quickly going through my supply of bilge towels. As Marian and I turned in for the night, a new set of crabbers arrived at the dock. Sure enough, they set up their crabbing arrangements right outside our bow porthole. So, as Marian and I fell off to sleep, we got to hear all the latest and greatest poop about Fred and Ethel of Coos Bay. Somehow it seemed a wonderful way to fall asleep.

-Skipper