Dad's Perspective

From the time we departed Newport, OR, Dad has been keeping a journal of the trip from his perspective:

It’s a brilliantly sunlit morning. We traveled steadily through the night with “Marine Mist” all around us. (AKA “Fog.”) The radar really helps a lot with this, as well as the GPS that tells us where we happen to be. Nice thing about fog – not too many people are out in the fog, AND the sea is a lot smoother. We each only catnapped through the night, with the autopilot doing most of the work.

After we departed Newport (Oregon), I discovered rather quickly that I am not immune to the queasies.
Photo One:Dad's position for much of the first 12 hours underway.

Photo Two: Dad's position after applying a seasickness patch and getting his sea legs (much happier!).


The fog was off and on most of the day, but really settled down on us at dark. We stopped at Coquille River harbor where Jim squeezed his 55’ boat into a 35’ slip.

We got up early the next morning (feeling much better) to continue on our way and, since the heavier seas had stopped, decided to run through the night while the ocean cooperated. At night you feel as if you are captured under a gray bowl, and with the constant rocking of the boat you tend to suffer from “sensory deprivation,” which makes you feel as if the boat was always turning on way or the other. You just have to ignore it and follow the GPS track and the compass.

We rounded Punta Gordo point where we had some big and tangled waves. Now, south of the point, the big rollers still exist, while most of the wind choppiness has departed. We’ve closed in to about a mile off shore, hoping to find that the winds are gentler. The sea has a liquid crushed aluminum foil look about it, and when the sun reflects directly towards you it is really hard to look at.

So far we’ve seen a distant diving whale, a killer whale, a sea lion and various seals, and many birds – floating, diving, flying, and even some chubby small birds (Puffin) that obviously need a far longer runway than they have. These try to get flying by flapping madly, running on their toes, and bouncing from wave top to wave top on their tummys. Sometimes they fly, but most of the time they run out of steam and plop back onto the water where they continue snacking on minnows.

Later that day we were bouncing along with a pretty good wind quartering in from our right rear (Okay: aft on the starboard side). The wind, accompanied by a following sea, keeps getting us so far off course that the autopilot beeps at us. We’re about a mile from shore now and the seas are tangled enough that Jim has kept the helm since there are buttons to push and dials to set plus working to help the autopilot when it gets overpowered by wind and waves. The trouble is that it looks equally as choppy no matter where we go and without cell phone coverage right here we don’t want to head for an anchorage only to discover that there is no room.

We finally docked for the night at Ft. Bragg, CA, and breathed a deep sigh of relief. The last several hours of this leg of the trip were pretty bouncy with assorted clangs and crashes from things on the boat trying to find the lowest point around (including the binoculars which unfortunately now only have one working eye!). We went through several waves that kicked us through 30 degrees off vertical on both sides – a 60 degree arc! Due to the height of the waves we had to take a “N-shaped” zigzag to get to the harbor, with each leg about 45-or-so minutes long. The throat of the harbor is narrow, and I think Jim held his breath for about 5 minutes when we entered.

On Sunday we walked back into town and visited the local church and caught a movie. When we got back we found that the narrow dock where we had tied up the inflatable boat was now occupied by three sea lions – between us and the boat. Jim asked the marina worker for advice and he brought out a long oar and successfully chased two of the sea lions off – but the third (biggest) wasn’t having any of that. So the worker changed the oar for a high pressure hose and
the sea lion wasn’t interested in that! He left, although will probably file an equal-opportunities complaint with the dock owner. We hopped aboard the inflatable boat quickly, because other sea lions were eyeing the boat and wondering if that might be a suitable place to lay out in the sun. We zoomed out of there safely, and are now back aboard the Antipodes with no sea lions in evidence.